England in Springtime :-)

With Spain now quickly receding in the rear-view mirror, we are launching into our grand tour of English Gardens in all their spring glory! On Wednesday, we arrived at Gatwick to the south of London, and were amazed at how we waltzed through passport control and customs without so much as a glance at or mention of our vaccine status or CDC cards. Go figure... The English all seem to have decided it's time to get on with things so there's no masks, or checks for vaccine cards anywhere.  Hopefully that's all a good thing :-). After settling into our Airbnb in Benchley, West Sussex, we managed to find a great little pub just down the road for one of our first indoor meals in about 2 years!

By Thursday morning, even with chilly and blustery weather (we had snow flurries roll through a couple of times!), we were out visiting our first garden of the trip here in the UK, one of our favorites, Sissinghurst Castle. We visited here in June of 1992, and were eager to see what it would be like in early spring.  We were amazed and pleasantly surprised at how far along all the flowering plants were for the last day of March! At least a month ahead of our garden back in Cazenovia, which still had snow on it...  

Sissinghurst is a classic late "arts & crafts" style garden of strong rectilinear geometry with informal and exhuberant planting.  Owned and operated by the National Trust, it is a "must see" for anyone when enjoys gardening! The property also includes several hundred vacres of adjacent farmland and woodlands, filled with publick walking paths (which are common all over the UK). So in addition to wandering around the garden for an couple hours, we also added in about a 4 mile walk around the farmland. 

The other great thing about the National Trust properties is that for those who purchase an annual membership, all their hundreds of properties are free for entry :-) 

The following day we headed out and visited two other nearby Trust properties- Scotney Castle & Garden (a Victorian era house & picturesque parkland),

...and Beckmans- a 17th century house, and the home of Rudyard Kipling.

Both were exceptionally well kept and well worth the effort to wander around ;-) 

After two days in Sussex, we then headed west to Cornwall, stopping at Stonehenge along the way.  We've never been to Stonehenge before, but as it was directly along the highway west, we figured as the weather was nice, it would make for a great walk too! Plas, as another Trust site, it was again free to visit, so why not ;-). We were prepared for disappointment, but again pleasantly surprised but how impressive a place can be that's basically a big circle of rocks.  We'd visited a similar site (that's not well known) in Portugal a few years ago that was really cool, but Stonehenge really diserves it's status as the grand-daddy of Neolithic stone structures!

Finally, catching up with where we are now, we arrived last night in Cadgwith Cove on the south coast of Cornwall. We've rented a very neat little cottage made from an 1880's rail car from the local Great Western Railroad. Today we spent pretty much the entire day out walking along the Coastal Pathway, which traces the cliff-tops all along the Cornish coastline. Unforgettable views!

We walked bit over 8 miles out and back to Lizard Point, where we had lunch in Britain's southern most cafe - including delicious Cornish Pasties & local cider...

Cheers!