I have had the extreme pleasure this week of traveling with Blue Ridge Community College on their Literary Tour of Southern England.  Our journey began at Stonehenge and continued on to Salisbury Cathedral.  Our next morning was spent in Bath at the Roman Ruins, in the Abbey, and at the Jane
Austen Museum.  Our afternoon took us to Tintern Abbey in Wales, a most beautiful and sacred place.  Then we recited verse, played a trivia game and silly walked our way to Stratford through flooded roads and long lines of traffic.  But the experience could not damper our excitement over Shakespeare and the beautiful city of Stratford. After several snippets of restful sleep, we were off again to Oxford where we had the extreme pleasure of attending Sunday services at Christ Church.  The setting and the music were simply amazing.  Much of our day was spent exploring this lovely little college filled town, highlighted by lunch at The Eagle and Child, a local pub where CS Lewis spent time with his buddies.  We enjoyed Oxford, but were excited as we started our journey to London, where we walked by Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, through Piccadilly Circus, and Leicester Square. We spent a day down in Canterbury, where we visited the Cathedral and a museum on the Canterbury Tales. It’s a two hour train ride, but well worth the visit to this old English city.  Our next day was spent at Westminster Abbey (incredible, especially due to our Blue Badge guide, Ian), walking through Shakespeare and Dickens’
London, culminating with a lovely evening performance of Othello by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Globe Theatre.  It was an amazing performance, and a beautiful end to a lovely tour of Southern Literary England.