We set off from Par at 9.00 am Saturday morning. We headed to Liskard and then through some wonderfully scenic villages and countryside onto the A38 passing over the Tamar Bridge at a cost of £2.60, towards Exeter and the M5.
We stopped in Kingsteignton, at my sisters, for coffee and cake. A very welcomed break. We were expecting the next section of our trip to be very busy, because the annual Devon County Show was on…..however we had a good run through, stopping at Westbury Station for our picnic lunch. John took a couple of train related photos. We continued our trip to our overnight accommodation. We had decided to stay at The Schoolhouse Restaurant and Hotel. This quaint hotel is set in a Victorian building which is 2.8 miles from junction 16 of the M4, and 3 miles from Lydiard Park. It is an ideal stop off for dinner and accommodation enroute from Cornwall back to Bedford. The hotel is situated in Hook, a quiet hamlet surrounded by peaceful countryside between Swindon and Royal Wootton Bassett.
The former schoolhouse was built in 1859 and was the village school up-until 1965. In 1989 the School House Restaurant was expanded to include hotel accommodation. The restaurant seves it’s meals in the old school dining hall. A lot of the historical features were retained and these make it the quaint and quirky place it is today.
The Schoolhouse Hotel and restaurant are a small family run establishment . The first time we visited was in 2017, we were greeted by Fred, the dog, and Karen , while Tonny was in the kitchen preparing his delicious food. This time we visited and we were greeted warmly by Karen. Unfortunately Fred had passed away the week before, he will definitely be missed not just by Karen and Tonny, but also by returning visitors. Karen showed us to our rooms. Dad was in The Bedfordshire, whilst John and I were once again in The Eton. The rooms are a throw back to olden times in terms of furniture and decoration with all modern comforts such as tv, iron & board, kettle, USB ports etc. Our evening meal was served in the old school dinning room.
The food which has a European influence, is cooked to perfection with your plate looking non fussy but very artistic. We each had a a main course and a desert. My main course was Breast of duck served in a bacon and strawberry jus.
John had a beef bourguignon with rice.
Dad had Fillet of Pork with backed apple in an apple jus.
All were each served with a delightful side plate of perfectly cooked vegetables.
For dessert John and I both choose a sort of large spring roll stuffed with apple at each end and goats cheese in the middle….it was so yummy. Dad had a very tasty Bread and Butter pudding with custard……
Wow!!! it was a really lovely meal…if we lived nearer we would use this restaurant more regularly …a great place to enjoy really good food. We have eaten in Mitchelin Star restaurants on lots of occasions and the food at The Schoolhouse restaurant ranks as some of the best we’ve ever had……..if you’ve not been you need to go.
We retired to our rooms with the warm glow which comes when you know you’ve had a great meal. We all had a good nights sleep. Breakfast is served in the hotel entrance hall….the choice is varied to meet all tastes. We all went for The School House full breakfast…..bacon, sausages, 2 beautifully poached eggs, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, potatoes, black pudding and fried bread……I swapped my beans, black pudding and tomato for toast….wow ….we also had a 10/10 cup of coffee ( the first of the holiday !!) and some orange juice….
Shortly before 10am we waddled out to the car and headed for home. We had been going to stop for lunch but we were so stuffed from breakfast that we didn’t want to eat again.
What a great last night to our week in Cornwall……a lovely holiday …opps sorry I meant …staycation. Thank you John and Dad for yet another lovely week exploring our own country.
We are off for a weeks holiday in Cornwall, the southwesterly tip of England. It is one of our favourite holiday destinations when we are staying in our home country. Before the pandemic we just called it a holiday now we call it by the rather grandiose name of a ‘Staycation’ !
We set off from home this morning and drove across to my 93 year old Dads house to pick him up. We had an extra companion today as dad has purchased ‘Little Betty’ ( a fold up, pull along one piece mobility scooter), and she sat proudly next to him on the back seat. How we fitted the usual amount of luggage in as well as Little Betty is beyond me…but with a fair amount of pushing and shoving and a few choice words we finally shut all the doors and set off at 10.00 am.
