London – Day 4
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009So if you haven’t noticed yet, I haven’t quite got the hang of being consistent in my journal writing. I will promise to do my best to keep up and at the very least fill you in on the past few days whenever I get the chance…
So Day 4 in Europe and in London… Thanks to my new friend Miguel, we booked a trip out to Stonehenge and Bath the night before (49 Pounds) so we got up kind of early and hit breakfast as soon as it opened up at 07:30. After our meatless breakfast (at this point I’ve been eating a non-egg and non-meat breakfast for a week and missing some of the cafe’s awesome food) we headed over to the West Kensington Underground Station and went on to the Earl’s Court stop.
After finding which exit to take and waiting for the bus for a while and then hopped on when it arrived. The drive to Stonehenge wasn’t too bad, just an hour and a half of mostly motorway. On the way though we heard some info from our tourguide and learned that they have a door in the middle of the bus on the other side that’s called the Continental Door because it opens up when they’re in France or Belgium. Of course I say this is the right side to open up of course, lol. It’s still trippy to drive on the left…so weird.
After a bit we went over a hill and BAM there’s one of humanity’s oldest surviving structures…next to a major road. So weird, they built a road within feet of one of the stones. We “alighted” (one of the fancy British words I learned) from the “coach” and made our way to the entrance. The fee was paid for with the bus ticket and we received a little handheld audioguide. Walked through a tunnel and up to Stonehenge. They don’t let you get too close but they give out some really cool information and you can totally see how the stones line up and could be used for Pagan rituals. I don’t think they were Druids because Druids came much later…they say Stonehenge was around 2300 BC I think. One of the really cool things was that they pointed out these huge mounds of dirt that were all around. The mounds were actually burial sites of people. I found that super interesting and wish they had done some more excavating prior but they haven’t done much apparently.
After Stonehenge we got back on the bus and headed to Bath which was an hour drive away. Bath by far exceeded my expectations. SUCH A BEAUTIFUL CITY!! Apparently there was a father-son team of architects that designed the whole city. Well planned out and way cool. After that we disembarked from the coach and made our way to the Roman baths. Again super cool and awesome that there is sooo much history in that place. One of the cool things I saw was they found all these pieces of metal with etchings in them that were apparently gripes and curses against theives of their day. The ancient Romans and Britons said things like, “That Donisus stole my pair of glove and I wish upon him eternal pain”. I found that just so funny that they wrote these things down and they still survive!! Tons of ancient Roman ruins and we actually got to walk on the very stones the Romans laid down in the baths. The baths themselves were nasty and unsafe but they’re still flowing to this day.
After the Baths, Miguel and I walked around the town and took some pictures of the Circle and Half Crecent and had some lunch at the Crystal Ship Pub and ordered an amazing Sheppard’s Pie. I love that stuff soo much. We had a great time and got back for the long bus ride to London. All in all my time in London was well spent and fun! I went to bed and got up early because I was heading to Paris!
rgiltner