Portland, England

 We arrived here about 30 minutes late because during the night there was a medical emergency and a guest had to be helicoptered off to a hospital.  We slept through the whole thing.  Our tour wasn't until 1:00 so we didn't have to rush this morning.  They moved trivia to the morning and I was the only one there from my team.  I shouldn't have bothered - only 7/18.  

The weather couldn't have been better - mid-'70s and the clouds blew away.  Portland, actually an island, used to be a big quarry town so lots of the homes are built with it.  This was the sight of the sailing competitions in the 2012 Olympics and they built a lot of townhomes to house the participants, which are now privately owned.  From the top of the hill, there are lovely views of the town and the bay.  When on the island, don't use the word "rabbit".  During the quarry days, the quarrymen would cut the rock and stack it up until ready to move it.  There are many rabbits here and they would burrow under the stacks which often resulted in them tumbling down, sometimes killing the quarrymen.  "Bunny" is ok, for some reason, but not "rabbit."  This was also a staging area for men and equipment in the preparation of D-Day during WWII and there is a memorial museum dedicated to them. 

The beach, seen on the left, is Chesil Beach and stretches for 18 miles.  It's made of pebbles, not sand.  The farther away you get from Portland, the smaller the pebbles get.  Potato-sized in Portland, pea-sized in Bridgeport.

Just across the bay is Weymouth, a cute beach town that came into its own when George III used to stay here with his brother.  The King was ill and was advised to bathe in the sea.  He had a special changing room built on wheels and would enter from his brother's front door, change into his bathing costume, and then be wheeled across the road to the beach. There's a very colorful statue of him and a model of his changing vehicle near the beach.  Unfortunately, the bus couldn't stop and I was on the wrong side to get photos.  It's a cute beach town with all the usual things you'd expect and many boats in the harbor.

Next, we drove to Dorchester for a bit of a walk around.  Its greatest claim to fame is that the author Thomas Hardy lived here and based the locations for some of his books on the area.

Church of the Holy Trinity, St. Peter, and All the Saints.  Sounds like that just about covers it all.

Once a fortress, now a museum.

Next stop was Athelhampton in the town of Puddletown.  It used to be called Piddletown, after the river nearby, but it's said Queen Victoria came for a visit and was offended by the name, so it was changed to Puddletown.  It's a lovely old home from Tudor times that has been added to and fixed up many times over the years.  It's now privately owned. 

A knife cleaner, not a sharpener, from the early 1900s

Gorgeous stained glass windows everywhere.

Small window openings - no glass, so maybe just for ventilation?

The gardens were huge - this is just one small section.

Nearby is the "planned community" of Poundbury. Prince Charles is responsible and designed it with an architect.  Our guide didn't seem to think much of it, but I think it's rather attractive.

There are shops in these buildings.

The homes are very similar inside, but with different facades.

It was planned to have wide lanes with the cars in the back, but that didn't work out very well.

We had a fun dinner with the trivia team and plan to do it again tomorrow.  We didn't start until a bit later as some had long tours today, and we ended up closing the restaurant.  Haven't done that before.

During dinner there was another call for Code Mike which is a medical emergency.  We could tell that affected Carl since he experienced that when his husband, Norman, had his heart attack.  I suggested that perhaps this was just for a fall or something else not quite so serious, but Carl and Patrick said they think they only call that when it is an immediate emergency.