We made good progress with very few hold-ups, on a road much travelled by us. Heading straight through Bicester and on to the A34 then turning to Swindon on the A420. There is a delightful restaurant and Motel called Mollies, on this road. A room would cost you about £75.00 per night….but I am ashamed to say we only usually stop to use their very plush facilities!!! On reaching Swindon we joined the M4 west towards Bristol exiting at junction 17. From here we took the A350 signposted to Poole, bi-passing Chippenham and through Melksham towards Westbury. Dad likes going this way as he had 6 weeks training in Melksham when he was drafted to the RAF for his National Service in 1955 until 1957. We are always interested when Dad talks about his past….his actual main posting was at RAF Upwood, near Ramsey. We’ve taken him to visit this now derelict shell, which has been vandalised and graffitied all over….Anyway I digress……..When we got close to Westbury we wound our way down a farm track and parked up near the railway line….this is a spot we know well and have spent many a relaxing day with John photographing trains and Dad and myself enjoying the beauty of the unspoiled countryside around us…….we were actually here when I read on my iPad, the up to date news, that Boris Johnson was putting the country in lockdown……we had to race back to our hotel and pack up and drive the 3.5 hours journey home….again I digress… today we sat and had coffee and our sandwiches, enjoying watching my dearest husbands jubilation at photographing a few trains he hasn’t already seen this year.
I also decided to book us into a rather quirky hotel on our return journey. John and I had stayed at The School House and Restaurant at Wootton Bassett a few years ago and decided Dad really ought to share the experience…..I won’t tell you all about it now but I will say it really is a good stop over, lovely rooms, great food and superb hosts and I include the dog in that!!!! I tried phoning to make the reservation but had to leave a message……more on this in a minute or two……
We continued our trip on to Westbury Station, John likes it there as there are usually freight locos stabled up. Today was no exception. We dropped him off and he said he’d phone when he was ready to be picked up.
Dad and I drove around to a small Youth Sailing lake and watched the boats and enjoyed seeing the very young goslings. On returning to the drop off area of the station the phone rang and thinking it was John I answered in my best Policeman Plod voice “Hello! Hello! Hello!”. I was absolutely flabbergasted when a female voice laughingly replied “Hello! Hello! Hello!”, ….oh dear … I felt obliged to explain that I thought she was my husband calling to be picked up…..Dad was laughing his socks off…..needless to say it was the owner of the School House Hotel. Yes! I think she thought I was totally mad….but she took our booking £76.60 per night for a double room bed and breakfast, she also booked us a table in the restaurant. We will look forward to this as the last night of our holiday.
I had just finished my conversation with her and John walked out of the station saw us and once again we were on our way. This time only a few miles to Frome where we are staying overnight in The Premier Inn. Again we’ve stayed here several times before, it’s comfortable and a convenient stopover as Cornwall is really too far for us to drive in one go, it also has a “Beefeater” next to it and at £75.00 a night per room -room only, you can’t really go far wrong. A bit of a tip about Premier Inns if you have a request like us :- two ground floor rooms next to each other, you need to phone them directly and request it with your booking number, because if you fill it in on the special request form when you book it goes no further than Central reservations….. the actual hotel can’t see your online special requests….anyway, there was a lift and the receptionist did manage to get the rooms just one room apart so we were grateful…we were also grateful that she told us why our request hadn’t been honoured…this isn’t the first time Premier Inn hasn’t honoured our requests so at least now we know why….Nice rooms but be warned..no air conditioning and the windows only opens a couple of inches…..
Tomorrow we go to the house, in Par, Cornwall, which we have hired for the week …
We stayed in quite a few hotels and guest houses on what is the usual tourist route around Sri Lanka. 1) On arriving in Sri Lanka we spent the first 3 nights At Ayubowan Guest House in Negombo.
This is within walking distance of the town centre, the beach and some good restaurants- we can recommend The White House and Sea View restaurants…great sea food and curries.
