Early in the morning on the third day of our trip we boarded a train headed north through the English countryside. Destination: Stilton! We were on our way to the Stilton Cheese-Rolling Festival.

Stilton is a pretty little village in the middle of vast fields of green pasture. The country lanes bordering the small village center were lovely.

The streets and neighborhoods of Stilton were lovely too. Quite idyllic!

Ye Olde Fashioned Post Office Boxe

Before the cheese rolling main event, there was a performance by some guys dressed up like knights from the middle ages. At the end of their act they invited the kids in the audience to participate.

The kids screamed and charged the two adult actors, who started running away, only to stop, turn, and charge back. It was quite a sight to see the kids screaming and running after the knights one second, and the next second turning and fleeing for their

The main event was the cheese rolling races. Teams competed to be the fastest to roll a cheese down the slope to the bottom.

The difficulty was that the cheese would often veer off course or start tumbling end-over-end, both of which slowed progress greatly. The fastest teams were able to roll the cheese on a straight and true path from the top to bottom.