Big Adventures, Little World

Stonehenge with the Heel Stone in the foreground

Instead of going to another country on Elese’s weekend off we instead decided to stay in the UK and see some of the country we had been living in the past year. On the Saturday we were up early and getting a tour bus from Victoria Station to take us out the UNESCO World Heritage site that is Stonehenge. Stonehenge is believe to be thousands and thousands of years old, but no one really knows how it came to be there, but many people have theorised about it. Unfortunately we couldn’t get very close to the stones themselves as it is all roped off, but we did get audio guides that we could listen to as we made our way around. The audio guides mostly told of the theories about how the stones got there, which included aliens and the devil transporting them there. All in all it is quite interesting the fact that no one really knows much about it, but seeing the stones themselves isn’t really that interesting. It would have been much better if we were able to go up to the stones and see them up close and touch them, but these days that is only possible on the Summer Solstice of each year when a big party is held there.

After the hour or so we spent experiencing Stonehenge, we then got back on the bus and continued our drive the British countryside on our way to the city of Bath. It is a beautiful city and has a kind of country town feel, and like Stonehenge, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. All the buildings in the city are made of Bath Stone which is a type of limestone quarried around the area and even now new buildings need to be constructed with it to keep the looks of the city the same. Bath gets its name from the natural hot springs in the city which were used as communal baths and then had a bathing complex built around the by the ancient Romans in the year 70AD. These are now known as the Roman Baths and attract over 1 million visitors a year. Today it is no longer used as much of it has been destroyed and decayed inside the whole complex, but the water is still heated naturally and can be viewed as well as some of the artefacts and other things that have been found throughout the complex over time. We spent about an hour wandering through and looking at everything including the large pools that were once used by the Romans which was all quite impressive. The main part of the complex is the Great Bath, which can be viewed from a terrace level above it as well as by walking around the Great Bath itself.

The Great Bath in the Roman Baths complex in Bath.

After visiting the Roman Baths we had the rest of the day to wander the city. We didn’t really get up to too much other than look around the city and see some of the sites throughout it including some of the beautiful heritage buildings as well as the Pulteney Bridge, which is one of only four bridges in the world that has shops across the entire bridge on both sides. We stopped at a small café after looking at going to the famous Sally Lunn’s, (one of the oldest houses in Bath), for something to eat, but then realising that there was probably no chance of us actually getting in as there was so many people there. Everywhere was quite full and luckily we got a table and sat down and enjoyed some tea and scones and some ice cream. Then it was time for us to get the bus back into London via the lovely countryside that the UK has to offer.