This summer we had the chance to spend a week in England, partly on a road trip west of London and partly in London. Everyone had a fabulous time! We flew out of Boston on a Sunday evening after a nice pho meal in Chinatown.
The airport stopover in Copenhagen (I know, I know--out of our way, but SAS had a good deal on flights) had a playground that delighted even our big kids. The flights were easy, and people generally did get a good stretch of sleep in. On Monday (August bank holiday) we landed at Heathrow at 9:30 in the morning, with Helen having managed to have developed a headcold in between when we left Boston and when we landed. We picked up more tissues and some bottled water in the airport convenience store—I remembered that I’m not a fan of English tap water taste, but I forgot that their bottled water basically tastes exactly the same—and navigated to the rental car. From there we drove to Bath, stopping once for lunch (meat pies and pasties at the Windsor farm cafe) and then once at a rest stop for coffee for Robert.
The rental car was squishy, but that didn't stop 4/5 of us from taking advantage of a quick car nap to help catch up on sleep after the flight. Robert (by now an expert at driving on the left after New Zealand in 2020 and Ireland in 2023) would like to note that he most definitely did not nap in the car.
Bath
In Bath we stayed for one night at the Kennard Boutique Guesthouse, a very nice, centrally-located hotel. We had two rooms above each other, and the hotel itself was beautiful, and definitely a “welcome to England” aesthetic. We checked in, parked the car (they refer you to a car park a few blocks away, on the other side of the river, but not actually either very expensive or very far), and then relaxed in the room for two hours and took cat naps before going out for a nice dinner.
Joya was a cook-it-yourself steak place with finishing salts and sauces and volcanic stones, and then we took a little walk to get some good gelato. It was an easy day and everyone slid into bed just before 9pm.
On the way to Bath, we had been looking at the map and commenting on interesting town names. There were Rodney Stoke, Kites Croft, Westbury-sub-Mendip, Street, South Herrington Village, Green Ore, Chewton Mendip, Ston Easton, Hallatrow, Clutton, Chilcompton, Temple Cloud, Gurney Slade, Shepton Mallet, and Cannard’s Grave, among others. Many of them had great backstories when I looked them up and read aloud to people in the car. In Bath, then, we walked around and continued talking about the town and the history.
Tuesday morning breakfast in the hotel was excellent—a buffet with smoked salmon, avocado, toast, croissants, Nutella, jam, marmite, tea, and coffee (Helen, who is quite the little barrista for both Robert’s and my hot drinks of choice, declared that she preferred Colombian to Kenyan).
Our first stop was the Jane Austen Museum, which is not actually in a house she lived in (that’s just down the street and is now a dentist’s office, we were told). We were greeted by the “most photographed man in England,” who was indeed quite jolly. The museum itself was entertaining for everyone.
We read about Jane and her sister's love of writing letters to each other, and each of the children practiced their penmanship and wrote a letter to a sister (poor Marcus didn't receive a letter of his own). And we posed for a family photo in Regency-era garb.
Afterward, we walked to the Circus and the Royal Crescent, and then over to the Roman Baths.
We took a self-guided tour of the baths, and the girls did a kids' scavenger hunt for different items. Samantha practiced her Roman bathhouse Latin vocabulary (excellent), and we all tasted the water (awful).
In honor of Jane Austen's 250th birthday this year, there was a special tea at the Pump Room Restaurant, with recipes from Jane Austen's era, and while we ate, a piano and cello duet played background music--mostly classical, but in at least one case, "Suddenly Seymour" from "Little Shop of Horrors," which amused Samantha in particular.
Then we walked around the town a little more, and went down to the River Avon
As our last stop in Bath, we went into the public library for the bathroom (horrible) and a supermarket for some snacks (delightful), both conveniently located right above the carpark we'd been using, and then drove out about an hour to our next stop, the Wookey Hole Hotel.
Wells
The hotel was an odd British version of Great Wolf Lodge, with some touristy caves and minigolf instead of a water park, but about the same smell and demographics. It was a lot cheaper, though, and had a family room with plenty of beds for a decent price for two nights.
