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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

I feel better. I am older (61) and not a lawyer, but the only books I now enjoy reading are Victorian novels of the Trollope, Eliot and Brontë sisters sort. I am irritated that there is not more Jane Austen to re-read. I have ventured out here and there to more modern British authors: Barbara Pym, Anita Brookner, Margaret Drabble and her sister A.S. Byatt but am running out of books that depict the quotidian details and domestic banter I crave. I am not sure why I need to read about the merits of certain frocks and bonnets, but I do. It is odd to stare blankly when someone asks if I’ve read the latest “it” novel, but other than Elena Ferrante I don’t like any of them.

I am now turning to streaming. I just watched Thackeray’s Vanity Fair mini-series (with Martin Clunes/Doc Martin) and am now enjoying Gentleman Jack. I loved Downton Abbey, the Crown, all  the Austen iterations and will try Father Brown. [b]I have never been to England and have no real desire to visit as I know it would be like Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.[/b] [/quote]

You mean...not like you expected/fantasized it to be? (It's been ages since I saw that movie, so....)

My DH is English and (until the pandemic) we went over there every year, plus I lived there for a year at one point. A PP earlier in the thread said something along the same lines as you did, about loving the shows and novels etc. but not wanting to visit in real life. May I suggest those of you who feel this way rethink things? If you plan enough, you can have a fantastic experience that will give you plenty of the old vibes you crave. Focus on getting out of London and basing yourself somewhere you can visit National Trust properties, villages, coastal towns, etc. I know the South and Southwest best (Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire) but Yorkshire can do the same for you and so can places in Scotland and Wales.

It's a matter of having the money, frankly, to stay in a good small hotel, B&B or best of all, a historic property--quite a few National Trust, Landmark Trust and English Heritage-run properties have accommodations you might not even realize are there! We have stayed maybe 15 times at a modern flat located inside a 12-century castle ruin with 16th-century additions in my in-laws' town.

You do best if you have a rental car and someone willing to drive, though; that's how to see the relatively unchanged villages and stop at little tea rooms and pubs on a whim. I know, I'm fortunate that DH was raised driving in the UK but we also do take buses between villages and of course trains.

Not to mention that visiting authors' houses (Jane Austen's country home is open and there is also an excellent Austen museum in the city of Bath) and filming sites for series you loved can be great.

I know, it's expensive but I just wanted to note that for those who are balking at ever traveling to the UK out of any concern it isn't like what you see and read--of course it's modern, but you can see many, many fantastically kept historic and literary sites, and wander all day long around villages that still have a bakery, a butcher, a sweet shop, a small local department store like we used to have here, etc. [/quote]

I don't need to be told to "rethink" visiting my home country thanks very much. If I don't want to go there, I'm not going and if I do want to go there I already know how to navigate a trip. This post is unbelievably patronizing. [/quote]

Sorry you feel that way but the post [i]wasn't aimed at you, as a native[/i]. Another poster here had talked about not thinking she would ever travel to the UK because it would be a letdown compared to shows etc. She came back and appreciated the post. It was not intended to be patronizing to anyone, just an attempt to let anyone who hasn't been there know that they can have an experience that feels largely like what they enjoy about the shows we've discussed here. Again--this wasn't supposed to be telling a native how to navigate your own country. Maybe you were the other poster who talked about not wanting to go back and I missed that you were a native; sorry. But the other person isn't one. [/quote]

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