England #6 - Cheddar Time in The England Chronicles - September 2024

(Wednesday September 11 2024)

I would like to say that we set off bright and early for Cheddar Gorge, but we did not. We had planned to spend Wednesday in Bath again, and to stay till after dark, so were not very speedy about getting ready to go. And I’m pretty sure this was when Kim actually ordered us Nero coffees from Uber Eats, because she couldn’t face another morning with only mediocre instant Nescafé. We always ended up stopping somewhere early on and getting coffee, generally flat whites because … we did not understand how coffee works in England! Although this was our fourth trip so I’m not sure why we hadn’t figured it out by now. Every time we tried to order a black coffee (me) or a coffee with cream (Kim), we were met with blank stares. Even at Starbucks and Costa! Flat whites were the closest we could come, and I love flat whites but Kim was distressed at not having cream with her coffee (and omg I have JUST realized that this also explains a very baffling encounter Kim had at a nice upscale coffee shop in Bath a few days down the line - lol!!! Or rather “lol” in a couple more entries when I get to that odd attempt to order what she actually wanted).

Delicious and pretty flat white in Glastonbury to illustrate:

The following week we got to meet up with Ermantrude in Swindon, which was SO nice - and she had an explanation for our coffee bafflement, which is that Americanos are what you want to order if you are looking for a plain black coffee, and cream is not normally a thing that you pour into your coffee in the UK. Milk is, but cream is… not. Since an Americano is espresso diluted with hot water, that never even crossed my mind. Now we know! 

Anyhow, the coffee situation was not why we got a very late start to Cheddar Gorge. That was due to there being no available parking in Bath with our handy pre-booking app, other than a couple of spaces that seemed very far out of the center of town. And we certainly did not want to go through the parking place payment nightmare again. So we decided kind of spur of the moment to just go to Cheddar Gorge instead, and book parking in Bath earlier for Friday.  

Naturally getting to Cheddar took forever, despite only being 22 miles away. Because the GPS routed us down a B road again - which in our defense did make sense!! It looked like a shorter route!!! But was not a shorter route at all when we ran into a road blockade right at the outskirts of Cheddar. No signs, no warning, just… a blockade and a number of other annoyed drivers turning around in the middle of the road. We had to drive all the way back to Wells, get on the A road where we should have been to start with, and then drive back to Cheddar on a non-blocked road. The good thing was that the drive was absolutely gorgeous and went through a number of very pretty villages, and by then I was fine with the teeny tiny roads, so it wasn’t a waste at all - just took quite a lot longer than expected. We’d thought we might do a few other things in that area - it looks like it’s not far at all from Cheddar to Weston-Super-Mare, on the Bristol Channel! And Clevedon, where we stayed in the astonishing cliffside hotel that looked right across the water at the lights of Cardiff on our very first trip!  Although I’m sure in Reality World it would take fifteen hours. So it’s probably just as well that all we had time for was Cheddar and Cheddar Gorge and a cavern. 

Cheddar Gorge is an amazing limestone gorge just outside the town of Cheddar. Very interestingly, Cheddar cheese actually originated in Cheddar, and was being made there as early as 1130. Now there is only one cheese maker in Cheddar, although of course it’s made all over the world these days. We drove though the town and went to the gorge first. There is a lot to do and I was sorry we didn’t have an entire day. Also that we didn’t go up on the cliff walk. Jacob’s Ladder looks incredible and we definitely would have gone, but it was off and on rainy, and also Kim really would have had problems with her knee going up such a steep hill with so many steps (274, plus 48 more up the lookout tower!). 

We hadn’t had lunch and needed to recover a bit from the unexpectedly long drive, so first of all we went to the Chedder Gorge Cafe, and split a tuna sandwich and some cheddar crackers. Which weren’t actual cheese but were cheesy flavored and delicious! 

And the cafe has a great view: 

Ooops, this is actually the view OF the Cafe, down there at the far end of the row of buildings on the left. 

THIS is our view from the cafe: 

After that we walked through the shopping area of Cheddar Gorge. It’s made up of narrow shops in rows on both sides of the road that goes through the gorge, many of them looking like they are built right into the cliffs. It reminded us both of the village at Chimney Rock. Chimney Rock is a North Carolina state park with hiking trails and views near Asheville, and has a  little touristy town that’s also in a gorge area with lots of little shops along one road. Very sadly Chimney Rock was nearly wiped out by flooding from Hurricane Helene right after we got back home. 

We bought little packs of delicious local Cheddar cheese at this shop, along with some local beer. 

 The very pretty river that runs through Cheddar Gorge:

Since I still have approximately 348,650 gazillion pictures of the gorge cliffs, which we did drive/walk a bit into, and the cave that we toured, of course this will take two entries. There is also an amusing tale of yet another parking fiasco once we were back at our Airbnb! Amusing now. Not at all amusing at the time.  So, to be continued …