Chilford Hall 22-23 Sep 13

 

This was an unusual trip. We had been given a Christmas present of a day's wine tour and, after much consideration and planning, we settled on a vineyard 10 miles south of Cambridge purely for ease of access. We are glad we did!

 

On Saturday we were at the motorhome show in Lincoln, which was a bit of a disappointment as it was significantly smaller than the Peterborough show and there was quite a bit of old tat in the way of motorhomes on display (no Adria or Chausson on display). We did see a rather nice Hymer B544 though, but at over £70k a bit out of our price range, and the spitfire flypast was probably worth the journey alone.

Anyway, back to the vineyard. Up early, collected the bus from storage, put a few bits in the fridge and then the hour long drive down to Linton. We parked in the car park and wandered in for a coffee before the tour began. It really was a very interesting and informative day out, firstly wandering down to the vineyard itself to see the vines, with the guide going into great detail on the problems associated with wine making in the UK and the reasons for the layout of the vines themselves. It was then back to the Tudor barn for another interesting lecture on the winemaking process before we adjourned to the Bistro to sample six of the wines made at the vineyard - and excellent wines they are too! Lunch followed, accompanied by a bottle of wine, then we sat on the bench on the lawn in the warm sunshine and downed another bottle of excellent rose. By this time we were a little jaded so we adjourned back to the bus for tea and several cups of tea, before taking a stroll along to the vineyard again to watch the sun go down over the vines.

Back to the bus and enjoying the absolute silence of this remote location, we enjoyed a good nights kip before setting off back home in time for Debs to start work.

A great day out using the bus to its full advantage.