Lincoln, with a Side of Doncaster

Day 7 of our England Holiday

My mom is an avid genealogist and traced some of our ancestors to Lincolnshire–Hagnaby to be exact. For many ancestors she knows only the town or city names from where they came, but for these Hagnaby folks she had an exact location of a church where they were christened and married. This finding was actually the impetus for the whole trip happening, so we planned a little jaunt to Lincolnshire.

Research showed that no one knew anything about Hagnaby or if/how we could gain access to the Church of St. Andrew. My mom said she would be happy just to see it and stand by it, so that’s what we did.

Since Hagnaby basically consists of a few houses, from what we can tell, we needed somewhere to stay, so we chose Lincoln, and we were so glad we did. We didn’t want to pack and move for one night, and for various reasons we couldn’t work it in at the beginning or end of the trip, so we kept our room in London, left everything there, and reserved a room for one night at the White Hart Hotel in Lincoln. It was hardly cost effective, but it worked out well for us.

Our train left from King’s Cross station, so of course we had to take advantage of the photo op at Platform 9 3/4. We were there before the adjoining store opened (I believe it was around 8:45), so there was just a generic luggage trolley there. A few other people were there, but we could see that the area contained a roped-off queue. Soon, a store employee rolled out the trolley with the Harry Potter props, so we got some more photos. The employees started taking photos to sell, and one of them asked me to assist with one photo. The guy (a middle-aged man all by himself wearing a business suit–I’m not gonna judge) wore a scarf, and then I held the end of it outside the frame to make it look like it was flying behind him. When the employee gave the signal, I was supposed to throw the scarf in the air. Well, signal was given, scarf was thrown, and it hit the guy right in the face. Hey, I’m not a professional.

Magic!

A Tale of Two Abbeys

Day 6: Finally Back to Some London Sights

This morning we walked to Westminster Abbey using a “shortcut” my mom had been eyeing since we arrived. I don’t think it was really shorter than our usual route, but it was much less congested. Plus, we saw a bunch of parents walking their small children to school, so it was kind of cool to see a different slice of everyday London life other than commuters rushing in and out of Waterloo station.

Anyway, we spent a good, long time in the Abbey. I don’t know if it was my directional/spacial challenges or what, but I kept getting one or two spaces ahead of the audio guide. I’d listen to the description and look at what I thought was number 8, but I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t see an angel facing north or whatever. My mom pointed out that there was a tiny photo on the audio guide that corresponded to what was being discussed. Ahhhh.

Getting Our Harry Potter Fix Wherever We Can

Day 5: Hitting a Wall in Oxford

My niece and I are big Harry Potter fans, so when we started planning this trip, one of the first things we considered doing was visiting Warner Brothers Studio for the Harry Potter experience. As the schedule started to fill up, we decided we didn’t want to burn most of a day doing this, so we looked for ways to incorporate some filming locations into our other sightseeing. Enter Oxford. We booked a tour of the reading rooms at Bodleian Library, which included a look around Duke Humphry’s Library, which served as Hogwarts’s library in some of the films.

We successfully took our first tube journey to Paddington Station and caught a train to Oxford. Our plan had been to do a self-guided walking tour until it was time for our Bodleian tour. But, we were all dragging a bit, and my mom said that she might find a place to sit while my niece and I walked around. Sitting sounded kind of good to all of us. So…to the HOHO bus. Yeah, still not my favorite thing in the world, but in this instance, it saved the day. I suppose the lesson is that you need to be willing to change things up to fit the circumstances. For us, taking a loop on the HOHO bus (and half of a second loop when we mostly dozed) gave us the rest we needed to go on.

Serene Scene in Oxford

ALL of England in One Day

OK, not really, but we did cover a lot of ground today.

Day 4: The Dreaded Coach Tour

The one thing that my niece requested to see on this trip was Stonehenge. I went to Stonehenge a few years ago and enjoyed it, but I wasn’t really excited about going again. I also knew that it would take at least a half day to get there and back. We started talking about other places to visit along with Stonehenge, and Bath came up. We found a tour with Premier Tours that went to both of those places and…Stratford-upon-Avon. Good lord, how could that be? Being gluttons for punishment, we decided to go for it. This kind of day is not for everyone, but we appreciated it for what it was. We were glad to be on our own for the rest of our holiday, though.

From the Hampton Inn to Hampton Court Palace

Day 3 of our England Holiday: Hampton Court Palace

We thought a trip to Hampton Court Palace would be perfect for our first full day. We had a few rail trips planned during the course of our holiday, so this was a good introduction to the rail system. We also wanted to put off any sights that would require taking the tube because we wanted to get 7-day travel cards for the next week, so leaving from Waterloo meant we only had a quick walk from the hotel.

I purchased tickets online before our trip only because I was buying what I could ahead of time to spread out the costs over a few months prior to the trip. Picking up the tickets at Waterloo station was quick and easy (once I figured out how to make my card work–I don’t have a PIN and chip credit card, so it took a couple of tries).

While we waited with a large group of people under the boards for our platform number to be posted, we giggled as platforms would go up on the board, and whoosh, bunches of people would sprint off. London is definitely not a place for the slothful!

Our platform number was posted, and we whooshed off to our train. The ride was quick and uneventful. The day was warm and sunny. The walk from the station at Hampton Court to the palace was short. We stopped on the bridge and took it all in. I had no idea it would be so huge. We used our train tickets to get the 2-for-1 entrance to the palace.

View of HCP from the bridge

It’s All London, Baby

Another summer, another fun trip for the girls (my mom, my niece, me). This one started on a whim when my mom mentioned that she’d like to see England, the home to many of our ancestors, while she’s still young and healthy enough to enjoy it. So, we did some research to pinpoint exactly where we would go, and then it ballooned to a full-fledged vacation. We chose London as a base, then planned an overnight trip to Lincoln, which is near our ancestral stomping grounds. We also added in several day trips out of London. And we asked my niece if she wanted to go, too. Wouldn’t be a girls trip without her!