This huge, rather ugly building is the Millennium Center. It is located about two blocks from Jolyons in Cardiff. Our car in parked BEHIND this building at a cost of £10/day....one more reason we are checking out of here early. I was fortunate to find a place for tonight....easier than I thought it would be. This is the Monday of the Bank Holiday so perhaps there are vacancies everywhere....and lots of traffic today, too.
As you can tell, the rain continues.
The weather is dreadful.....and the chance of rain today is 100 percent, not the usual 50 or 60. And that forecast if for the entire southern UK. Keep calm and carry on!
Every mile or so, there were these red and yellow signals, with big exclamation points, reminding us that it is "poor driving conditions". Between the rain and our speed, we couldn't get a clear picture.
This is perhaps the 9th "Ravenel" bridge we have seen or crossed on this journey. The design is a very popular one, not quite as popular as small showers though!
We are out of Wales and back in England!
We want to see Bath. We drove around in circles for perhaps 45 minutes, raining, couldn't find a place to park....Please note that everything looks the same. This is part of the charm of the city. However, when it is pouring rain and you are looking for something, it is not charming.
We gave up and drove through the rain to Chippenham in The Cotswolds..
couldn't find anything there. So we moved on to Melksham.
Note: We are trying to write this blog in a McDonalds in Belfast. We are having a tough time finding quality internet connection. This looked pretty good but we just lost about 2 hours of work and are starting over again. Sorta like the day we are writing about.
No luck there either.
We finally give up and decide to head to our B&B in Bradford-on-Avon. We put the place name, Apseley House, into Google Maps on the mini iPad. Google tries to tell us that Apseley House is located in Bath -- damned machine. After several minutes of arguing with Google, we concede that it might be right. We could possibly be wrong. After another additional hour of driving, we finally end up at Apseley House...... right back where we were this morning - in Bath!!! This is pitifully, hysterically funny!!! Round and round we go; where we get off, nobody knows! Thank goodness, it is a nice place.
This doubles as a dressing area/child's room, complete with toys in the closet.
We are in a basement apartment with private stairs leading to
a nice garden.
Olaf, the manager, assures us that there are two fine restaurants at the foot of the hill. They are only .8 mile from our bed n breakfast. We want to walk it, but Kathy's knee is bothering her. She assures me that we don't need the GPS mini just to go one mile down the road. So we decide to drive down the hill....no problem!
Big problem!!!! Unbelievably, we took a wrong turn at the fork....hopelessly lost for yet ANOTHER hour!!!!. We go past the same scenes again and again. One is the Royal Crescent and the other is the Circus. We feel like we are in a circus!! This is CRAZY!!!! We have a map, but can't find the Victoria Park where these restaurants are....we are near the Park, we have been by the Park, but no restaurants. Finally, the female member of this driving duo suggests ASKING someone!!! Reluctantly, the male member agrees. The very polite English gentleman gave us precise directions and we were parked and seated within 10 minutes!
We have pictures of this meal, not because it was any good, but because it was memorable in so many unpleasant ways!!! Breaded fried cheese
a grotesque looking piece of fish
and globby mac n cheese.
Upon our return, Olaf talked with us several minutes about several subjects including raising the elevation of parts of Bath to avoid floods, the Roman Baths, theories about how the Stonehenge stones were "walked" into place, his upcoming trip to his home in Poland, and much more. He is well read and very internet literate. We are, however, quite tired and ready for bed. It's been a loooong day!