After putting down our things, we drove the few minutes into Wells and went to Rajah Tandoori, a little Indian restaurant up on the second floor of an unassuming storefront. We had the honey lamb, the chicken tikka masala, the sally chicken (not a dish we have had before--it had little shoestring fried potato pieces on top of the chicken), and the "special chop" (tasty, even if vaguely described). Then we walked over to Vicars' Close, supposedly the oldest residential street in Europe that is still used entirely as residences, dating to the mid 1300s. I would definitely have lived there!
Glastonbury
On Wednesday morning, we had a very uninspired breakfast in the hotel and drove to the closest spot to park to climb Glastonbury Tor. It was raining off and on, and on this cloudy, misty day, it was truly like we were on the sacred island of Avalon--where Arthur supposedly died, where Joseph of Arimathea supposedly brought the Holy Grail. There was an apple orchard and a sacred Druid circle on the plains leading up to the Tor, and wet grass could not stop me from exploring.
Cheddar
From the Tor, we drove up to Cheddar Gorge, where we saw a sword in a stone in the River Yeo. We took a cheesemaking tour at "the only cheddar made in Cheddar," and then had cheese and fish and chips for lunch on picnic tables behind the cheese company, near the chippy. Then we went into the caves at Cheddar Gorge, where they had found Cheddar Man back in 1903 and where some of the cheddars are still cave-ripened. Bizarrely, one of the caves had a display of lit-up animals that looked like they'd come straight out of the Franklin Park Zoo "Zoolights," and the other cave had a rather cheesy voiceover in each room of the cave and some different light effects. They were very nice caves on their own, though, so it was unclear to us why they felt the need to add the bells and whistles. The small museum of prehistory just outside the caves was nice, and they had a interactive paleolithic tool demonstration out in the courtyard where Helen got to learn all about flint. After that, we climbed up Jacob's Ladder to the top of the Cheddar Gorge Trail, but we just skirted the top of it briefly and checked out the observation tower before exhaustion from the long day kicked in.
Fortified with some ice cream, we drove out of cheddar back toward Wells, stopping at a nondescript pub along the way for a dinner nobody really loved--but did they have sticky toffee pudding at the end? Why yes. Yes, they did. We watched some of "Star Wars: Epsiode II" back in the hotel room before bed--Helen having forgotten them entirely, we are re-watching the whole series as a family--and called it a night.
Back in Glastonbury
After one more barely-a-meal breakfast, we drove back into Glastonbury to go to the Somerset Rural Life Museum, which was a true highlight of the trip.
"Morning!" called the older woman sweeping leaves in the carpark when we arrived. "I don't at mind where you park, but if you could just park close to another car, that would be lovely!" There was indeed perhaps one other car in the parking lot, so Robert got weirdly close to that car, on the woman's instructions.
Inside, we learned Somerset regionalisms/dialect words; we appreciated the samplers Somerset girls of the past had embroidered; we completed another kids' scavenger hunt (this one rhyming); and we admired a fantastic life-sized horse sculpture made out of scrap and reclaimed metal.
Their vintage apple orchard was also a hit: we tried all the varieties, many of which had been thought to be extinct. Dunkerton Sweet was not sweet, and when Marcus found an apple which actually had "bitter" in its name, he thought it was quite apt. Most of the apples were indeed cider varieties, rather than eating varieties, and we could see why that was the case. Robert and Marcus were sadly too big for the pony rides, but all three kids were given their choice from a tray of British lollies for completing the scavenger hunt (which Marcus did not in fact complete, Samantha would like to note), so we left on a sweet note after all.
We stopped for lunch at the Brush and Broom restaurant, at the Hillbrush brush factory, right along the way. Lunch was pleasant, if sometimes underseasoned--fish and chips, a chicken tikka, a lamb burger, a pasta alfredo, and a cheese souffle--but the historical displays of brushes and factory equipment, and the gift shop on the way out with more types of brushes than you'd ever imagined was fabulous. We came home with a small "keyboard brush" Samantha wants to use for dusting off her assembled Lego structures and a shoe brush that also has a pokey thing/nail extending out of one side, which Marcus plans to use to clean dirt out of his frisbee cleats before putting them in his backpack or bringing them in the house.
Old Sarum
After lunch we saw Old Sarum, where Helen's new knowledge of flint came in handy as we all admired the flint walls of the fortress. It was an extremely impressive ruined castle, right up there with Belvoir Fortress in Israel--the forces of imagination were strong here, too, and we stood on the walls and imagined swearing allegiance to William the Conquerer, or, later shooting the arrow that chose the spot for Salisbury Cathedral.
