To make the most of a battlefield, find a great storyteller (Touring Salamanca and Vitoria)

If you marry a soldier with a passion for military history, you accept the fact that holidays may include battlefield tours. Our spectacular cross-country Spanish road trip was not born of a desire to experience the variety of the country's interior. We did it because a certain Arthur Wellesley once criss-crossed this landscape fighting the Peninsular Wars on the way to becoming Duke of Wellington and beating Napoleon at Waterloo.

Battlefield tourism isn't nearly as trying for the trailing spouse as you might imagine. The places that once hosted horrific slaughter have a strange tendency to evolve into beautiful, and profoundly peaceful, spots. If you're lucky enough to have a great storyteller to show you around, battlefields are the setting for thrilling tales of conflict, heroism, triumph and tragedy, played out with intense human emotion.

The quality of your experience will vary with the storytelling abilities of your guide. My grasp, and appreciation, of the Battle of Salamanca is now profound thanks to Raúl Bellido. Should you ever be interested enough to spend four hours climbing hills and rambling through an enormous valley due south of the Spanish university town, he’s your man. We had less luck with our guide in Vitoria, who was great on the overall area but clearly not a specialist on military history and the nuances of that particular battle.

What made Raúl so special? He started with a context-setting explanation of the politics of the time and what factors led up to the conflict on the 22nd of July, 1812. He took us to the critical points on the battlefield in order, giving us a timeframe at each spot so we were always conscious of where and when we were in the unfurling story. He had the keys to the small battlefield museum in Arapiles (the village that the Spaniards use to name the battle.) Raúl works here as a volunteer so brought us in for a private visit when everything was locked up tight. Checking out the dioramas, uniforms and other collections here at the mid-way point was a great way to consolidate what we'd learned thus far, and was also a brilliantly-planned bathroom break in a day otherwise spent in the open air.


We ended our tour with a moderately-challenging hike up to the top of the highest point of the action, the Grand Arapile, where there’s a monument and an incredible view.

Raúl ended the story with a vivid description of the final hours of the conflict, brought to life by the difficult terrain. My husband believes the landscape is the real point of a battlefield tour: maps, and even videos, don't give you the true picture of how hills, valleys and rivers factor into the action. At Salamanca it's obvious, especially when you're driving from one key point to another and see the way whole parts of the landscape disappear from certain vantage points. Wellington used the hills as camouflage in a giant game of hide and seek to gain his victory.

On the magnificent hilltop, Raúl finished with a true storyteller's flare, outlining the denouement before giving us a summary and his argument for why this was one of the most significant battles in European history. (The tipping point in the power struggle that led to Waterloo and the post-Napoleonic world.)


While you could do this trail on your own, downloading a map and driving to key points on the battlefield, it would be a lot harder without a guide. The roads up to the key spots with information points were generally farm tracks with little signage. There's no clear guidance on the museum's web site of when it's open. We never would have found, or even thought to look for, the wonderful battle murals and monument to the Duke of Wellington in Arapiles village.


What you could do without a guide is simply enjoy the fabulous landscape. The enormous valley ringed with hills is all protected as a historic site, and though roads go through it the traffic is light. There are lots of cyclists and hikers here simply enjoying the great outdoors. Packing a picnic and hiking up either of the Arapile hills, or going to the more easily accessible viewpoint at the little stone church called the Ermita de Nuestra Señora de la Peña, would make for a pleasant day out.


The battlefield at Vitoria is much harder to wrap your head around, with our without a guide. If Salamanca was Wellington's tipping point, Vitoria 11 months later was where he wrapped things up and delivered the death blow that pushed the French out of Spain. But the scale here is vast. The valley in Salamanca is perhaps 5 miles across, and has been kept completely pastoral. Vitoria ranged across the vast plan of Álava, encompassing more than 1000 square miles including armies climbing up and over mountain passes to get to the battle. Key points at Salamanca were perhaps 5 minutes apart by car. At Vitoria they were more than 20. Vitoria was more of a series of conflicts happening in the same general area across a day, culminating in the city itself, rather than just one storyline. It would be hard to get a a continuous narrative across even if you were a brilliant storyteller with flawless English and a military historian’s obsession with the battle. Sadly, our guide here wasn’t quite up to any of those, though he made a valiant effort. (He was much better when it came to showing us around the city itself, which I’ll cover in a later article.)

