Old and New England with Green Gables.

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Eco camping.A rubbish bin no more than 30 metres away.
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The new stadium.England play Wales there on Saturday.
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Sign probably left by a disgruntled Aussie leaving the old Cardiff Arms Park.
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Back to the Marriott.
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Time for a nanny nap.

 

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We then went out for a late lunch.Carluccios was just across the street and was still open for lunch.Wasn't expecting much but it wasn't bad at all.I had a 2 course lunch special for 11.5 GBP.Minestrone,pretty average and Penne Putanesca-really good with nice spice.
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They were happy to leave out the chilli for the crab and langoustine fettucine.
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We then spent an hour or two going around the large shopping mall before going back to the Marriott for happy hour.Not great.Overcooked pakoras and tasteless,dry chicken strips.Back to thr room for another so so Welsh sunset.
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Friday arrives so time to drive from Cardiff to our new digs outside Cheltenham.We thought we would start by-

Though we knew the weather wasn't going to be fine.Forecast was 100% chance of rain.And they weren't wrong.So some pics on the way.
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But now some advice.Always hard to find a free park in the UK.Now you could here park in the Morrison's car park just outside the CBD but we wanted to see the castle on the other side of town.
At first I stopped in a slight pull off out in front of the castle whilst mrsdrron took some pics.
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She then noyiced that if you drive through that arch there are 6-7 free car spaces so you can clamber around the ruins plus a free museum.Bargain.

 

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Last of the ruins.
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And now for the dash up the hill in the rain to the Museum.
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First a one of a kind not to be seen anywhere else-a stuffed turnpit dog.
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Ancient history.
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Then the Romans.
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then no records until the Normans arrived.
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There was a lot of local stuff collecting going back to Roman times.The more modern stuff was interesting.
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But to me it was fascinating to see the Display of Jones Grocery shop.This explains why.
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The rain was getting heavier so a slow drive to the Ellenborough Park hotel.Amazing how fast some people drive with poor visibility and slippery roads.On the narrower roads I always pulled off when I could and let the idiots go.The hotel-
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The room.This was a virtuoso booking and we did get an upgrade as ours is the largest room in this block.
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And the view from our room.
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A very nice place but a little behind in the service department.It comes with a free mini bar-2 small bottles still water,2 of sparkling water and 2 diet coke.
Toiletries-1 soap,1 shampoo and 1 shower gel.
No glasses for your water-use the coffee cups instead.
Went out for a drive this morning.Maid goes past and notes us putting the service my room now sign out.Come back 4 hours later and room not done.Now there is a wedding on today so that might have had something to do with it but other guests should not be inconvenienced.

 

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As a Virtuoso booking you also got a complimentary afternoon cream tea-ie tea,scones,jam and cream not the high tea everyone else was having.It is served in the great hall which is the oldest part of the building dating from 1485.Various parts slowly added until 1833 when it was bought by the first Earl of Ellenborough a former Governor General of India.Taken over by the current owners in 2008 who spent 3 years renovating the property.
So the Great Hall.
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That night we had dinner in the pub restaurant.I started with crispy fried whitebait-very nice.
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For mains mrsdrron had the mushroom risotto whilst I had the beef cheek on horseradish mash with roasted root veggies.Both very nice.
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For desserts mrsdrron had the baked vanilla and orange rice pudding and I had the sticky toffee pudding with clotted cream Yum yum.
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This morning for breakfast I as usual tried out the eggs benedict.This version was no where near the best I have had.
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However the staff were under enormous pressure.There were 2 groups of Chinese tourists.At least 25 in number.Talk about locusts.They would clear the buffet in a couple of minutes and as soon as new supplies arrived they pounced.Each of them had at least 2 loaded plates from the buffet as well as an ordered hot dish plus fruit and pastries.They loved their croissants.
The 2 family groups either side of us provided a wealth of people watching.It seemed they had not travelled at least outside of Asia before.One fellow had managed to order porridge and eggs Royale and proceeded to put the eggs on top of the porridge.Must have been a taste sensation.

On the other side was an older man-at least my age.But boy could he eat.Not only everything he ordered but anything the other 4 left.He did get to eat a lot of black puuding!But he ate everything the same way-stabbed a fork into it and ate it all before stabbing something else-sausage,bacon,croissants all the same.Had a bit of a problem with the eggs benny so just picked up the muffin and ate it that way.

They were all travelling 4-6 people in a minivan.We also saw this when here in May.

 

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A reasonably fine day today so after breakfast we went for a walk around the property.Beautiful place.
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Built by Earl Ellenborough to commerorate all who helped him in India.
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That is the Cheltenham Racecourse home to 4 days of Steeplechase racing in March.The hotel has it's own entrance to the Racetrack.
This piece of stone is engraved 1648.
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Mrsdrron went back to the room whilst I walked down to the entrance to the race track.
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I heard the distinct sounds of a steam train.Was fortunate to see the GWSR in the distance-Gloucester,Worcestshire Steam Railway.
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We then went for a drive.First a loop to the north through a little village of Frampton cottages.
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The village was 3 buildings all the same as this one.
Then a loop to the south.this as we left Cheltenham.
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A church with a funeral Parlour in front.
We went to Bourton on the Water.A lovely little place but it was a fine Saturday and Tourists everywhere,Queues for all the parking lots so we just took a scenic route back.

Another problem with the hotel.As we left we put a Make up our Room sign on the door just as the Housekeeper went past.Came back 4 hours later and the room hadn't been done.So although the property is very nice it is let down by the service.An Exception was Kevin who I guess was a doorman-was assigned to take us to our room.A lovely fellow full of information,recognised us over the 2 days and always had a chat.

 

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Dinner that night in their restaurant.Service a bit slow.Also website says a dress code with jackets for dinner.Well more shirts outside pants than jackets.Get rid of it from the website as obviously not going to be enforced.
So an amusee bouche.Crab meat with a pea cream and a mousse-not sure of the ingredients.
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Now another problem was the wine pours.Mrsdrron had 2 250 ml glasses of an Italian Pinot Grigio but the bottle after 2 glasses was still half full.I had a 250 ml glas of an Mendoza malbec-La Mascota-but the bottle after the pour was only a quarter down.
For mrsdron the starter was the duck ravioli and I had the black and white pudding with langoustines.
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Mrsdron enjoyed hers but the langoustines were a little over done.Carluccios did them better.
For mains mrsdrron had turbot which was excellent.I had pork belly + pork loin.The pork loin was excellent.But the pork belly very disappointing with mushy fat and non crisp crackling.
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For desserts mrsdrron had a raspberry and basil dish-disappointing.I had the chocolate and orange with honeycomb which was fine.
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Basically it was lucky this was a Virtuoso booking as you also got $US100 off food during your stay.That came to 82 GBP and our food was 55 GBP for 3 courses.
A shot of the great hall as we left.
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And walking back to the room.
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