Salisbury

We planned to spend very little time in Salisbury. We arrived later than planned, well after everything had closed. Not that we expected to arrive before things closed, but we certainly hadn’t had time to explore the night before. We planned to walk to the Salisbury Cathedral first thing in the morning. I had hoped that Jerynn and I would walk from there to pick up the rental car and return to Qudoes for everyone and the bags. That didn’t work out.

We did walk to Salisbury Cathedral as soon as everyone was awake. Mom had tea, biscuits, and oatmeal in her room. I had tea and biscuits in my room. Dani had pop tarts. Jerynn had tea and Belvita. Ann had tea. We wanted to have everything packed before we left, so that all Ann, Dani, and mom would need to do is bring the bags down. Between getting all of us fed and packed, it got a little later than planned. Still, we made it to the Salisbury Cathedral in good time.

It was a short walk from Qudoes to the Salisbury Cathedral. Ann gave a donation for our entry. We walked around the Cathedral, stopping in the gift shop for postcards. Jerynn and I wrote post cards. We were going to stop at a house on the Cathedral grounds, but it didn’t open until well after our check out time. I wasn’t sure I would be able to find parking to return. Instead, we all walked back to Qudoes, stopping along the way for Jerynn and I to mail our post cards. (My post cards sent from this location arrived early August, about 80 days after mailing.)

We ended up all making the one and a half mile trek, hauling all our bags, to the car rental place. This jaunt provided some entertainment as members of my party struggled to look in the proper direction when crossing streets. We were stuck at one intersection for ages before I saw that there was an underpass system in place for pedestrians like us - but getting up and down the stairs for that detour, with all our bags, was a good reminder of why I had practically insisted that Ann’s family figure out how to pack everything to carry on. I had changed bags at the last minute and found myself annoyed the entire trip by my useless rolling duffle. England’s cobblestones require a different level of wheels than my throw away bag had.

We eventually arrived at the rental car place. All the rental car companies have congregated on one road in Salisbury, so we passed several others. Several places had different models of Mini’s, including my current car - Mini Countryman. I would have loved to drive a familiar sized vehicle, but I doubted that would be what we got because of the size of our party. I’m afraid, even with the carry-on limitation, we would not have had room for the five of us and all our bags.

Jerynn and I walked ahead to start the paperwork process. We got everything settled and went out to the car - a minivan. After some discussion, we returned inside to inquire about adding Ann as a second driver. It only cost £10/day to add a second driver. We were only keeping the car for three days, so we decided it was worth having the option. (Ann never drove, but it did relieve some pressure to know that she could have done.)

Our rental car for the trip
From the left: me, Jerynn, Ann, Dani