The Ayubowan Guest is owned by Brenda and Ron, who originate from Kent in the UK. The guest house is very well run. We originally had an upstairs room, which was big and airy it’s private bathroom was not en-suite just a couple of metres down the private corridor. However I wasn’t very comfortable with this arrangement and we had wanted a downstairs en-suit room. So the next day Brenda had her very obliging staff move us to a lovely downstairs room. This wasn’t as big but it had a nice en-suite, opened on to the veranda and more importantly, for comfort, the air conditioning didn’t blow directly on to the bed…so the room was cool without freezing you in bed. Breakfast was either a Sri Lankan breakfast which Brenda told us was very spicy hot, or a British Breakfast…. We opted for the British. It was fresh fruit followed by bacon, sausage and egg and toast and jams. It was all very pleasant, we met some nice guests and enjoyed the swimming pool. You need to be aware that you can’t use a credit card here. Brenda was happy to call Patrick, her regular tuk-tuk driver, to take us to restaurants and return us…each trip was about 500 SLK rupees….which we later decided was far to much but we paid what he asked and at about £2.60 a round trip it wasn’t really worth the hassle of bartering.
2). Our second recommended hotel is Hotel 4U Salina Gardens in Anuradhapura, ( You will note that it’s not the 2nd hotel we stayed in as we really couldn’t recommend that one). We liked this from the moment we arrived. It wasn’t a very salubrious area and the entrance looked vaguely like a building site…but don’t be put off…the reception was lovely, we were greeted by two lovely ladies who really tried hard to meet our every need. We had requested ground floor on all accommodation but once again we were booked upstairs, but the ladies soon sorted it out and changed our booking to a large en-suite room which opened on to a veranda overlooking the pool.
They even offered to set a table down stairs as the restaurant was upstairs…we did however go up stairs and had a table overlooking the pool. The friendly German Shepherd dog escorted us around, usually with one of his toys to throw for him.
The menu was the most extensive we had anywhere we stayed…it wasn’t cordon bleu, it was however well cooked and very tasty at a very reasonable price.
From this hotel you can go to the main gate of Wilpattu ( wish we’d known this) and also explore Anuradhapura. It’s a great base…set around beautiful gardens. On the morning we checked out we met the owner….we’d actually met him the day before without realising as he was tending the garden and checking the pool…which was spotless. The owner was a delightful, elderly gentleman who had built the whole hotel himself, from the design to the construction. We loved this place…it was very reasonably priced and although not posh, it was very comfortable with everything you needed. You can use a credit card her. 3). Lavendish Wild Safari Hotel, was one place we hadn’t expected to stay…but due to a slight mix up with our travel arrangements our tour company booked us in here. It was like most chain hotels, very pleasant, nice big en-suite rooms, lovely views, nice restaurant….a word of warning if it’s a buffet evening meal get there early or most the food will be gone and you are left with little choice…..the hotel is a bit impersonal and you fit in around them rather than them meeting your needs…we wanted to be out for Safari at 6.00am so needed a packed breakfast but the kitchen didn’t start until 6.00am in fact a few staff dawdled in at 6.15am and even though our guide and the jeep driver did their best to chivvy them on we didn’t get off until 6.30am. The good thing about this hotel is that it’s only about 10/15 minutes from the Wasgamuwa National Park gate. They do take credit card here.
4). Our absolutely favourite hotel came next on our trip..The Elegant Hotel Kandy. It is fact about 15 minutes outside Kandy. Absolutely superb hotel. Immaculately trained staff, lovely welcome, beautiful room with amazing views. Great menu, wonderful food which was serenaded by two singers with a guitar.
The pool was very welcomed and beautiful views. The gardens were nice to wander around..it was a deluxe hotel which certainly lived up to its excellent reputation. It was the perfect place to relax.
They took credit card. It was well situated for the tooth temple, a Kandy Evening street food walk with guide, a cultural show, the botanical gardens and of course the train station.
5). Our 5th recommended hotel is Beach & Bliss in Mirissa…yes we have missed Ella and Yala out- my mother used to say if you can’t say end thing good about something don’t say anything at all …although the hotel in Ella did have a fabulous view…I really can’t think of anything good to say about the hotel in Yala, where we stopped 4 nights and had to put up with unpleasant food, a room which wasn’t cleaned or made up even though we asked for it to be and we even had to provide our own loo roll because we asked for some more and it was not forthcoming…..so we jump ahead to Mirissa….we were supposed to be booked into the same hotel for 4 nights but once again the Sri Lankan booking agent had made a mistake and we were only booked in for 3 nights. Our guide and driver sorted it out and we spent a night at Beah & Bliss. The beach is actually a short walk along as it was pretty rocky in front of the hotel… The manager was really kind and switched all his bookings around so that I could be on a first floor room…we laid around the pool looking out to sea… we had a fabulous evening meal and a good breakfast the next morning.
