Day 6, 15 December - Telford & Chester

Shifnal town square is decorated for Christmas. Shifnal is the village that we lived in during 1989-90.

We caught the 9:00a train from Glasgow enroute to Telford. It was a journey of 2 train changes, but the trip went by fast. Virgin trains are nice, but I missed having the WiFi that we had on the east coast lines. We made train changes in Carlisle (emphasize the second syllable) and Wolverhampton.

Enterprise car rental picked us up at the train station in Telford and we got the rental car details sorted out. We enjoyed chatting with the chap that picked us up as he lives in Shifnal - the village we lived in in 1989 & 1990. Telford has grown a bit in 20 years since we were here, but we didn't have time to explore too much.

After getting the rental car, we drove to Shifnal, parked the car and walked the village. There is a lot of "re-building" in Shifnal but it doesn't appear to have expanded a good deal.  We got some lovely sandwiches at a small deli and ate while sitting on a bench in the town.

After our quick lunch, we took off in the car in search of Evelyth Hall. The manor where we had lived before moving into the village of Shifnal. Unfortunately, the turns didn't look familiar and before I knew it we were in Kemberton. I recognized the Mason Arms pub and I stopped and took a few pictures to show the home folk!

Since it was now getting dark (3:00p) we decided to head towards Chester as I'd rather navigate in the daylight. We made it to the hostel in Chester around 6:00p after a detour that neither Chelsea nor I could figure out how we managed to get off the A41 road!

Another navigation fiasco entailed when we decided to drive into Chester for dinner.  The hostel hostess said it was only a 20 minute walk, but we turned it into a 60 minute drive! We finally found Bridge Street - where the hostel hostess had recommended a couple of restaurants and we decided on Italian food!  We had a wonderful dinner at a family Italian restaurant on Lower Bridge Street - the best meal I've had since I've been here.

Tomorrow we're off to explore northern Wales...