European Vacation

Tomorrow it will be 6 weeks and counting.  Mick and I leave on our big trip.  My first European tour – not Mick’s.  We fly into Edinburgh, Scotland.  We will stay for a few days and then after seeing the Lockness Monster (Oh!  One can hope!!) and the old city with it’s haunting cemeteries and mysterious underground we will travel by train to London. 

I have my itinerary planned out with all of the sites that I cannot bear to go without seeing.  Buckingham Palace, the Bloody Tower, Tower Bridge, Abbey Road, Big Ben!!!  So many things to see!!  We will also do a tour out to Stonehenge and then one to the White Cliffs of Dover. 

After London comes the pièce de résistance (oh, my sorry – that’s French!).  We travel by train to Birmingham and then onto Telford.  We are renting a car (yikes!) and driving to Shipton, Shropshire, England.  We will actually stay at a B&B in Brockton but our purpose is Shipton.  There is a Church in the middle of town that dates back to the 1500’s (at least).  We will attend Church services there.  My 9^th great grandfather, Richard More, was baptized in this Church in 1614.

 

 Shortly after his younger sister was baptized in 1616, his legal (not biological) father tore him and his siblings away from their mother and in 1620 gave them to passengers on the Mayflower as indentured servants.  Long story short – he ended up in Massachusetts eventually settling in Salem and was witness to the witch hysteria.

I am just thrilled to have the opportunity to visit an area of England where my family lived for many generations.  The Churchwarden will also take us on a tour of the area after the service.  We are having lunch at a local tavern that has been there since my family was in the area and then she will drive us around showing us the sites.

So after Shipton, we will drive back to Telford (yikes again!!) and hop the train which will take us out to Holyhead which is in Wales.  Then it is a 3 hour ferry ride across the Irish Sea to Dublin.

My son, Eric, and his friend, Bill, will meet us there.  They arrive 3 days before us.  So 3 days of touring Dublin, checking out some Irish whiskey, a tour of the countryside, a little Irish music and then we fly back home.

I am so psyched!!