Helen did a lot of cartwheels on the grass, and yet another kids' scavenger hunt, and we enjoyed the dramatic clouds overhead (and periodic sprinkles) as the wind whipped our hair every which way.
Stonehenge
From there, we drove straight to Stonehenge, and my excitement at this point was a little bit off the charts. I couldn't believe we were here, really, after having read about it so many times and imagined myself here--as a girl, imagining myself the daughter of one of the architects, or as a teenager imagining myself a priestess in training.
I had booked us on the final tour of the day, the only time you can get right up into the circle of stones these days, not just viewing it from the path circumscribing the stones, so we checked out the visitors' center, went into the kids' archaeology tent and searched for some objects in the sand and chatted with cheerful archaeology post docs, and then discovered that the cafe was out of pretty much everything and was about to close.
We went to Larkhill Kebab and ordered a few things to go, then came back and ate them in the visitors' center again. It's possible I was a tiny bit anxious to not be late for our tour. When the time came, we boarded the bus and drove out past the earthworks to the stones. And the stones were amazing--it's impossible to think anyone would be disappointed. The guide talked about the construction and the different kinds of stone while we walked around the ring, and then we entered through "the front door" and had a leisurely amount of time inside the circle to walk around, take pictures, and soak it in. Having been at the Taj Mahal at dawn, and Stonehenge at sunset, with people I love? Nothing tops it.
Avebury
From Stonehenge we drove up to Avebury, where we were spending one night in the Elderbrook Guest House, a very nice bed and breakfast attached to a small pub and run by a friendly family (with a friendly dog). Our family room was more of a suite and had the largest bathroom, with a huge clawfoot tub right in the middle of the room, that we've ever seen. Samantha couldn't rush the rest of us out of the bathroom fast enough--she had eyes on that tub. The fridge was stocked with juices and a little glass bottle of milk, and we made cocoa and coffee in our room before bed, while I read one of the many books scattered around the room (Secrets of the Avebury Stones, I believe) and volunteered facts for people.
In the morning we had a lovely breakfast we'd pre-ordered the night before--toast soldiers, pancakes, benedicts, English breakfast with "the best" black pudding (the owner insisted), porridge, and plenty of tea--and then we drove just a few minutes into "downtown" Avebury, such as it is, to see Avebury Henge. Bigger than Stonehenge, and more spread out, Avebury Henge was nestled into the town and kept crossing roads and school football fields and dog walking paths, which was charming and extremely different than Stonehenge. I was so very glad that we made it to both.
Hampton Court
After Avebury we did our last decent chunk of driving, going an hour and a half to Hampton Court, where we toured the gardens, went through the hedge maze, and explored the palace.
Everyone had a preference for Henry VIII's rooms over William III's rooms, and Helen (who adores the music from "Six") was carefully keeping track of wives and lives as we walked around.
London
From Hampton Court it was just about twenty minutes to Heathrow, where we returned the car (thank you, Avis, for renting to us) and took the Piccadilly Line into the city. Our final stop of the trip was to be three nights at an AirBnB in Soho, at 21 Frith Street, and it was definitely conveniently located for the tube. Since everyone was starving, we stopped at a couple places in Chinatown on our way from the tube to our door and got Taiwanese popcorn chicken at Good Friend, some eel sushi, and a ji dan bing/egg crepe at Chinese Tapas House, all on Little Newport Street.
We put down our stuff in the apartment and headed back out, walking down to the river and over the bridge to Roti King Waterloo, and then under the Leake Street Arches (a fabulous street art tunnel) when we headed back home.
The next morning our first stop was the Sherlock Holmes Museum, and then we went to the Churchill War Rooms before having a relaxing upscale Indian lunch at Masala Zone.
After lunch, we went back to the apartment and chilled for an hour--it seemed like we could have squeezed another museum in there, but everyone benefited from an hour of rest instead. Marcus wrote a postcard to mail to Caleb at his college dorm, Samantha sketched, Helen read, and all was peaceful. Then we grabbed halal Cantonese noodles at a little counter in Chinatown, and then fancy Korean pastries at Mrs. Bakery (including what Samantha said was the best chocolate croissant she'd ever had--chocolate dough, with chocolate filling, and chocolate melted on top, plus cocoa powder) and took them with us on the tube out to Earl's Court to see the "Greatest Showman" musical/circus/theatre show at Empress Palace.