Without the context and the story, my attention was drifting as we spent the morning driving between a series of very attractive bridges. The story of the day seemed to be about various skirmishes to get across them, but I lost interest and just appreciated the scenery.


There was a hill to climb up, but the viewpoint it offers is less clear and the vistas are more of highways and industrial estates than of romantically rolling grassland. (The battle might not have left much of an impression on me, but the tidy industrial prosperity of the Álava plain had a big impact, brimming with modern factories and industrial complexes from which delivery vehicles glide to and fro on impressive highways. This is the capital of the Basque Country, the most prosperous region in Spain, and it’s obvious.)

Things started to make more sense in Vitoria itself, where the upper floor of the Álava Armory Museum is almost entirely dedicated to the battle. Here there are several dioramas, including a huge one that shows the whole valley as it was in 1813, with buttons you can hit to trigger lights that show you who went where, when. There’s no English signage but the Google translate app that works from photos of text does a good job. A ten minute’s stroll away, on the main town square, you’ll find a striking monument to the battle.

Ironically, the monument for the 1813 conflict wasn’t installed and dedicated until 1917. The centenary of the battle sparked a local realisation that they really should do something to mark what had become the most famous event in their history. The result, therefore, is far more exuberant and cluttered than anything that might have gone up immediately after the event. It ascends in four busy tiers. First, a level of life-sized stone sculptures showing the impact of the battle and its aftermath on the locals. Then a level of bronze sculptures … which also looked life-sized but may have been even bigger … involved in the conflict with Wellington astride his horse at the centre. Then comes a quiet bit; a stubby obelisk naming the battle. Then we’re back to bronze, with a massive allegorical figure of victory waving a flag while the British Lion at her feet prepares to eviscerate the prostrate, screaming French eagle in his paws. The artists involved clearly felt far enough away from the reality of the battle to take plenty of license. Wellington’s profile lacks his distinctive hooked nose and is more heroically handsome than his portraits, while my husband had fun picking out all sorts of issues with uniforms and military detail. But it you’re not bothered by those things, it’s a visually striking memorial set in a beautiful environment.

My husband found both days worth his time, but I could have happily skipped the battlefield parts of Vitoria and spent more time in the city centre. And even after being on site, my favourite Battle of Vitoria-related experience will remain visiting Apsely House in London, where artistic treasures from the abandoned French baggage train are displayed. (Not war booty but a gift to Wellington from a grateful Spanish king for his restoration.). While my husband wouldn’t have given up his trek around the plain of Álava, he too agreed that the day with Raúl was better by far. Storytelling wins this battle.

Five reasons to go out of your way for Walmer Castle

I have completed the Duke of Wellington trifecta.

As a local, and regular visitor, to the great man's country home at Stratfield Saye, and a long-time fan of the collection at his London residence Apsley House, I had just one significant English property to visit to complete the story of Arthur Wellesley's remarkable life in England. Walmer Castle was the home he was awarded with the honorary title of lord warden of the Cinque Ports, and the place where he died. With one day available for sightseeing in Canterbury, and having already visited the cathedral, this had to be my destination.

Walmer certainly delivers the goods for any fan of Wellington, offering up the room in which he died just as it was on that day. When you tour Stratfield Saye, the guides show you the original watercolour of the place captured at the time of his death and, indeed, it hasn't changed. It's simple and practical, with his camp bed, desk and armchair. Walmer was said to be his personal favourite amongst his residences, and you can see how the intimate scale and homely decor matched his dislike of excess. Apsley is a public stage set for great acts of government. Stratfield Saye is made for entertaining and dynasty building. Walmer is an old man's comfortable bolthole. You can also linger in an interesting two-room museum with gems like the original Wellington boots and the death mask of a touchingly fragile 83-year-old.

But there's much more here to see.

The military-minded will thrill to one of the best preserved of Henry VIII's coastal defences, still clearly showing the genius of its plan. Fans of architecture and design will be delighted to see how a comfortable, lovely country house has been carved out of a curiously-shaped Tudor fortress. History buffs will find much more than Wellington; a range of famous people lived here and an audio tour exposes you to the momentous things that happened within the walls. Gardeners will be impressed with the outdoors, which even on a grim day in early March were a delight.

