Peckish Travels

Bob and I decided that after our long parish walk on Tuesday, we’d treat ourselves to a visit to the La Mare Wine Estate Wednesday afternoon— before a storm was to blow through Wednesday evening. We purchased tickets for the 3:30 tour and tasting.

The wine estate is 8 miles from the house. We decided to walk the 40 minutes to the downtown bus station for a bit of a mobile outing and then catch the number 7 bus for the almost 30 minutes to ride to the winery.

Bob found us a new route into town, so we could see some new sites. Some scenes from our walk.

The 2:40 bus towards the winery was fairly full. We arrived at the La Mare stop a little before 3:10 and then had a short walk down a country lane to the winery. Our timing was good, as we had just gotten checked in for the tour and sent to the cafe to await the start when the rain started. It was really coming down when we went to leave at about 5:15ish, but we had already decided that we would call a cab for the trip back.

There were only four of us on the tour, as their season is winding down. Only their store will be open as of November 1. Maybe because of this we seemed to get a lot of extras. The tour description stated a tasting of 3 wines and their apple brandy cream liquor. We did get those, with the cream liquor served in small handmade chocolate cups, but we also got a small taste of their (hard) cider, a half a biscuit, a handmade cream-filled chocolate, and a small taste of fudge with another different chocolate. Crazy! The staff was very friendly, and it was a nice, relaxed tour with some very short films to explain more about the different processes. We highly recommend.

The cab ride home was an event onto itself, with a very friendly, very chatty driver, who seemed to be able to navigate the narrow roads in the rain at a good clip even while not apparently looking in the direction of travel. I was happy to jump out of the car to feed the cats and let Bob finalize the payment and conversation when we got back to the house.

St Clement is the smallest parish on the island, but it’s location on the sheltered south coast and proximity to St Helier have made it a popular place to live. St Clement was Bishop of Rome in 92 AD and is the Patron Saint of Sailors, having achieved martyrdom when he was thrown into the Black Sea with an anchor tied around his neck for providing water to fellow prisoners.

St Clement Parish is southeast of St Saviour. It was about an eight mile walk, but since we walked to the start and then back again, it made our mileage total for the day about 11 miles. We had a bit of everything on our walk — sun, cloud, and rain, but it was definitely less windy than yesterday.

Jersey is having an unsettled weather week per the weather people on tv and what we are experiencing. Apparently, a series of fronts are coming through, so we’re having rain off and on with lots of wind. We thought it made for a good day to visit the free-to-enter Jersey Museum, and we took the #3 bus each way. We did, however, walk back and forth to the gym this morning.

The museum covered a range of topics about Jersey, and we spent 90 minutes there. We started with a 20 minute intro film, which provided a quick history from Neanderthal times to current day. This is a scattershot of items that I found of interest.

When we researched “our” parish of St Saviour the other day, one of the main claims to fame was the actress Lillie Langtry. There were a few items in the museum related to her.

There was a whole section devoted to the almost five year German occupation and then liberation and rebuilding. It was interesting the views of the different ways Jersey residents spent the war and the impact during and afterwards. There were Island residents who left the island before the occupation because they didn’t want to live under German rule. There were the Islanders who stayed and lived under the occupation, and then there were Island residents who were sent to German prisoner of war camps because they were not native Islanders (born in UK, France, etc.). Hard feelings arose in trying to get everyone back in a hard economic climate and a shortage of housing.

And some happy new unions…

Yesterday, Bob and I had a good 8+ mile walk from the house in St Saviour parish through St Helier parish, St Laurens parish, St Peter parish, and into St Brelade parish to an artisan market in the St Brelade Parish Hall near St Aubin’s Bay before heading back along the waterfront trail to St Helier where we caught a bus back to the house.

Today, Bob and I walked 1.9 miles into the center of St Helier, the capital of Jersey and most populous town on the island. We wanted to take advantage of what may be the latest sunny day for a while, if the weather forecast is correct.

Jersey was liberated from almost five years of German occupation on this site on May 9, 1945. The statue by Philip Jackson was unveiled on the 50th anniversary in 1995.

There are 12 parishes on the island of Jersey — 10 of them named for saints. “Our” house is located in St Saviour, which is the second most populous parish after St Helier (home to the largest city on the island). St Saviour is a virtually landlocked parish (only 100 meters of coastline) in the eastern third of the island.

It is the only parish with 5 other parishes as immediate neighbors. Other fun facts about the parish — it is the birth and burial place of Lillie Langtry, a British socialite, stage actress, and producer. It is home to La Hogue Bie, one of the most important Neolithic sites in Europe, and the Lieutenant Governor, who represents the Crown on the island, also live in St Saviour.

Our homeowners have a booklet of different parish walks, so we decided to walk the parish walk for St Saviour, which highlights undiscovered lanes, to get a better sense of the larger neighborhood.

We did the 5 mile walk in late afternoon when the cleaner was scheduled to be at the house. Some photos from our walk…

As per usual, our first day at a new house finds us doing errands like grocery shopping and laundry. Check and check, but the more interesting parts of our day are getting into our new routine with our new pets. Currently, Bella and Lu are letting us be their humans. They are indoor and outdoor cats going through an open kitchen window into the garden. Bella hangs out in the garden when she goes out and then prefers to have you let her in the back door. Lu goes further afield and tends to come back in through the window as well. They both stay inside over night.

