Stonehenge & Bath

Today we woke up at the bright and early hour of 7am to be outside for the coach pickup at 8am to be whisked away for a day of touring Southern England. Our first stop was at Stonehenge and about another hour down the road was the ancient town of Bath, which is now a thriving micro city chock full of Burger Kings and Gaps. But what was left behind of the beautiful Gregorian architecture was like nothing I had seen before! Anyway back to Stonehenge, it was a little anti-climactic I have to say because it was literally on the side of the road and all of a sudden it was just … “Wow there is Stonehenge, exactly how it’s been in all the pictures I’ve ever seen of it.” Don’t get me wrong, it was amazingly cool to be standing next to a monument dating back more than 5,000 years, but this trip was allllll about Bath for me. At first, it reminded me of Mont Treblant, the small resort town my family went to in Quebec a few years ago. Driving over the rolling green mountains of southern England and then all of a sudden, this huge bustling town that is now the home of Nicholas Cage, Johnny Depp, as well as the late Jane Austen. The town is famous for being the site of Roman bath houses (where it got it’s name) and for the hot bubbling springs that fed the baths way back when. What was amazing was that the museum that we visited that boasted artifacts and relics from the time was literally build on top of and around this original bath house that existed thousands of years ago! The water was still bubbling and running through the various pools and such. I was curious to the water’s actual temperature so I knelt down to feel it and I nearly burnt my fingers. I was impressed with this historical site and that’s a rarity.

After we were done with the museum, we ate lunch in one of the mews at a pub, which was delicioso. I got a hamburger and tried a new kind of cider because it’s pretty sad that all I drink here is basically Strongbow. After lunch, we walked around the city, took hundreds of pictures because we were granted the most glorious day as it was mid 70’s and sun all day. I picked up a souvenir for my mom, which was great to find – a 185 million year old chamber of nautilus fossil that they found buried beneath the city of Bath when it was covered by a vast ocean. As soon as I saw it, it just screamed Laura Mindell so I bargained and got it for 5 pounds. Needless to say, I was very proud of myself.

Instead of the bus that the school provided there, we took a train back to London and got there in half the time. The train was nice because we went a different route than the journey to Bath so I got the watch the English countryside rush past my window. It was an amazing and exhausting day.

With just two hours to rest in between getting back from Bath and going out to dinner, I uploaded all my pictures from the day and posted them online. For those of you without a Facebook, the pictures can be seen on the Smugmug account here → http://jodymindell.smugmug.com/Other/Bath-and-Stonehenge/9687703_ajfYF/1/654451116_ap7Dc

I just took a few of my favorites to be posted here on the blog page. Cheers!