Defence
When it was built, Walmer was a sophisticated piece of military high tech. Artillery was changing rapidly, and as a consequence so was defensive architecture. Cannon balls destroy corners, but are more likely to bounce off curves. Thus the castle is designed in the shape of a quatrefoil (a four-petalled flower). There's an outer set of quatrefoil walls, then a moat, then an inner set, with a round keep at the very centre. While the floral form looks very pretty from the air, the reality was a place bristling with guns at many levels that could shoot in many directions, from walls that were custom-built to repel enemy fire. The castle never fired a shot in anger at the enemy it was built to intimidate, France. But its location on the coast, so close that the old enemy is visible on a clear day, sent a very powerful message. Though the moat is now a garden and the keep a house, there are still plenty of cannon in place and it's obvious to see how the defensive structure originally worked. There's an excellent audio-visual guide that comes with the price of admission that explains everything, and shows drawings of the place ready for action in Tudor times.

The House
Once military technology moved on enough to make its concentric rings of cannon old fashioned, Walmer became a house that went with the honourary title of lord warden of the Cinque Ports. A succession of important, and often wealthy, public figures held the post, from Pitt the Younger to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, often putting their own money and ideas into improving the place. It is a cosy, quirky house, with some lovely interiors and decorative objects that reflect past owners. It's fascinating to see how architects carved a home out of this unusual defensive shape, complete with picture windows set into cannon embrasures and lots of rooms with curved walls. The most striking feature is the long hallway you encounter after ascending the stairs from the ground floor. Running the length of the house, all the oddly-shaped rooms radiate off it and a glass door at its end leads onto a cannon-studded terrace overlooking the beach and the channel. At the mid point, there's a lovely little octagonal lobby with light flooding in from windows set in a lantern above. A big fireplace and some of striking portraits lie below.

The decor is classic English country house: mostly a mix of Georgian and Victorian art and furniture with tasteful renovations and additions made in a consistent style in the 20th century. In addition to Wellington's bedroom and three museum rooms, you see a couple of comfortable reception rooms on the ground floor, while off that upstairs hall you find Pitt's bedroom and office, a dining room and a pleasant sitting room. There must have been more bedrooms, and plenty of staff accommodation, but this is definitely not a grand place. That adds to its charm.

History
Knowing a good deal about Wellington before I got there, I spent more time exploring the rooms devoted to Pitt the Younger. The wunderkind who became prime minister at 24, he'd worked himself to death by 47. No wonder, given that he had to spend most of his career juggling the twin problems of the Napoleonic Wars and a spendthrift Prince Regent. He also had a boisterous political opposition and was the butt of many a joke in the raucous dawn of the political cartoonist. (There's a great selection of the best cartoons here.) His bedroom and office suite give great insight into the man, as does a museum room.

The audio guide brings other eras of history to life, from the original Tudor soldier occupants to the early 20th century dinner parties at which WWI battle strategies were conceived. The daughter of the lord warden of the time wrote with gushing enthusiasm about how Winston Churchill planned Gallipoli at the dining table with "all the romance of a crusade." It's a chilling story, and a great example of how a good tour can bring a place to life.

Outdoors
Though you hear a bit about the Queen Mother indoors (and see a lovely portrait of her), it's in the gardens where she made her biggest mark. At this time of year, the woodland walk was most striking, with clumps of hellebores, late-blooming snowdrops and early blooming daffodils and miniature irises all adding colour. The space specifically known as the Queen Mother's Garden has interest all year round, with topiary castle walls and a long reflecting pool ... though it's clear the flower beds add colour in the summer. The moat was filled with daffodils, and lawns sprouted with crocus. It's the long, oddly-shaped yew hedges that made the most dramatic impression on me, however, looking oddly malevolent on a stormy, grey day. I have no doubt that the deep borders in front of them form a corridor of herbaceous glory in high summer.

The castle sits on a remarkably undeveloped strip of coastline. It looks like you could walk for miles between shingle beach, farmland and secluded homes. No doubt it's jammed with noisy holiday makers in warmer months, but right now it's moody and secluded ... something you don't associate with being in the London commuter belt.

