We just returned from a great trip to the south of England. We flew into the London-Luton airport from Amsterdam. We had rented a car and picked up a brand new Ford Focus and drove off.

We first went to St. Albans, a short drive from Luton. We visited the cathedral there and had lunch. Afterwards we started on a hellish drive on the M-roads around London, to Canterbury. We got there in streaming rain, and after a bit found our hotel. After checking in we went to the city to check it out.

The next day we visited Canterbury, where we visited St. Augustine’s Abbey, the Canterbury Cathedral, the Museum of Canterbury and of course shopped a bit in the city. In the evening we had a lovely waterside dinner in the courtyard of a 16th century weavers’ house.

On our third day we drove from Canterbury to Battle. There we visited the Battle Abbey, built on the site of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. After our visit there we went to Pevensey Castle, where William the Conqueror and his armies set foot on land in 1066. We spent the night in a lovely B&B near Battle.

The next day we had a hellish drive from Battle to Portland, which was more queing than driving. We stopped for lunch at the Netley Abbey, the largest Cistercian Monastery ruins in England, which were completely deserted.

The hotel was on a high point of Portland, so we had a great view. Over the following two days we explored the Jurassic Coast. We visited West Bay, which had impressive cliffs, we sought and found fossils on fossil beach, we did a walk around Lulworth Cove, visiting Fossil Forrest and we explored Corfe Castle.

Then we drove on to Bath, but we stopped at Glastonbury Abbey, and saw the site of King Arthur’s tomb (no, it was really him, I swear ). In Bath we stayed in a luxurious hotel, from where we took the bus into town. We visited Bath Abbey, the Royal Crescent, the Museum for East Asian Art and of course the Roman Baths.

The last stop on our trip was Oxford, where we stayed on the edge of town, and on the way we visited Stonehenge and Old Sarum. Oxford was a bit too busy for our liking (many many school kids from Italy, Spain and France), but the Bodleian Library was beautiful and so were the colleges. We went to the cinema twice (Harry Potter 6 and Ice Age 3) and visited many bookstores, of which Blackwell was the most impressive and my favourite. We also visited the University Museum of Natural History and the attached Pitt Rivers Museum.

All in all it were jam-packed days, but we had a great time, and for us it was a perfect trip. See the slideshow of pics below.