From: danm@ether.UUCP (Dan McDonald)
Newsgroups: rec.travel
Subject: Re: Trip "Report" 2 weeks in UK w/baby
Summary: We *did* enjoy the trip
Keywords: Comments and Observations, mainly
Date: 16 Oct 92 16:04:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: ether.980
Reply-To: danm@ether.UUCP (Dan McDonald)
Organization: HALF, Beaverton, OR

In article <13293@cis.rand.org> Liza_Weissler@rand.ORG (Liza Weissler) writes:
>In article <976@ether.UUCP>, danm@ether.UUCP (Dan McDonald) writes:
>> 
>> We had a very good time, except for one or two long days in the car.
>
>All in all, it sounds to me as if you *didn't* enjoy your trip
>very much.
>
>We spent two weeks in the UK in early September of this year,
>and I have to say that our experiences were uniformly positive.
>Nearly all of the B&Bs we stayed at were comfortable, clean,
>and quite pleasant (two standouts: the Four Seasons in York,

Our experiences were positive, too, and we only found one place 
too unkempt and dirty to go back to...the rest were fine and pleasant.

>and Wigham in Morchard Bishop, near Crediton, Devon).  As for
>admission charges at National Trust sites -- well, we didn't
>purchase the membership in advance either, so we paid at each
>place we went to.  My view is that the properties have to be maintained
>one way or another and tourists are a legitimate source of income.
>The various guidebooks usually are explicit about admission prices,
>(we had a Michelin guide to the UK, and a Blue Guide to Cathedrals
>and Churches), if one utilized these guides then the admission
>prices shouldn't have come as any surprise.

The admission prices were not a surprise (except for the one that
didn't mention it until you walked the 1/4 mile to the castle).  I
think that this is a fine way to pay for the upkeep of these places,
we just chose to be judicious in the places we paid to enter.
>
>We also spent some time in Wales, and while the weather was stormy
>I wouldn't have called the area dreary.  In fact I thought the weather
>enhanced our visits to some of the castles (esp. Caernarfon and Harlech).
>
The dreariness we found in Wales was not so much the weather, although
it was grey (but not raining).  Our response to Wales was based upon
a cumulation of personal experiences and observations.  The dire
economic conditions, the absence of color in the villages and landscapes
(very nice in many places, the cumulative effect negative to us),
the undefinable "lack of tidiness" of roads, hedgerows, and buildings
when compared to the parts of England we had just been through and
thoroughlly enjoyed, and our conversations with the locals and their
*cool* reception to my wife.  She was born in Wales and lived much of
her childhood there, and had not been back until now.  She was very much
looking forward to the trip, and based on this we had originally planned
to spend our entire 2 weeks in Wales alone.  We had expected people to 
respond with niceness, cordiality, or at least interest when she would
tell them that she was originally from Wales.  On the contrary, it seemed
that they really didn't care or weren't interested or felt badly about it
Eternal optimists, we continued to tell people this even after noting and
commenting on the general response received.  We were better off after
I convinced her to be quiet about it and just say we're from America
visiting Wales and we like it very much, thank you.

BTW, we pretty much got the same sense of economic doom and lack of hope
for the future in our talks with people during our whole trip.  I found
this distressing, for in America, even in the worst economic times I've
seen, there is still always a small glimmer of hope.  This seems to have
been lost in just about all the people we talked to.  The hope appeared
to slightly return when they talked about their friends and relatives
in Canada, Australia, or America, or when they talked about the remote
possibility of themselves moving to Canada, Australia, or America.  We
found tale after tale of grown (35+ years old) children living at home
because they can't get a job that utilizes their degree(s) and are
working as waiters or whatever and houses are too expensive (although
they've come way down in price), etc.  One man's comments when we said
that we didn't think that there was yet a light at the end of the tunnel
was that he didn't think there was even a tunnel--that this was the
way things would be forever.  

>        ---  __o          Liza Weissler

Sorry to bother you again,
but we did enjoy our trip (except for the returning back part)

dan
-------------
Dan McDonald         danm@ether      ...uunet!sequent!ether!danm
Newsgroups: rec.travel,misc.legal