Avebury and on to London

Tuesday morning and Julie provided us with a great breakfast of cereal and fruit then toast and a boiled egg followed by a fresh croissant and her own blackberry jam. Plus a pot of coffee you could stand a spoon up in - fantastic.

With rain pouring down (real rain this time, not the usual English drizzle), and the sound of massive explosions by the nearby British Army maneuvers, we set off for Avebury. This was only about 20km away so took no time at all and we were there by 11am. This is actually a very extensive site and one we have never explored before.

We did a quick tour of the main stone circle. This is actually better than Stonehenge because you can walk right up to the stones. The village of Avebury is right in the centre of the circle and there are apparently hundreds of stones still buried all around the place. Most striking was the one below which couldn't be much closer to the road!

Also part of the site is Avebury Manor. This was originally a medieval farm-house but was re-modelled as a Manor House in the 18th century. The house was renovated recently as part of a BBC programme fronted by Penelope Keith (The Manor Reborn - did anyone other than me watch it? - M) Different rooms have been restored to show exactly what they would have looked like in a particular era. You can touch things, try out the chairs/beds etc. and there are very friendly guides in each room who love to talk about the house. One guide had lived for two years in Wellington in the 1980's.

We then realised that it was nearly 1pm and we had arranged to have the hire car back in London (near Tower Bridge) by 4pm. Only three hours to drive about 90 miles, but right through central London. A bit of a daunting prospect.

With no time to lose, we headed straight for the M4 and the sat nav said 'follow the motorway for 70 miles'. I quickly got up to 70-75mph and managed to maintain this speed all the way to Hammersmith (what a relief). Then it all started to go bad. As we got closer to the centre of London the traffic got heavier and slower. As we went past Harrods and around Trafalgar Square things were looking grim. One minute we were a couple of minutes ahead of schedule and then we were 40 minutes behind. As we got closer to the rental company office, the traffic got slower and slower and we were mostly stationary. We finally got there just on 4pm without being able to fill the car with petrol as arranged.

Trafalgar Square

Our original plan was to drive to our next Airbnb, drop the luggage, and then drive back via a petrol station and drop-off the car. This was not to be so we found ourselves with all our bags and about 5 miles away from our accommodation. I rang Peter for advice and he said we should get the Docklands Light Railway. Our hire company guy offered to drive us to the nearest station (Shadwell) and, somewhat weary, we arrived in Canning Town to be let in by Peter with all our luggage intact. What a relief! And no damage to the car - just some excess charges for the petrol we failed to get.

Peter's place is at Canning Town and about 500m from the DLR station. This was no problem and we finally arrived at his nice apartment (with a proper shower). We can now re-group before heading off to Italy on Thursday.