Yesterday was our last day in Madeira and first in England.  We had packed the night before so there was little left to do other than finding a last pastry for breakfast, packing up our remaining euros and driving to the airport.  Driving to the airport is pretty easy, except when it isn't.  A few days ago we were driving on the main road when we saw an apparent accident-inspired line of standstill traffic in the opposite lanes that stretched for several miles.  With alternatives routes very hard to come by, such an event in our lane would almost certainly doom any hope of catching our flight.  Fortunately everything went smoothly both on the road and at the airport, and we were headed off to England.  Although our plane was about a half-hour late arriving in Madeira due to headwinds, those same winds took it and us back sufficiently fast that we actually landed at Gatwick a little early.  We are rather sorry to leave the Funchal airport behind, as it is a rather impressive engineering feat in its modern configuration, and we pass "under" it every time we head to the eastern side of the island.  Given the rocky steep slopes of the Madeiran terrain, about half of the runway is built on 180 huge concrete piers that cross over one of the shore indentations and extend out over the ocean!  Wicked crosswinds often make it an exciting landing.  Said to be the ninth most dangerous airport in the world; maybe we're not that sorry after all.

Once we obtained the rental car the fun began.  It was misting/raining off and on, the car was manual with the gear shift operated with the left hand, we were driving on the "wrong" side of the road in a mixture of roundabouts, freeways and tiny country roads, and the schedule was tight to get us to our destination before dark.  No worries for Phyllis and her intrepid navigator.  Just as it became too dark to hit a golf ball, we arrived at The Riverside, our destination for the night in Salisbury.  The inn is a bit out of town and not serving dinner these days but did offer a free shuttle into town, and we eventually (Salisbury downtown is an absolute warren of narrow cobbled one-way streets) made our way to the Ox Row Inn.  There we were finally able to relax and celebrate Phyllis' birthday (she's . . . well never mind) with a nice dinner and beer.  And thus ended our last day in Madeira and first in England.

Today we must make our way about four hours down the way into Cornwall to our ultimate destination of Falmouth.  But first, local sightseeing -- at least that was plan A.  We had chosen to stop in Salisbury both because it was as far as we figured we could get before dark and because it is the home of the Salisbury Cathedral.  The Cathedral is magnificent but we have seen many magnificent cathedrals in our travels.  However, it possesses something that none of those other cathedrals have, one of the three remaining original copies of the Magna Carta.  Thus the plan was to get up promptly, visit the Cathedral, see the Magna Carta and then get on the road to reach Falmouth before dark, with a slight detour to Southampton where we would find, not an ancient document but a Costco for lunch and an initial stocking of the larder for our stay here in England.  

Plan A first began to unravel when we went online last night to get our tickets for the Cathedral and discovered that on this particular day it did not open until 12:15 with access to the Magna Carta not until 12:45.  That timing would not work with the Costco detour so we briefly considered driving to Costco in the morning and then driving back to go to the Cathedral but that seemed stupid (which we later proved to be true).  Then we remembered that on our way back to Gatwick some four weeks hence we were going to stop for the night to see the nearby Stonehenge at sunset.  A quick calendar look convinced us that we could combine that with a Cathedral visit and thus Plan B arose.  We would leave soon and drive to Costco and then on down a local road to Falmouth, getting in comfortably before dark.

All this went well until we left Costco and started toward Falmouth when we discovered that our GPS was sending us northwest, back towards Salisbury instead of southwest toward Falmouth on the A31.  Just at this time we noticed one of those electronic highway signs stating that the A31 was under some form of duress and it was not recommended to go that way.  Thus Plan C, we drove back towards Salisbury (and by "towards" we mean that we literally drove right by The Riverside from whence we started).  Ultimately we drove through rain, traffic and sometimes narrow roads, arriving in Falmouth just before dark.  We found our new home for the next two weeks, had a nice supper with our wine and chicken pie (from Costco) and settled in.  As it turned out, we drove a total of 5-1/2 hours.  A long day of changing gears and navigating.