Long before we even had the plan of moving abroad and since we always talked about how we wanted to travel and see the world, my parents gave us a fascinating book,
1,000 Places to See Before You Die that lists places of interest all over the world. Areas of natural beauty, historic sites, world heritage sites, restaurants, those sort of things that interest us and more hotels and spas than I would care to know about.
For years we've been able to tick off numerous locales, from the Dry Tortugas National Park, visiting sites in California, Costa Rica, Japan and across the U.S. The book also reveals details and tasty information tidbits that might intrigue us enough to add new places we want to make sure we see.
As a complete coincidence with the way the book is organized, it starts with European countries, beginning with England sites. The very first listing in the book is
Cliveden (pronounced Cliv-den), a site that happens to be half a mile from our house. So today, with our newly acquired membership to the
National Trust in hand, we visited the first item listed in the book.
This historic house, formerly home to previous Princes of Wales and other high society socialites, is now a hotel with amazing surrounding gardens. It is situated atop a hill and has spectacular views over the bit of English countryside we call home. Walking along the Thames near our house a few days later, I was able to spot the golden clock tower sparkling in the sun.
This was a nice low impact introduction to the area we live in for Mark's mom and grandmother. We had gorgeous sunny weather (as we did for the entire ten days they were here) which made for a lovely walk through the gardens. We should have packed a picnic and enjoyed lunch on the grounds, like the countless others, directly under the "no picnicking" signs.