Walmer is an English Heritage property, £10.10 per adult if you're not a member. There's also a tea room in the base of the keep, and a better-than-average gift shop. It would be a steep price if you were only interested in one of these aspects of Walmer. But if you combine Wellington, the military architecture, the history, house and garden ... all enlivened by an excellent audio guide ... it's well worth the price.

Exploring Blenheim and Stratfield Saye: From the same start, radically different results

Blenheim Palace and Stratfield Saye are unique amongst all the stately homes of England, thanks to their peculiar origins. Both were gifts from a grateful government to generals-made-dukes who had won epoch-defining battles against the French. Both were intended to trumpet the glory of national supremacy in their art and architecture. Both are "paid" for with annual rent flags, given to the reigning monarch by the current dukes and hanging in places of honour at Windsor Castle. And both have become such potent monuments to their founding figures that they have a shrine-like quality.

Yet it's hard to imagine two houses more different from each other. Blenheim: vast and imposing, backdrop to scores of films and entertainment venue for more than 700,000 visitors a year. Stratfield Saye: homely and comfortable, only open a few weeks a year and little known beyond locals and people with a specialist interest.

Though familiar with ... and a past multiple visitor to ... both, I recently had the rare treat of touring them both within a week. The experience cries out for a compare and contrast exercise.

Blenheim is a baroque tour de force. Its no surprise that its architect, Vanbrugh, started out in stage set design. The massive scale, Versailles-like projecting wings and military encrustations on the rooftops all trumpet "an important person lives here!" That continues inside, where towering marble halls dwarf the individual. All the Louis XIV furniture makes the place look more like a museum than a house, while the painted walls of the dining room ... where the great and good stare down upon you from lofty balconies ... continue the theme of putting you in your place. I confess it's my least favourite of the major English country house interiors because it's so lacking in warmth and humanity.

You would need a towering ego to be comfortable living here; something clearly possessed by Sarah, the first Duchess. Records show that she was obviously the driving force behind the construction, pushing on for decades after her husband's death to make sure nobody forgot that he'd saved England, Western civilisation and the world.

The architecture and interiors at Stratfield Saye are equally marked by their founder, but the result is entirely different. This is a moderately-sized Regency house, as aristocratic seats go, with cozy interiors and scores of homey touches. It's easy to imagine moving right in. The original intent had been to build another palace on a Blenheim-like scale. (You can see drawings in the hall on the way to the dining room; they're actually rather hideous.) But Arthur Wellesley wasn't that fussed about making a big statement, and his retiring, estranged wife was never going to follow in Sarah Churchill's footsteps. The duke was instead far more concerned about comfort and convenience. He personally designed a central heating system, putting Stratfield Saye ahead of many other stately homes by more than a century. He designed en-suite toilets into his guest rooms, cleverly concealed in beautifully-crafted corner wardrobes. The customised lamps throughout ran brighter and cleaner than contemporary alternatives, fuelled by rapeseed oil grown on the estate. In his library, you can see the reading chair he designed to allow a variety of comfortable positions, with moveable arms to hold book, candle and drink. The practicality continues today: the family uses the first Duke's dispatch boxes as coffee tables. The pile of remote controls and current magazines on one leaves you in no doubt this is still very much a family home.

You find out all of these details because you're taken on a guided tour by family retainers. On a wet Easter Saturday, the three in my group were the only visitors at the time and thus enjoyed an entirely personalised wander and got to ask loads of questions. This kind of intimacy, I suspect, is because the Wellesleys don't need the tourist money the way the Spencer-Churchills do. The first duke of Wellington's practicality created a manageable, well-run estate that's now able to fund itself in a way Blenheim simply can't. Thus the conversion of the Oxfordshire palace into a tourist attraction of Disney-esque proportions. Someone has to pay to heat that mausoleum and maintain all that art.

That's not to say that Stratfield Saye doesn't house equally impressive treasures. The first duke might have been humble and practical, but he enjoyed a bit of triumphalism. The long gallery here has the best collection of French Boulle furniture in England outside of the Wallace Collection. China, fine art, furniture and sculpture all attract the eyes, though the best stuff is up at Apsley House (more on that here) and the most interesting stories come with the family portraits. At Blenheim, you'll see similar stuff on a much grander scale, but it's the famous tapestries that are unique.