I hadn't known quite what to expect from the show--I knew it had the music from the movie but heard that it included an actual circus, and also that there was a "different" plot and characters. In actual fact it was wild, and wonderful, and all five of us greatly enjoyed it. The venue was something else--almost as though they'd built a circus tent inside a big theatre, and around the big tent were side show tents and magicians and performers, and also a lot of separate fancy bars and haze effects and weird lights. You had an hour to walk around the sideshow area and eat/drink if you’d like, and then the show itself was not terribly long (7:30-9, with a 20 min intermission). But it was just great, and all three kids really loved it and separately said how glad they were that we went—it was at the nexus of circus, theatre, and nightclub, and it was definitely fun and memorable. The audience skewed more toward "nightclub" than either "theatre" or "circus," though--there were some kids there but not a lot, so maybe 5% senior citizens, 5-10% kids, and everyone else evenly split into 20s/30s/40s/50s by age.
One of the preshows was an amazing trampoline show with three guys who could all do backflips. They had a trampoline with a very tall wall next to it, and a ledge on top of the wall maybe 20’ up, and they kept jumping on the trampoline and then “walking” up the wall perpendicular to the ground and then touching their foot onto the top of the ledge and bouncing back down. Then they’d do it synchronized so two guys would be going up while one was coming down and vice versa.
There were also some clowns who walked around, and one gave his hula hoop to Helen and she did it for quite a long time (well, maybe 2-3 minutes, but solidly minutes, not seconds) and people standing around drinking at the high tops or waiting in line were clapping and cheering. The clown asked her if she knew any other hoop tricks and she said she does them on her arms too, and did that, and then he showed her how to roll the hoop on the ground away from her and have it come back, and she practiced that a bit.
During the show, Helen got a high-five in the aisle from two different characters, and Samantha leaned over the wall where the performers were entering/exiting and also got a high-five ("Just like at a hockey game," she said, pleased with herself). It was a fabulous night, and we took the tube back to Soho and stopped at a cafe for fancy cakes for each of the kids, and ate there.
Sunday was our last full day in London, and we headed out early enough to get to the Globe Theatre for their first tour of the morning. It hadn't worked out for us to see a play there too, in addition to the tour, but definitely on another trip. As it was, we all loved the tour and the accompanying museum.
The stage crew was in the middle of hanging scenery for the night's play, so while our tour guide talked to us in the stands, we were able to watch them moving and hammering and hanging. Maybe someday Samantha will do that for a production somewhere--she's so good with building things, and with her artistic vision, and it seems like a perfect combination for her. Marcus was fascinated by the experience of the groundlings, as the tour guide described it, and Helen especially loved the costume section of the museum afterward.
From the Globe we walked over to Borough Market and got a large cup of strawberries with chocolate sauce, some Japanese rice bowls, and an African fish, for a delicious lunch. We walked across the river to the Tower of London in the afternoon, and took the yeoman warder tour with a guy who was a hoot.
By this point in the trip, the kids were pretty done with tours in general, but our warder was energetic and dry and quite funny. We walked a lot, after that, including down Pavilion Road (enjoying the sunshine, the little kids eating ice cream, and Ottolenghi's Chelsea), and then into Cadogan Square (where we strayed through an unlocked gate into the park in the center, not knowing it was private, and became locked in--residents were less than perfectly friendly to us, and our intended "shortcut" ended up taking quite some time to find someone who took pity on us and unlocked another gate for us to exit through) and over to Harrods.
Then we rode a double-decker bus around and ultimately had dinner at a lovely little family-run Moroccan restaurant near Waterloo, with fabulous smoothies and a tasty breakfast-at-anytime platter, as well as delicious tagines.
We rode the London Eye for a great final evening send-off. and then walked back toward the apartment and stopped for gelato on the way. The next morning, all too soon, we flew out at 6:00 and were home by 3:00 in the afternoon on Labor Day. What a trip!
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Created: 9/11/25. Last Modified: 10/8/25.