Day 15 and 16 - Off the Ship and Into the Bath

We arrived in Southampton England early on the 15th morning of our vacation.  The energetic ones, my parents, elected to wake up way before dawn and escape the ship for an early ride into London for a return flight home.  Tina and I decided to sleep in and spend a few days exploring the southern English country side.  Good sons might have gotten up early to bid their parents goodbye.  I preferred to have sweet dreams and best wishes for them on their flight home! :)

We still had to get off the ship by 8 in the morning and figured we'd take a cab the 3 miles to the car rental facility from which we'd rented a car.  Feeling confident about the universal acceptance of credit cards, we didn't bother getting British Pounds.  As it ended up none of the cabs would accept credit card and we couldn't get back onto the ship to exchange US Dollars for Pounds.  Throw in the fact that the bank at the port didn't open until 10 and we were in a bit of a pickle.  Guess who walked 3 miles to the rental car facility leaving Tina at the port with all of our luggage.

That was OK too ... except I hadn't been precise in my car reservation as to when we'd be getting there.  They didn't expect us until mid-afternoon.  So I ended up sitting around for an hour after walking for an hour and when I finally got back to Tina she was more than worried about what was taking so long.  As it would end up her worries were only beginning.  Driving on the right hand side of the road with a ton of round abouts scared the living day lights out of her ... even though she had an excellent driver who adapted quickly to driving on the wrong side of the road and going round and round and round on circular roads that seem to lead nowhere.  :)

Regardless of all of the above, we finally made it to Stone Henge by somewhere around noon.  This is one of those places that seems to be on everybodies "to visit" list, and justifiably so.  As with a lot of monuments around the world they've had to restrict access to getting right next to the monument, but it's still an amazing place to visit.

The Mysterious Stone Henge

The Happy Tourists

A View From the Other Side

The Nearby Indian Burial Mounds

After a couple of hours we drove the rest of the way to Bath England to spend the night.  Bath is a beautiful city originally established by the Romans and renowned for it's warm spring baths.  We stayed in a beautiful bed and breakfast on the outskirts of town which allowed us to walk into the city and avoid driving, even though someone was excellent at driving on the wrong side of the road by that time but somebody was scared to death of riding with said excellent driver!

The City Of Bath

The B&B Tasburgh House

Downtown Bath England

We spent the next morning exploring more of downtown bath and the Bath Abbey. 

Stain Glass in the Bath Abbey

Graves Inside the Abbey

But before leaving town I had to take a couple of pictures of my favorite sort.  On that particular day I got a beautiful picture of the best looking American and a gorgeous little local girl in Bath England.

The Gorgeous American

The Beautiful Local Girl

Day 14 - A Sobering Day in Belgium

The ship docked in Bruges Belgium on our last day out at sea.  All 4 of us had signed up for a tour to the field made famous by the WW I poem entitled "In Flanders Field".  Belgium is a country with so much history relating to WW I, which is by and large a forgotten war compared to WW II.  But the visit and tour served as a sobering reminder of just how tragic WW I was to the people who lived through it.

The tour started with a visit to Tyne Cot Cemetery.  An organization known as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, funded by all the Commonwealth countries that participated in WW I, maintains all of these cemeteries and does an excellent job of it.  It is hard to comprehend all of the people who died in this cause and how many of them were placed in unnamed graves.

Tyne Cot Cemetery

Graves of Those Still Remembered

Tina and Dad

The next stop was at the Menin Gate Memorial which is dedicated to those soldiers who were known to have died in the area but who's bodies were never found or identified.  

Menin Gate Memorial

America didn't get involved in WW I until 1917 and never ventured into Belgium.  That's why all the memorials are to the British Empire, including England, Australia, and New Zealand.  

The real sobering part of the visit was to the "In Flanders Field Museum".  

WW I was so devastating in that it was the worlds introduction to the beginning of weapons of mass destruction.  Most of the participants went into the war expecting the same type of single shot rifle wars that had dominated the world before. But WW I introduced grenades, poison gas, and artillery, along with submarines, tanks, and warplanes.  These weapons led to a 4 year bog down in Belgium that saw neither side making major advancements.  As with most museums we weren't allowed to take pictures inside.

The final visit was to the cemetery next to the medical bunker where "In Flanders Field" was written by the Canadian physician Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. He wrote it shortly after presiding over a funeral for his friend, fellow countryman, and fallen soldier Alexis Helmer.

In Flanders Field

For those who might not be able to read that, here's the original poem.  You could also ask my Mom to recite it to you since she remembers having to memorize it back in high-school.  (I think it was only a couple of years old at that time.)  :)

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

And just as one last reminder of the prices paid by those who went before us, this cemetery also has the grave site of the youngest identified soldier to die in WW I,  a soldier who lied to get into the army and died at the young age of 15.