On Day 6, we woke up and headed to church with the Stovalls. It was fun to be with them on their first Sunday in the small branch. People kept asking if Don and I had moved in and I was sad to tell them no. I'd love to live there someday!
After church and a nice lunch, we headed over to Kenilworth castle. It was slighted (purposely torn down) during a civil war in 1649 to prevent it from being used as a military strong hold. It was a drizzly, cold day and very muddy, but we had such a wonderful time wandering around the castle. Don says that this was probably his favorite part of the entire trip. He loved exploring and being in the good company of the Stovalls.
Here is a view of the castle from a hill overlooking where a moat used to be.
Dakin walking towards the edge of the hill with the town of Kenilworth peeking in on the left side of the photo. Such a beautiful, quaint little town.
We decided to get down in the moat so we could walk around the castle and during the process, Dakin slipped down the hill and got a very muddy bum. Poor Dakin! It made for a good laugh, though.
The wall is still mostly intact around the perimeter of the castle.
Looking in through a gate at the view below...
There was a kissing gate, which allow people and not cows or sheep to pass through fields. Don and I decided to take advantage of the situation. This is one of my favorite pictures of the trip. It was such a cold, blustery English evening. Perfect for a kissing gate kiss in raincoats.
Something about this dark sky and mournful landscape just makes me feel like running around yelling "Heathcliff! Heathcliff!" while tearing wildly at my flowing hair! Man, those Bronte sisters were seriously depressed. With weather like this, I can't really blame them. It's nice to visit but it might get me down, too, after a while.
A view inside the castle wall...
A caretaker had opened the gate momentarily after I took this picture and I ran inside only to nearly get locked out. Luckily, Don ran after me and told me to get back outside the gate before they locked me in. I didn't even get a picture for my effort, though I did get a mighty nasty look from the caretaker. The lengths I'd go to get a picture are sometimes kind of ridiculous...
And here we are, with damp hair and lots of happiness after our chilly English walk.
John and Dakin took us straight to the airport to catch our flight to Frankfurt. Dakin had lovingly made us sandwiches so we wouldn't starve. We boarded our plane, flew to Frankfurt (which nearly made my ears explode this time. Dang sinus infection) and rented a car. We had a slight kerfuffle with the Eurorail pass/car rental, but luckily got it all sorted when we returned the car two days later. The car rental places were crazy though. One was all yellow, one was all orange, and the other was all green. It was like they were trying to attract bugs, not people.
We felt really bad for the people who had to work in the ridiculously orange rental place. I can only imagine how hard that would be on the eyes. It was hard to look at let alone spend time there.
Quick story about the car rental. When we went to book the rental car, we found that they had no automatic cars. Neither Don nor I know how to drive a manual transmission. Luckily, since we knew beforehand, Don borrowed his friend Kevin's Jeep and drove it jerkily around Boulder for two days 'til he figured out how to use the stick shift. It is a good thing Don practiced, too, because the roads were insane. We got a GPS and thank goodness we did. We would have never gotten from Frankfurt to Dan and Holly's house near Ramstein.
We made it to Dan and Holly's around 11 pm and were so excited to see them, we stayed up talking 'til 1 am. As we were getting ready for bed, Don said we needed to get up at 8:30 am to get to the Rhine River valley and I told him I needed more sleep. So, we revised our plans and decided to do a short hike in the Palatinate forest the next morning and then head to Trier, the old Roman capital of the north. I went to bed much more relaxed knowing I would be able to catch up on some much needed sleep.
Information about Kenilworth castle found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenilworth_Castle. Also, much information was found in Rick Steves' England, 2007.
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