6). Sea World Botique hotel …finally we book in for our 3 nights…rather disappointed that we didn’t have a sea view room …if you book here you must book a sea view room ..the other rooms are on a noisy road and very, very small. The sea View room we were moved into after our first night was divine …the crashing waves, fantastic view, lovely balcony, huge room, big bed…loads of power points, massive bathroom and a spa shower…
We enjoyed the sun deck and the breakfast and the one evening meal we had there. They take credit card but prefer cash. The staff are very helpful and kind. It is ideally situated for using the restaurants on the beach in Mirissa and for a whale watching trip.
7). Sapphire Seas Hotel in Hikkaduwa is our final recommended hotel. It is right on a superb stretch of golden sand. We had a wonderful room on the second floor….there is a lift ( it didn’t always work when the electricity was of low wattage in the evening !!!) we had a wrap-around balcony so we could see the beach and sea from two different aspects. It was a massive room with a nice big bed and a fairly small en-suite bathroom with a shower. The electricity was strange in this hotel…sometimes the sockets and lights worked sometimes they didn’t…but if you tried them all you usually found a few to work…..but that aside ..nothing dull the awe and wonder of the beautiful seascapes from this room.
During the day there are loungers on a deck overlooking the sea and the pool. The food and beverage manager is really nice and friendly and organises his team to move the shades as the sun moves.
The restaurant is excellent ..the chief a talented man with a good sense of humour and a talented cook, he’ll even ask what fish you want to eat before he heads off to buy it.
This hotel is great for relaxing and a good base to visit Galle, a turtle sanctuary and a tsunami remembrance museum.
We awoke in the early hours to find the bathroom wet and mopped the large puddle up with a towel, realising the water was coming through the ceiling in a steady drip we put another towel down so we wouldn’t slip and promptly went back to sleep!!!! John made me a lovely cup of our own coffee in the room after a couple of false starts when the socket he’d used yesterday had stopped working….but not to be deterred he walked the kettle around the room until he found a socket which did work….what heaven at last a decent cuppa coffee!!! I’d forgotten about it whilst we’d been having our early morning get-ups. We made it down stairs for breakfast by 8.30 am to find that although there were few people about most the sun-loungers facing the sea with a parasol had already been ‘baggied” by none viewable people who had obviously then gone back to bed..grrrr…..this is a real pet hate of mine and really cheeses me off particularly when we are cruising…it’s so selfish, especially as some people don’t pitch up to take up residency until late morning by which time we would have gone for some cool-off time in our room….any way RANT over particularly as we then hypocritically put our towels on the last two remaining front row loungers and sat at a table nearby for breakfast….this was much the same as yesterday only this morning one of us got pineapple and one of us got passion fruit…..we also managed to get the pancake served without sugar sprinkles all over it…and of course it was all swilled down by the normal undrinkable coffee!
Breakfast finished and having told the manager about the water coming through our bathroom ceiling we took up our positions on the sun beds. A kind Austrian man helped us move a rather heavy parasol to give us some shade and eventually I asked the waiter to move another so we both had shade. The sea wasn’t quite as rough as it had been and some brave souls went for a swim, however we only got as far as thinking about it when some rollers came in and knocked people flying. So we took our hot bodies to the pool to cool of.
After a few repeats of sun and pool we retired to our room to enjoy the view from air conditioned surroundings. Thankfully the leak had been stopped and the bathroom no longer had an identity crisis thinking it was the swimming pool!!!
Having rested, away from the intense heat, we went down to have lunch under the fans. We both had the same as yesterday …John a cheese and a tomato sandwich and I had seafood Ton Yum again. We then had another hour or so of sun and pool and generally enjoying the beautiful surroundings.
