As mentioned at some point in the past, Beaulieu is this wee little town in the New Forest, which as you recall is neither particularly new or particularly a forest. So Beaulieu is home to the national motor museum, which also houses the old Beaulieu Abbey and a Palace House, which was at some point ages ago the gate house to the abbey. To add zest to the voyage, we left the cars behind and hopped on a bus from Starbucks to the ferry dock, took the Hythe Ferry to, well Hythe, home of the world's oldest pier train (it's from 1922, and has not been updated since). The ferry was running a bit late and we were worried that we had missed the only bus from Hythe to Beaulieu for two hours, but luckily the service proved unreliable and showed up 20 minutes late and took us to Beaulieu.
After quaint home-style freshly prepared and reasonably priced baguettes for lunch, we trudgeoned over to the motor museum to look at cars and old buildings and such. There are a bunch of buildings and various attractions at the motor museum, none of them seeming particularly new. There is a country monorail, an old style bus, the main building full of cars, and a playstation 2 dome. It's got to be really neat if you like cars. Being not that into cars, I found it moderately entertaining. The palace house and abbey were really cute. Overall, not too sure if it's worth the 13.75 entry fee.
Post musuem, I was pleased as punch to finally get close to a new forest pony, and while we set out for a pint, there is no place to have a pint at 4 pm in Beaulieu, so we went and got some tea and scones because it was another hour until the bus would come. Clotted cream was involved. It's basically crisco but it's something you gotta do. Back in Hythe, we discovered that there is exactly one place to get a pint. A short rickety train ride and a cool ferry ride later, we were back in Southampton for a pretty sunset. Oh, the ferry goes sort of across the River Test, you can get there by other modes, it's not like the IoW or anything.
Today is Good Friday. It's like, a holiday here. As is Monday. So it's a random 4-day weekend. Although they don't get Thanksgiving or 4th of July, so I suppose it sort of balances out.
1 comment:
The cuteness of Europe just amazes me. In the US, you'd be drinking your tea from paper cups, your scones would be on napkins, and you'd be spreading the whatever with plastic forks. Oh, and the food wouldn't be very good, either. We were just amazed in Rome to see a McDonalds across the piazza from the Pantheon, and they had tablecloths on their outdoor tables. We need to up our cuteness factor!
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