We are back in the Channel Islands, located in the English Channel between England and France. In June, we were on the island of Guernsey. We are on Jersey now, the largest of the islands, and much closer to France, within 14 miles at the closest point. Jersey has a population of just over 103,000 people. In addition to their regular residents, pets, tourists, and housesitters, they also have these.

The island is 5 miles long and 9 miles wide. Interestingly, the island almost doubles in size at low tide.

As with all of the Chanel Islands, it is a British Crown Dependency, so it is self-governing but its defence and international relations are handled by the UK. Like Guernsey, it was also occupied by the Germans during WWII.

We’re looking forward to exploring more beginning tomorrow.

Last night Bob and I had a great walkthrough and home cooked dinner with our homeowners after they picked us up at our hotel, but before that we had a lovely walk to a lighthouse on the southwest coast of Jersey.

We left the hotel via a series of steps off of their terrace and then through a small park.

From the park, we crossed the street and began walking on the impressive trail along the beach. For a good portion of this trail, there are separate bike and pedestrian lanes.

Shortly after entering St Aubin, we turned inland to walk the Rail Trail which took us all the way to the lighthouse. We started our walk at 12:45 and got to the lighthouse about 2:50.

After walking down near the lighthouse but not crossing over to it as not low tide, we caught bus 22 back to the Cristina Hotel near the Cobiere Phare Hotel and German Naval Tower.

After our stay in Augusta, GA, Bob and I spent Saturday night at the Marriott Hotel near the Atlanta airport for our Sunday flight to London and then Jersey. Bob had also found a long-term parking option for the car near the hotel. The hotel was large, clean, and had a great fitness center. Unfortunately for us, the Concierge Lounge wasn’t open during our stay, so no free dinner Saturday night, but we had a great free breakfast Sunday morning at the Renaissance Hotel across the street.

We get free breakfasts at certain level Marriott hotels due to our membership status, and since their lounge isn’t open on Sunday mornings, they must have an agreement with the Renaissance Hotel (also a Marriott property) to provide the breakfast in their restaurant.

We had a long wait Sunday, as our flight didn’t depart until after 10 pm. We got a late checkout at the hotel, so we stayed in our room until 4:00 and then waited in the lobby and took turns walking around without luggage for another 2 hours. At 6:00, we walked to the sky train for the quick ride to the domestic terminal. We then boarded a bus near the sky train to take us to the international terminal. That was a longer ride than we expected, but we still had plenty of time for check in and security. Check-in there though was a bit of a stressor since no regular (non British Airways elite travelers) could be assisted until any elite traveler that showed up was checked in. We got through eventually and security was a breeze. I was worried that the wait times might be longer with the government shutdown, but everything went well and our flight left on time.

One thing that was new for us on this trip is that our flight into London landed at Heathrow Airport, but the flight to Jersey left from Gatwick Airport. We had 5 hours in between, but we were still a bit concerned about whether our flight would be on time and the customs and luggage pickup process and then the check-in and security process at Gatwick. Bob had scheduled us a car transfer service (Blackberry), so that we wouldn’t have to worry about figuring out a bus or train transfer.

Everything worked out really well. The longest wait was waiting for a gate after we landed at Heathrow. Customs and luggage pickup were very quick, and our car transfer driver (though a slow walker) was a great driver. The ride to Gatwick was 45 minutes. We spent most of the next 3 hours in a lounge.

We arrived into Jersey, where we were immediately welcomed on WhatsApp by our homeowner, and were into our hotel,The Hotel Cristina, by 6:45. This is a beautiful hotel with great views of Jersey and St. Aubin’s Bay. We had a quick drink in the bar last night while we looked over all the tourist info we picked up and a great free breakfast in the restaurant this morning.

Even though I slept for about 4 hours on the plane, I slept almost 12 hours last night. Bob didn’t sleep much at all on the plane to London, but a little on the short flight to Guernsey. He was awake before me this morning.

Some photos from our room.

Our homeowners will pick us up here at 6:00 this evening after work. We have paid for a late checkout at 1:00, then we’re going to do a 2+ hour walk to a lighthouse and then catch a bus back after looking around. Tomorrow evening after work when our homeowners head off on their cruise, we will be The Real Housesitters of Jersey.

Our last full day in Augusta and much more fall-like weather. It was in the mid 50s when we went out about 10 am this morning, but the feels like temp was in the high 40s.

We walked east along the Riverwalk, the opposite of yesterday, to check out the sculptures and the pedestrian bridge that crosses the Savannah River to North Augusta, South Carolina.

There were sculptures on the bridge as well as along the Riverwalk.

After stopping at a bakery that we had see from our hotel window (very dark with little selection so no purchases), Bob and I headed to the other side of the Marriott to go across the street to the Morris Museum of Art that we had passed on the Riverwalk yesterday.

This museum is the oldest in the country that is specifically devoted to the art and artists of the American South. It has over 6,000 pieces in its permanent collection of varies types — paintings, sculptures, art, glass, etc.

Of course, Augusta is mostly known around the world for the Augusta National Golf Course and The Master’s Golf Tournament. As we aren’t members and the tournament isn’t going, we couldn’t get on the course, but we drove the 3.5 miles from downtown to at least get a feel of the area.

The area near the course is, like the rest of the city, is a bit up and down with nice (not grand) homes/buildings alongside pretty derelict ones. The course doesn’t have to worry about that though, as it is surrounded by heavy trees, large bushes so that you can’t see in and if you’re in you don’t have to see out.

Late morning tomorrow, we will head to a hotel near the Atlanta Airport to spend one night before we fly out late Sunday night.