The heat of the afternoon sun soon got the better of us and we retired for a siesta prior to getting ready to go for supper. We sat at our usual table under the fan for our evening meal. I think you would call him the floor manager, brought us menus. He is a very hardworking man…there at 7.00am and stays until the last person goes to bed…he seats people, hands the menus out, takes orders, organises the other young staff, collects the sun lounger cushions in etc, etc. in fact I don’t think there is anything he doesn’t do….he has a dry sense of humour which we both like. Soon after he had handed the menus to us the chef appeared and greeted us like his favourite customers. He once again told us what fresh fish he had and ended off with jumbo tiger prawns ….well that was us sold….we did ask how much he said £10 for 10 but because it was me he would give us 12…..well that was the budget blown but you only live once so we went for it and we’re very glad we did….
The floor manager came back and said he could see from our empty plates we hadn’t enjoyed the meal and why hadn’t we finished the soup (that was the finger bowl). He then asked if we wanted the same as last night for desert…well! It would have been rude to say no….so we rounded the evening off with John having his fruit salad and ice cream and me having banana fritters and coconut honey….what a scrummy meal. We thanked both the chef and the Floor Manager for yet another lovely meal and retired to our room …sleepy and contented.
We said farewell to Tringa Villas Yala and we were not sorry to move on. The owner was conspicuous by his absent and we only saw him the first evening, when he was concerned we might give him a poor write up. The rest of the time the place seemed to be managed by the cook who tried to do everything and was obviously so busy that raising a smile was hard work. It’s a pity the owner, who had a lot of charm didn’t spend more time growing the business particularly if he wants customers to give his setting glowing reports. We were disappointed with our choice of accommodation, the food it served and the complete lack of cleaning over our 4 night stay. What’s more they charged us for daily water… even in the cheapest of places we were given 2 bottles a day…… and they charged our driver for his food which was no more than very basic…. They also didn’t take credit card payments, luckily we had enough cash on us to pay….. Would we stay there again… No .
So we headed to the fast toll road and whizzed along to Mirissa. We were quite excited about our 4 night stay at The Sea World Botique ( their spelling!). It was more expensive than a lot of our accommodation so we had high hopes of a wonderful relaxing couple of days……
Alas …. The Sea World Botique didn’t have us booked in until 21st February for 3 nights and they were fully booked….you can imagine I was not amused…we had specifically booked this boutique hotel because it was small, more personal and more upmarket. Suminda our trusty guide and driver had several discussions with Jetwing travel and the lady in charge of our booking. She apologised and admitted it was her mistake but this didn’t really sooth my annoyance. She gave us one option for the night, which she said was a better hotel ( it was nice but at first sight it didn’t seem as nice as our original booking). This was Beach & Bliss hotel. When we got there they only had a second floor room which meant doing about 50 steps…I said “ no way” I’d have to go down to the pool, beach, restaurant etc and back up again to change, rest etc…so several hundred steps which I just can’t manage. They were very kind and said they would serve our meals in our room. But I didn’t want to be a prisoner in the room because of a booking mistake. I asked Suminda to request that his Jetwing lady to give us other options…this went on for a considerable length of time with no other options being offered apart from we could have half board at Beach & Bliss….considering it was a cheaper hotel ( according to booking.com) this didn’t really cut it with us. The manager at Beach and Bliss was very kind and altered all his bookings around to give us a 1st floor room, which we had no choice but to accept. It took a while for me to stop feeling cross because not only didn’t we get to stay in the hotel we had selected and thought we had booked but we were going to have to give up a half day to change hotel again. Having said all that Beach & Bliss is a lovely hotel, the food is superb, the manager and waiters very caring and attentive and they have been extremely kind. The pool, deck area overlooking the sea and the restaurant looking at surfers is sublime….it could well be nicer than the hotel we’ve booked…we don’t know because we haven’t seen our room there or eaten there…..we can definitely recommend Beach & Bliss. Lovely room overlooking the sea with balcony, good air-con etc.. We had a well needed swim in the pool a relax on the sun-lounger then retired to our room to make use of the speedy WiFi.
We decided to eat off the half board menu and for our evening meal we had – spring roll followed by pumpkin soup and assorted breads followed by pineapple sorbet. I chose grilled tuna steak for my main course and John elected to have pork chops. For dessert I had “grape sausage’ with ice cream which was pancakes with a lovely sauce and John had fruit salad and ice cream. The meal was sublime… the best we’ve had in Sri Lanka by a long way.
We went to bed to the sound of the sea… although the day had a big hiccup, we ended up in a lovely place.
2 J's World of Adventure 