It's obvious by now that as a house, and for its founding personality, I favour Stratfield Saye. But I'll give Blenheim a clear victory on the grounds. The Wellesleys' place sits in pretty but unexceptional Hampshire farmland, not much "improved" except for some trickery on the river Loddon to create the illusion of a lake, and some pleasant gardens. At Blenheim, the push for grandeur that made their house a cold mausoleum made their grounds one of the greatest landscapes in England. This is thanks to the genius of Capability Brown, the greatest gardener of the 18th century and perhaps of all time.

Brown swept away the formality of French and Dutch gardens to create visions of pastoral paradise. Hills undulate, water caresses, herds or sheep and deer add movement, carefully-chosen trees combine to clothe the landscape in different shapes and colours. Grand architectural statements punctuate the horizon at the end of long vistas. Ironically, it's all just as artificial as the parterres, espaliers and clipped box it replaced ... but it doesn't look it. Wandering through the park at Blenheim on a mild, sunny day is a soul-soothing preview of what heaven must surely look like.

Half an hour outside Oxford, Blenheim is open most of the year, and offers a full day out with a variety of attractions. There's a variety of admission prices; many people skip the house and pay the lesser fee to enjoy the grounds. It's also the venue for a regular stream of events. Stratfield Saye is tucked in between Basingstoke and Reading, open at Easter and for about a month every summer; check their web site for details. There's not much to do beyond the house tour, so you'll only need a couple of hours. The estate farm shop nearby, however, is well worth a visit and is open year round.

Quiet North Hampshire is a sight-seeing treasure trove

The Vyne, Silchester Roman Ruins, Stratfield Saye, Chawton Cottage, Winchester Cathedral and the Bombay Sapphire Distillery

As a consideration while house hunting, density of nearby sight-seeing spots is probably not high on the lists of most English people.  It's a different story for the American expat.

Twelfth Night at The Vyne

For Americans who can find the time and money to push beyond the local choices of Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean, Great Britain is the No. 1 choice for foreign travel.  If they're visiting, the effort of trans-Atlantic flying means they'll be staying a while.  (Rocketing good guest accommodation up that house-hunting list as well.)  As their host, you'll probably want to spend time showing them around, so you want a range of sights that won't bore you, and aren't a hassle to reach.  If you can't take time off work, you want locations close enough for public transport, taxis, or easy drop off and pick up.  If you live in London, of course, this is no problem.  Once you move out of the capital, things can get challenging.

Not, however, in North Hampshire.  My Aunt Marian has just finished a long weekend here, reminding me of just how culturally rich our little part of this green and pleasant land is.  We spent three of her four days within 22 miles of home, packing in a delightful range of activities.  Don't let the charmless modernity of Basingstoke fool you into dismissing the whole area; there's gold in those surrounding fields.  Here's an overview.

The Vyne
The more I go to our local National Trust property, the more I love it.  (With the exception, earlier this summer, of a run-in with a particularly nasty volunteer who was channelling every sour, old, fun-hating librarian stereotype known to man.  I'll grant she might have been having a bad day, and forget it.)  The house is a gem.  Grand enough to impress, small enough to digest.  Distinct layers of history telling a story about how such places come together by slow amalgamation.  (Tudor, Carolingian, Georgian, Victorian)  And there's a good handful of blockbusters for history and architecture geeks: A

contemporary portrait of Catherine of Aragon in the chapel stained glass; a neo-classical staircase to make Wedgwood fans pant with desire;  one of the best Regency print rooms still in existence ... it's the supposed inspiration for the Duke of Wellington's rooms at Stratfield Saye;  Fascinating links to Horace Walpole and Jane Austen.  If you can play the piano, which is what my aunt actually does for a living, you can sit down and have a go at their Victorian ivories.

Outside, the gardens are pretty though unexceptional.  The real stars are the riverside and woodland walks.  In front of the house, lawns are thoughtfully dotted with deck chairs for your use, sloping down to a "lake" (created by holding up the flow of the river) graced by ducks, geese and swans.  Walk along its banks, swaying reeds towering above you, and you'll come to a remarkable marsh given over to wildfowl.  There's a wooden hide where you can sit and watch.  Or continue on for miles of meandering through the forest, silent but for the occasional hoot of a child's glee.

