Exeter, England - March 27th, 28th, 31st, and April 1st, 2025
We chose to stay in Executer for the sole reason to pick up a rental car and drop it off again a few days later after our visit to the nearby Dartmoor National Park. Even though we only spent two nights in the town, we managed to stroll around most of the downtown area. We actually enjoyed the nice feel of the place.
The walk from the hotel in Salisbury to the train station was about 0.4 of a mile. Or it should have been. As we were almost at the station, the road was closed off due to an accident. So we had to make a large loop to detour around, making our walk turn into over a mile. It was a good thing we left in plenty of time or we might have missed our train.
As we were standing on the train platform, we tried to figure out where we needed to stand. It was hard to understand the announcements over the PA system due to the noise of the trains. We saw that we needed to be in the first six cars of the train because the last three cars were being disconnected from the train. There were also a couple of first class cars, but we had a 2nd class ticket. Our seat reservations were not assigned, so we could sit in any 2nd class seat. There was an electronic sign that looked like it showed which zone to stand in for each car of the train, but the train didn’t seem to line up according to that. Despite all that, we had no problem getting on the train and finding an appropriate seat. We got two seats with a table in-between, so we could pull out our laptop and iPad during our two hour ride.
The country side that we rode past was very green, mostly pastures. Instead of fences or stone walls to divide up the pastures, there were thick hedge rows. At one point, we saw about half a dozen to a dozen pheasants. Unfortunately, Ann had her good camera packed away, so she couldn’t get a good picture of them. Although we did see some cows and horses, the predominant livestock was sheep.
Once we arrived in Exeter, our hotel, the White Hart, was just half a mile walk from the train station. To reach the hotel, we walked right past Exeter Cathedral. There were no detours this time. However, the hotel is under construction for renovations, so it was enshrouded in scaffolding. Inside the rooms were nice and the restaurant, pub, and courtyard had a lot of character.
After we checked in, we went for about an hour walk. From the hotel, we headed down to the River Exe, following alongside the ruins of an old town wall. There is a lovely pedestrian area alongside the river with restaurants and shops, Exeter’s historic Quayside. The area used to be a busy port, as the Exeter Ship Canal, which runs parallel to the River Exe, leads right to the English Channel. In the late 1600’s, Exeter was exporting 1000 bales of woolen cloth per day. The arrival of rail transport in 1844 started the decline of the shipping trade.
When we returned to the hotel, we went to the hotel restaurant for dinner. Keith ordered the gammon steak while Ann had the vegan Thai-style curry with a chicken breast. A gammon steak is a thick slice of ham often served with pineapple or fried eggs. The waiter gave Keith a choice of pineapple or egg on top and he went with one of each. The meat was grilled and had a lovely smokey flavor. Ann’s curry had a little kick to it, but nothing too spicy.
To drink, Keith ordered a L’Authentica from an Italian brewery called Birra Moretti. It was a very light lager. Ann had a lemonade, but it was a lemon-flavored soft drink similar to 7-Up. For dessert, Ann chose the apple crumble with custard while Keith ate the jam sponge pudding. The jam sponge was a sponge cake smothered with a strawberry jam, all sitting on top of some custard. They were both tasty.
Friday morning, we had a cooked breakfast. It was an extra charge over the room rate (8.75 pounds - currently, one pound is about $1.30), but we had paid for it in advance. We both ordered the classic breakfast which included two rashers (slices) of bacon, pork sausage, black pudding, fried egg, hash brown, a grilled flat mushroom, wedge of grilled tomato, and baked beans. This was our first time trying black pudding. We were expecting some really weird or exotic flavor, but it was pretty mild tasting. It reminded Ann of turkey dressing as perhaps it had similar seasonings in it. While Keith drank coffee, Ann had orange juice. The juice tasted like it was watered down, but that was OK because it was such a large serving.
A little after 10 am, we checked out of the hotel and hiked over to the Enterprise rental office with our luggage. It was about a mile and a half walk. The first part of the walk was rather pleasant, heading down to the quay and following along the shipping canal. But then we turned into an industrial area to reach the office. We debated about either taking an Uber or leaving our luggage and picking it up after we picked up the car, but since we walked a mile with our luggage the day before without any issues, we thought we’d be fine, and we were.
We arrived a little after 11 am, about an hour before our scheduled noon pick up. Our car wasn’t ready yet, so they sent us over to the Pitstop Cafe just two doors down the block. We left our luggage and walked over. The place was hopping. It was counter service. We only bought coffee and a can of Coke, then found a seat at a long table. After relaxing and enjoying our dinks, we returned to Enterprise.
This was going to be our first time driving on the left side of the road, in a vehicle with the steering wheel on the right side. Most cars in England are manual shift. Ann is comfortable driving a stick, since that is what she learned to drive with, but Keith was not. We debated about which car to rent, but felt that learning to shift with our left hands while learning to drive on the left would be one extra complication that we didn’t need, so we opted to pay the extra money to rent an automatic.
Enterprise didn’t have a vehicle in the class that we rented, so they upgraded us to a Mercedes CLA 180, a subcompact four door coupe. The reservation was in Ann’s name as the driver. After making the reservation, we discovered that in Europe, you cannot add your spouse as a second driver for free like you can in the US or Canada. It is an extra daily charge of 15.60 GBP. We decided switching drivers often would reduce the stress of the new driving experience, so we added Keith as an additional driver.
