From London to the Ridgeway to Bath

We had a long but wonderful day today! We started in London, where we woke up around 6am to get ready for my conference presentation. Here's us, not quite caffeinated enough, after my talk:

We then took the (double decker!) bus from the conference hotel to St. Pancras station, where we picked up our rental car. It's a SEAT Leon, which is apparently a Mexican car brand built based on the Volkswagen Golf chassis. It's actually a really neat little car, with tons of high-tech features and we got over 60 MPG on the way from London to Bath later this evening! If I sound like a salesperson for this car, it's because I now really want one.

Speaking of driving, getting out of London with literally zero experience driving with the steering wheel on the right and cars keeping to the left was an adventure. But, we eventually found the highway and once there things were smooth sailing. We then drove the 30 minutes to meet my Ravelry friend Mary and her family (which included the incredibly adorable border collie Slaney, who made us miss Hoth in a ridiculous way). They were so, so kind to us, taking us on an absolutely breathtaking hike to the Ridgeway, which they say was the route that Boudicea (the leader of a revolt against the Romans around the 2nd century) took when she sacked London. Here's Slaney being super cute, and some shots of the view which simply do not do it justice.

We then had a lovely picnic lunch, which Mary and Trevor so generously provided (seriously, thank you so much!!) before we had to be on our way to drive to Bath if we wanted to reach it before dark. So, I got to practice driving on the left some more, which went well for the first 2 hours and 20 minutes of the drive, right up until we passed by our hotel and realized we had no clue where to park. Once I realized I'd be driving in a new city in a new format with no idea where I was going, I got a little frazzled! I didn't hit anything, thank goodness, but it was a pretty stressful 15 minutes or so until we finally found a public car park. 

It was all worth it though, as Bath is an absolutely beautiful little city (about twice the size of Ithaca at population 90,000), with gorgeous stone architecture and narrow cobblestone streets. Many of the roads are pedestrian only, which made wandering around in the late evening particularly enjoyable after the craziness that was navigating London as a pedestrian (I swear, there are no traffic rules there! Everyone just does what they want!).  Here are some shots we managed to grab of Bath before it got too dark:

Tomorrow we get to tour the Roman baths here, before heading out en route to York (approximately a five hour drive). On the way we plan to swing by Stonehenge (though it may be too crazy because of the solstice to get close), as well as the Ellithorpe ancestral hometown of Holme-on-Spalding-Moor. But now we need to finally get a full night's sleep, in our cute little bed and breakfast - Anabelle's Guest House!