After a few days in London, we made our way to the Salisbury Plain and visited Stonehenge. It is not as old as Newgrange near where we lived in Ireland, but it is still much more famous. One gets an "otherworldly" feeling walking around the massive stones, and one cannot wonder at what transpired there so long ago. We stopped for lunch after our visit, and I had a wonderful shrimp croissant with a bowl of the best shrimp chowder I have ever tasted. I will save that recipe for another post.

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I had this scrumptious sandwich at a restaurant in Stratford-on-Avon during our tour of England. Stratford is the birthplace of Shakespeare, and so as an English educator I was anticipating this visit. Steeped in culture and history and set in the beautiful rural Warwickshire countryside on the banks of the river Avon, it is one of the most important tourist destinations in the UK. I was not disappointed. We spent a glorious day there roaming about his birthplace experiencing Olde England.

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Laois (pronounced Leash) is a county in the midlands of Ireland. Situated in the Province of Leinster, this small county is the only one in Ireland not bordered by another county with a coastline so it is often missed by tourists. It is a county one passes through, but I am so glad we stopped at a pub for lunch near the county town Portlaoise as we were touring to see the Slieve Bloom Mountains. A special on the menu that day was indeed special--a broiled scallop, bacon, and avocado sandwich.

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I found this sandwich to be something different. I encountered this "find" in a small, local pub in County Fermanagh in the Province of Ulster in Northern Ireland. We were on a day trip to tour the Belleek factory near the island town of Enniskillen stopping on the way for lunch. The menu called the crab cake a "chop," and that piqued my curiosity. It does look like a crab chop and combined with a buttery, homemade biscuit makes for a delicious and unique sandwich. It is even made in an odd way.

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County Offaly in the Province of Leinster is in central Ireland. These central counties traditionally have not been tourist areas. They contain many peat bogs, and though it is very interesting to see how the peat is cut, they have only become tourist sites since the Irish economy has flourished. We wanted to visit all 32 counties so set out to tour County Offaly. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant in Tullamore, Offaly's county town. We all chose the crab and cheese open-faced sandwich.

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