Tuesday, June 14th

The weather today was chilly, but sunny.

We started Tuesday very, very early. Way earlier then I normally like to get up. We set the TV [alarm clock] for 6:30am because we had to be at the Ritz by 8:30am. Personally, I don’t like to see 6:30am or 8:30am. At the Ritz we got a bus to take us on our Stonehenge/Bath tour.

First we went to Stonehenge. It really is a miraculous sight. It’s amazing that they got all of these gigantic stones over from Wales and placed them here. Nobody realy know why they chose that spot, but it must have really meant something to them to go to that much effort. The stones are currently roped off so you can’t get close enough to touch them, but on the summer and winter solstice they open it up so you can get close. The Druids come and perform a ceremony there during the solstice. Rumor has it they are going to remove the ropes next year, but I don’t know if that’s true or not. When we spoke to mom’s friends who are long-time London residents they talked of being able to climb the rocks as children.

We spent about 45 minutes as Stonehenge, walking around the whole thing and snapping photos from every angle. It was chilly that day. So after we admired the stones and purchased souvenirs from the gift shop, Keaton and I enjoyed a very warm cup of hot chocolate. Umm..heaven.

Once everybody was back on the bus we headed off to Bath. Bath is a town in England. Legend has it that Bath was founded in 860BC. [Now this link I sent you to, is slightly different than what our tour guide told us, but I'm going to give you both version.] According to our tour guide, Prince Bladud caught leprosy and he was banned from the city. So he went off and took care of pigs. His pigs eventually caught his leprosy too. One day his pigs went in to the hot springs to play and they wouldn’t come out. So Prince Bladud had to go in after them. And by the time he got the pigs out they were all cured.

After that everybody wanted to come and be cured by the springs and the town of Bath was born and prospered.

But after many years, less and less people came to Bath and the town began to decline.

That was until Queen Anne came to Bath. She was constantly sick and was looking for any cure she could find. She had heard about the legend of Bath and decided to give it a try.

Now Bath is a thriving beautiful city. It is considered a large city in the UK. And many tourists come to Bath each day. All of the buildings are made using the same stone [it's a requirement written in to the cities code] and in fact many of the town squares and buildings were designed and built by the same men; John Wood the Elder and his son John Wood the Younger.

As we drove in to Bath our tour guide told us about some of the famous people who have resided in Bath. Charles Dickens lived in Bath a few times (and in many different homes in London too) and Jane Austen lived in Bath for about five years. Apparently Jane was a bit arrogant and she was upset that she wasn’t getting the notarity in Bath that she believed she deserved.

We only got a couple of hours in Bath on our tour. We spent the first hour roaming through the Roman Baths. The Romans were the first to settle here and they built their temple in 50AD. Obviously, very little of the temple still stands, but some of the temple steps and artifacts have been recovered. And you can still view the baths. It’s an amazing sight.

After we left the Roman temple, we decided to grab some lunch. Since I’m not very adventuresome, we chose Subway. This Subway had the same menu as our American Subways, but that’s where the similiarities ended. I got the Chicken, Bacon and Ranch sandwich. But my chicken was pink. Not undercooked pink, but like food coloring pink. I tried to ignore and just enjoy my sandwich, but after I took a bite I knew I couldn’t forget it. It tasted sort of like kool-aid on my chicken. Almost sweet, but disgusting. I almost vomited just trying to get that one bite down. Needless to say, I tossed that sandwich [in the garbage, not tossed as in 'tossing my cookies''.

On the tour to and from Stonehenge and Bath, our tour guide gave us a lot of information. We passed a few small villages. They looked so peaceful, I would love to live in one of those villages. Apparently every village has both a pub and a church. And they are usually pretty close to each other so you can "fall out of one and in to the other."

The landscape on our journey was beautiful. It's very colorful with their crops. And we also got to see one of the sacred celtic horses. These are horses carved in to the land with chalk. Apparently there are a few of them throughout London.

As we were getting back in to London we saw Windsor Castle off to the distance. I didn't get a picture of it though because I was on the wrong side of the bus. But it's huge too. I could tell that even though we were pretty far away from it.

After the long ride back to London [it took about 2 hours to get back], we decided to walk over the Buckingham Palace. It was so close to our hotel, but we hadn’t ventured over there yet. Buckingham Palace is HUGE! I know you know that already, but huge doesn’t even describe the size of this house mansion palace. It’s very, very elegant. I couldn’t imagine living in there. We didn’t go inside, but I’m sure things are covered in gold and marble floors and chandeliers…the works. You’d feel like you couldn’t even enjoy a good fart in your own home. But I don’t live there. So to each their own.

We were pretty tired from getting up at 6am for our tour, so we decided to eat at a nearby restaurant. We went to Pizza Express. There are tons of Pizza Express’s all over London. They have pizza [imagine that] and some pasta dishes. They are famous for their dough balls; kind of like donut holes only with pizza dough and you dip them in butter. They really are very good. Fattening, but yummy. Keaton got the American pizza which is pepperoni. They brought it out to him and asked him if he wanted it cut. He did. We thought that was a weird question. Who doesn’t cut pizza? But then we looked around and we say that other people were using their knife and fork to cut off pieces as they ate. Another thing about Brits…when they eat they hold their fork in their left hand and their knife in their right. That way they can cut, eat, cut, eat, etc. Where as Americans cut up their food, put their knife down, switch their fork to their right hand [assuming they are right handed] and then eat. Honestly, I think the Brits have a better system, but I couldn’t train my brain to switch to it.

For some additional information about England’s past read the History of England Past.