The beginning of this adventure includes a couple days of sightseeing in London with three of my friends. We have plans to march with the royal guard to Buckingham Palace; enjoy two exhibits at the Tate Modern; see a musical; and taste some good food. This is not my first trip to London. My youngest son, Brett, did his senior year of college in Norwich, England. My husband and I traveled to England to spend time with Brett and see the sights of London and Norwich. There was so much to see and not enough time in which to do it. I am looking forward to more time in this amazing city.
After a couple days in London, two more friends will fly in and the six of us will travel by train from London to Chirk, Wales where we have rented a narrow boat. When I say narrow I mean it. The boat is only 7 feet wide but it is 70 feet long. Let me back up a bit here to say this whole trip came into being because one of my friends sent me a novel about a woman who worked as a chef on a narrow boat in England. She said, “I think it would be fun for us to get a group of friends together and rent a narrow boat together in Europe.” So during the pandemic, when so many dreams were dashed, I put together two different slide shows depicting possible itineraries in two different locations (one in England and one in France). I needed to able to have a dream that included travel and the joy of actually being with people again. I shared the slideshows with my friend via Zoom. Once the world began to open up again we figured out who else wanted to go with us and what canal we should travel down. (We are doing neither one of the two canals featured in my slideshows because we picked the canal with the least number of tunnels to accommodate the claustrophobic among us.) This trip has been several years in the making.
Unlike the novel my friend gave me, we will drive the boat ourselves and do our own cooking. It turns out we chose the narrowest canal in the United Kingdom which means there will be some large stretches which will be single lane only. We have read books and watched videos in preparation. You steer from the back of the boat by peering over the top of the boat, which makes me think that the boat is not only narrow it probably wouldn’t accommodate a tall person. Luckily we don’t have any tall people on this adventure. In the seven days we will be on the boat we will go 88 miles and navigate 42 locks. It may sound like we are doing something we aren’t really prepared to do. However, our top traveling speed is 4 miles an hour. What can possibly go wrong at 4 miles an hour? We are about to find out.
Here are the narrow boat cast of characters:
Kara and Tom
Shelly and Sara
Linda
…and myself.
Linda
…and myself.
After the narrow boat extravaganza, we will head our separate ways. I am traveling back to London, where I will meet my sister, Gayle. We will spend several days together in London. We have tickets for the London Eye, Much Ado About Nothing at the Old Globe and the musical Two Strangers. If we have energy and the inclination we will see more.
A train to Dover and then a ferry across the English Channel will allow us to view the White Cliffs of Dover. Once we land in France, will rent a car in Calais and head to Rouen. From there we will travel through Normandy on our way to Mont St. Michel. My son, Brett, will be on his own epic adventure in France. We will meet up with him at Mont St. Michel, where we will spend the night on the island and visit the abbey.
Brett
Brett will head back out on his own and Gayle and I will head to the Loire Valley. We hope the weather allows us to go up in an hot air balloon while we are there. Then to Chartres for a couple nights. We will return the car there and take a train to Paris. Four nights in Paris will be the final chapter of this adventure before we head back to London via the Chunnel to catch our flights home.
I am writing this first installment of our trip on my British Airways flight to London. The adventure begins.
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