Every summer The Vyne hosts The Lord Chamberlain's Men, a traditional Shakespearean troop that performs, in a style the Bard would have recognised, on the lawns.  We were impressed by their Macbeth a few years ago (review here), and were equally delighted ... though considerably more cheered ... by this year's Twelfth Night.

Silchester
The Vyne has a fine collection of Roman artefacts unearthed locally, and one legend concerning its unusual name has the Roman Emperor Probus ordering the first vineyard in England on this spot.  Nobody can prove the wine lore, but there's no doubt about Romans being here.  Just six miles beyond the National Trust house, you'll find the remains of Calleva Atrebatum in the sleepy village of Silchester.  At the height of the Roman empire this was a bustling, walled town of more than 20 square blocks, complete with its own forum, government buildings, baths and a small amphitheatre outside the walls.  It was a major crossroads (much as Basingstoke is today), from where the road from London split into branches heading for Bath, Gloucester and Old Sarum.

While universities tend to excavate here every summer, and have unearthed some lovely stuff, you need to moderate your expectations.  No ruined buildings, mosaics or stacks of columns here.  Silchester's claim to fame is the only unaltered ring of Roman urban walls in England.  (You can see some fine circumferential walls in York and Chester, but they're mostly Medieval built on Roman foundations.)  Calves was completely abandoned by the 7th century, usurped by the Saxon settlements of Basing and Reading, and has spent more than a thousand years since as farmland.  At points, it takes some imaginative thinking to see that the tree covered ridge with the gentle slope down to a shade-dappled stream is, indeed, the remains of the old wall and the defensive ditch in front of it.  That's actually part of Silchester's magic.  You'll feel like you're an explorer stumbling on a lost city for the first time.  Other than the occasional local walking his dog, you'll probably be alone.  The most impressive bit is the West Gate, where a good-sized chunk of the wall looms out of the fields on either side, and the gap in its run makes clear where a stately gatehouse would have been.  The pastoral views from here are soul-soothing.  The silence is broken only by birds and wind-rustled leaves, putting you in just the right mood for a slightly melancholy contemplation of how easily the mighty can fall.

Stratfield Saye
Another local estate to benefit from Roman goodies unearthed in these fields is Stratfield Saye, though it's far more famous as the family home of the Dukes of Wellington.  Aunt Marian and I were both captivated by a quadruple-biography called Sisters of Fortune, which explored the fascinating lives of the four grand-daughters of the last surviving signer of the American Declaration of Independence.  Three moved to England and the eldest, Marianne, is reputed to have been the love of the first Duke of Wellington's life ... though she married his brother.  And, in her previous marriage, she was briefly sister-in-law to Jerome Bonaparte, brother of Wellington's arch rival.  A great case of truth being better than fiction.  Marianne is the only person not of the family "blood" whose portrait

hangs in the dining room here, and a miniature of that dining room portrait was found inside the Duke's pocket watch when he died.  Aunt Marian, who, like her historic name-sake, is also from Baltimore, had to make a pilgrimage to see where part of the story took place.

Most people will be more familiar with Wellington's public exploits: building the foundations of the empire in India, the Peninsular Wars, Waterloo, Prime Minister, mentor to Queen Victoria and godfather to her youngest son.  The estate here was supposed to hold a palace equivalent to the one John Churchill received from the crown to commemorate Blenheim, but things never worked out.  The Duke, always a man of simple tastes, made some basic alterations to the existing house.  His descendants followed suit.  Thus these days you have a fairly modest estate, crammed with treasures from the Great Duke's life that are often amusingly wedged into spaces too small to do them justice.  It's still very much a family home, only opened for a few weeks a year.  The tour guides know their stuff and all have more than a bit of hero worship for the man who established the line.

While in the area, check out The Iron Duke, an excellent gastropub in the estate village.

Chawton Cottage

At a big 17 miles from home, this is starting to push the sightseeing envelope ... but the drive alone is a thing of joy if you appreciate the beauty of rolling farmland and twisting lanes overhung by ancient trees.  At the end of the drive you'll find the charming village of Chawton, where a modest house (roughly the equivalent of a modern 4-bedroom suburban home today) saw Jane Austen write her greatest works.  Today, it's a museum to her life, family and novels.

