It was pretty good, including possibly the best coffee I've had since we left home - and it came from a machine. I really want one of these - one press of a button and it does tea, three or four different varieties of coffee (from beans!), or hot chocolate.
We weren't sure if we were up to being tourists today, but we thought we'd wander off and see how we felt. So, we walked to the city then got a train out to the airport to see if we could hire a car. We were after a small automatic, but the first two car hire places didn't have anything available.
The last one offered us a people mover - a VW Sharan - which they agreed to rent to us for the rest of the day at the small car rate - and so Paul decided to give it a go. Turns out that - at least where we drove today - the roads were not quite as narrow or busy as in the other places we have driven so far, and Paul didn't have any real problems with it. This was with Europcar and the rental process was astoundingly simple compared to the bureaucracy of the interactions with Thrifty so far. We'll see what happens with Thrifty tomorrow - we need to change the booking to keep the car for longer - I was going to drive it to Chester on Saturday but I can't possibly do this with my elbow and wrist in the state they're in. They've assured me by eMail that extending the booking will be ok, but I'll believe it when I see it :-) Worst case scenario we take a loss on the booking and catch a train.....
Anyway, back to today. Our first stop was the Chesters Roman Fort and Museum. This is the remains of a Roman fort (obviously), along the line of Hadrian's wall. There's not a lot of the wall left, although it seemed quite clear that there's more of it still buried.
There is a fair bit of the fort still visible.
Paul and Hadrian's Wall
We spent a couple of hours here, then decided to go to another similar site called Housesteads Roman Fort only a few miles further down the same road. This is the "most complete Roman fort in England" and also has a really impressive piece of Hadrian's Wall. The price you pay is a 1/2 mile walk up a steep slope, but it was worth every minute.
Part of the bakery, used to make bread for the soldiers and also by the soldiers for their own cooking.
Hadrian's wall reaching off into the distance
The walk down and up and down and up to Housesteads.
These pictures don't do either site justice; they really are worth seeing. I'd have like to see Vindolanda as well, but there are only so many hours in a day and we just couldn't find the time to go there as well.
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