The Enterprise staff walked us around the vehicle explaining that we would be charged 2000 pounds for each incident of damage. For an extra daily charge, we could have those fees covered. We believe our Amazon Prime credit card covered us for collision insurance, so we declined the extra coverage.
Then we drove to Dartmoor National Park. We’ll cover our visit to Dartmoor in our next post, along with how the driving went.
On Monday, We turned the car in before noon and hiked the mile and a half back to the White Hart Hotel in Exeter. Check in was not until 14:00 (2 pm), but they allowed us to drop off our bags and store them for us.
After lightening our load, we strolled around the town. We love admiring the old architecture of the buildings. We stopped at Eat on the Green near the Exeter Cathedral for a drink and small bite to eat. It was a lovely, sunny day, so we sat at an outside table. Keith ordered an Earl Gray tea while Ann chose the berry berry tea. To eat, we both had the Eton Mess. An Eton Mess is a traditional English dessert consisting of a mixture of berries, meringue, and Chantilly cream (whipped cream). Eton Mess is believed to have originated from Eton College. It was surprisingly light, but very delicious.
From there, we strolled by the Castle Gatehouse, Rougemont Gardens, the historic Guildhall, and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery. Then we wandered through the Northernhay Gardens, admiring the statues and flowers that were in bloom. Not far away was Gandy Street, a cute little narrow pedestrian area lined with shops and restaurants.
We returned to the White Hart to retrieve our luggage and check in. Our room was almost identical to the room we had a few days before, only it was on the fourth floor instead of the third. The first time we were here, we rode the elevator up to the third floor, dropped off our luggage, then walked the stairs back down. When we reached the first floor, we realized we had one more floor to go. It was then that we remembered that Europe numbers their floors differently than the United States. The first floor above the ground floor is just that, the first floor, not the second. We lived in Germany 35 years ago and we knew how Europe numbered their floors, but had forgotten.
For dinner, we walked down to the Quayside to the Topsham Brewery. Keith wasn’t sure which beer to order, so the nice woman at the bar gave him four small samples to try. He ended up picking their hazy pale ale. Ann got the Devon Red Cider from Sanford Orchards, which was lovely.
Just outside the brewery was a food truck serving pizza, called Portal Pizza. We ordered the Margherita and the Wyld Stallion. The Wyld Stallion came with Nduja sausage, wild garlic, pesto, whipped ricotta, and mozzarella. The Nduja sausage was the same sausage that Ann had at the Chagford Inn in Dartmoor National Park, but it was sparingly put on the pizza, so it was not that spicy.
Most people were sitting outside, as it was a sunny day. But we didn’t realize how much the temperatures were cooling off and didn’t dress warm enough, so we sat inside. At first, we were the only ones inside, but more people came filing in as the evening wore on.
For breakfast Tuesday morning, we went light, even though we had prepaid for a cooked breakfast. Ann had the smashed avocado on toast with fried egg and bacon while Keith ate a yogurt with mixed berries and toast. Our train to Bradford-on-Avon was not until afternoon, so we stored our bags at the hotel reception when we checked out.
We managed to wander some more around town, seeing some things we hadn’t seen before. We walked along a section of the old city wall. It was built by the Romans around 200 A.D. We found a memorial for the people who died as a result of the Exeter Blitz, a bombing raid in 1942 during World War II which resulted in 1000 deaths and massive destruction.
Heading up Sidewall Street, we found ourselves in what seemed like fast food row, with a wide variety to choose from. There was Moroccan, Chinese, Indian, and Turkish food. And yes, plenty of American chains, like KFC, Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Subway, and Taco Bell. We’ve noticed that fried chicken, of all kinds, seems to be popular in the English towns we have been in so far.
Another block seemed to be mostly barbers. We counted five in one block.
After returning to the hotel from our walk, we still had some time to kill, so we hung out in the hotel restaurant, drinking some tea and coffee. Then we walked over to the train station.
When we arrived in Exeter the first time, we got off the train at the Exeter Central station, which was about 0.5 miles from our hotel. However, this time we needed to leave from the Exeter St. Davids station, which was about 0.9 miles from the hotel. We started our walk over there, with our luggage on our backs, with plenty of time to spare. When we reached the Iron Bridge, it was closed for construction. Uh oh! Did we have to take a detour? Then we saw the steps down to a narrow street that ran parallel, below the bridge. Ok, that’s not too bad, other than we really felt the weight of our packs as we climbed back up to street level again.
We arrived at Exeter St. Davids about an hour before our train. So we hung out in the Starbucks inside the station. We ordered chai lattes to drink while we waited. And yes, the Starbucks in England makes chai lattes too sweet for us, just like they do in the States. Starbucks is not our favorite, but the location was convenient.
Even though Exeter was just a stop for a rental car, it turned out to be a lovely destination. It was a great place to wander around, taking in the history and enjoying the relaxed atmosphere. And we added the Eton Mess to our list of favorite desserts.
Check out our related video: Exeter, England
(Ann)