Your enjoyment of Chawton will be in direct proportion to how much you know and love Austen's work.  Real fanatics can spend hours here, delving into possible influences for different characters and plotlines across her classics.  The casual reader may be more interested in how four genteel but cash-strapped women managed to co-exist in this relatively small space, or spend time wandering in the lovely gardens ... at their peak this time of year.  People who haven't read Austen should probably give this a pass; I know better than to ever drag my husband here!

Winchester Cathedral
Our most distant point, at a whopping 22 miles, is our county town of Winchester.  It never seems to be near the top of the English cathedral lists, perhaps because Medieval engineering and subsidence conspired to leave it without a cathedral's trademark spire.  It's a special place, however, and deserves more renown.  Like all English cathedrals, you'll need to pay to get in; the Church of England doesn't have the revenues to let tourists crawl all over its best assets for free.  Your admission (besides helping to maintain this glorious place) gets you a guided tour, and the volunteers are excellent.

I believe the greatest glory of Winchester is its chantry chapels, some of the best and most abundant in the land.  The rarest treasure, however, might be its Anglo-Saxon baptismal font, probably the best of its type to be seen.  Don't miss the Winchester Bible, the chapel with pre-Raphaelite windows by Bourne-Jones, and the caskets containing the bones of the Anglo-Saxon kings.  In their time, after all, this was the capital of the kingdom rather than London.

Beyond the cathedral close you'll find a provincial market town well worth exploring, with plenty of Georgian architecture enlivened by Medieval and Victorian neighbours.  Other than a ruthlessly ugly, but welcome, multi-story car park, there's not much evidence of the modern world.  Winchester also manages to have a decent proportion of independent restaurants and shops, making it a great place for a wander.

Bombay Sapphire Distillery Tour
Roughly half way between us and Winchester, The Bombay Sapphire Distillery straddles the crystal clear river Test in a wooded valley right out of a fairy tale.  We were early adopters last year, not too long after the company consolidated its distilling here at Laverstoke Mill and made their play for the tourist market.  (Initial report here)  All the essentials remain the same, but the eight months of development have helped them knock the rough edges off.  The plants in the greenhouses ... magnificent structures rising from the river and showing off the botanicals that go into the gin in their growing state ... have matured a bit so the display no longer looks so raw.  The tour guides have polished their patter; delivery was smoother, more amusing and had a few more jokes.  While this is a good option for a mid-winter visit (something not true of many other places in this entry), it's at its

best in the summer.  Pink lythrum and tall reeds swayed along the river bank, trout hung suspended in the water waiting on fat flies and visitors enjoyed the cocktail included with their tour on a broad sun-trap of a patio.  (Despite the clouds in my photo, we got intermittent sunshine while there.)  They've managed to capture the essence of English summer.  Which, depending on your perspective, is either ironic or perfectly logical coming from a brand developed specifically for the American market, relying on British style to generate sales.

I didn't buy any Bombay.  I confess, we're a Tanqueray house, though we've been sampling a lot of boutique, small batch distillery offerings lately.  And this is probably the least repeatable of the activities on my list simply based on price.  At £15 per person, it's the most expensive of the local attractions.  (The Roman walls at Silchester are the cheapest, being free.)  But this visit was worth it not just to give Aunt Marian a special experience ... Bombay is her brand ... but to discover a stunning cocktail called the Laverstoke.  I'll wrap this entry with the recipe.

The LaverstokeGlass – Balloon or large wine
Ingredients – 50 ml Bombay Sapphire
15 ml Martini Extra Dry (autumn season), Rosso (winter), Bianco (spring), Rosato (summer)
15 ml Bottlegreen elderflower cordial
100 ml Fever Tree ginger ale
Method – Pour the Bombay Sapphire, vermouth and elderflower cordial into a balloon glass. Stir with a bar spoon, then squeeze and drop a fresh lime wedge in. Add cubed ice and stir. Pour ginger ale in and gently stir. Garnish with second squeezed lime, two slithers of fresh ginger slices and a sprig of mint, grouped together on one side of the glass.