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On August 29th 2006, on our 41st wedding anniversary, we embarked on a trip to England where Anna wanted to research some of her ancestors who lived in the Manchester area. We planned a two week trip comprising about a week of genealogical research in the Manchester area and the remaining time as tourists in the northern Lakes District. We had arranged to rent a car from a small car rental company (http://hirenhire.co.uk) in Leigh about 25 miles from the Manchester airport. Their rates are comparable with those of the major car rental companies, but they offered the valuable additional service of meeting us at the airport and driving us out to the small town of Leigh where we could have a chance to acclimate ourselves to driving on the left side of the road in a car with the driver's controls on the right side without having to be digging our way out of a complicated and congested set of roads around a big airport. Our plan was to survey the library in Leigh in preparation for subsequent research visits there after we got over our jet lag, and then drive to Wigan, about 20 miles away where we had reservations at a Quality Inn. After two nights looking around Wigan, we would drive back to stay a couple nights at the Cottwood B&B in Leigh. Cottwood House B & B During these times, we planned excursions to neighboring villages Atherton and Bolton to search out addresses were Anna's ancestors had lived and worked. After this, we planned a week in the Lakes District, about 80 miles north of Manchester. We ended up finding a very nice guest house, called "The Westbourne" in Bowness along Lake Windermere (http://www.westbourne-lakes.co.uk). We were comfortable at The Westbourne, and the adjacent villages of Bowness and Windermere are pleasant tourist oriented places with many quaint shops, many B&Bs, hotels, and a variety of tourist attractions. We eventually decided to use the Westbourne as our base of operations and we took side trips from there. Aside from the fact that a storm cell closed the Philadelphia airport and caused us to miss our flight to Manchester, our travel plans pretty much followed our expectation. We had to wait two and a half hours in an airplane stuck on the ground at Reagan Airport in Washington delaying us so that when the Philadelphia airport opened our Manchester flight took off without us. We stayed the night (without our luggage) at the Days Inn in Chester, PA. The Days Inn is in walking distance to a pleasant branch of the Widener University, and we chanced upon a very pleasant small art gallery in the student center to make the best of an otherwise frustrating situation. We were able to fly to Manchester the next day. Anna has developed a more comprehensive document about our trip which you can view via the following link: |
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This Page last modified on Monday, September 18, 2006 |
