We wanted to see Stonehenge, so I did some research and discovered an organized bus trip seemed to be the best way to get there. I chose one that stopped at Bath on the way back for a little extra culture.
Our bus was over half empty, which was great! We had plenty of room to spread out for the 90 minute trip to Stonehenge. Our tour guide was a Scottish lady who told us all sorts of interesting facts about Stonehenge, Bath, and England in general. She pronounced it StoneHENGE. The main extra fact I remember learning is that it's illegal to have a fire in the fireplace in London. They got rid of coal because it was so polluting but now you can't burn wood, either! This seems kind of barbaric. Anyway, here is Mom on the bus, waiting to pull out of Victoria Coach Station.
When we got to Stonehenge the lady said, "Everybody look out the window to take your first pictures!" I did a great job.
I got plenty of good ones once we were off the bus, though.
A couple people had told me Stonehenge was not that impressive in person but I don't know what they're talking about. It was exactly as impressive as I expected it to be. You can't walk into the circle, and there's a big enough perimeter around the whole thing that it feels as if there aren't many people around, either.
It really wasn't very crowded. Just a few other tour buses.
There were sheep hanging out casually all over the place.
One benefit of traveling with my mom is that she is a lot more amenable to letting me ask strangers to take our picture. We chose two different ones at Stonehenge (just in case!) and each of them chose a different approach.
We had just enough time at Stonehenge to wander around the site and grab a sandwich, and then we were off through the countryside to Bath.
We arrived shortly after the end of the Bath Half Marathon so there were approximately six thousand people wandering around all over the place. Our tour guide held up a pink umbrella so we could follow her through the crowds and led us on a brief walking tour of the main points of interest. Like this.
And obviously, the Roman baths. They are ancient but were only rediscovered and excavated in the 1700s.
Around this bath area are some of the original Roman lead pipes. Right there in the ground!
I took a bunch of infrastructure pictures because I knew Ben would be interested in this sort of thing.
After we saw the baths we wandered around for a couple hours on our own. Bath is pretty great. The architecture is very consistent throughout the city center.
The Bath Abbey is one of the few to survive Henry VIII's destruction of the monasteries in the 1500s.
The other thing I really wanted to see is the Royal Crescent, mainly because the end of the Persuasipn adaptation I love the most is filmed right there on the corner. We learned that while the facade is consistent along the whole front of the building, everyone does whatever the want with the back of their properties.
We popped back on the bus around 4:00 and made it back to London by 6:30pm. I was really surprised at how much I loved the bus tour. It was so convenient and informative! I hope this isn't a symptom of aging.
We walked down the road from our hotel to an Italian place for dinner. There were a lot of good options in our area. I got a giant bowl of carbonara, which was the perfect thing after a long day of activities.
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