Stonehenge & Bath 12th July

Yesterday was my first day out of London since I arrived! It's actually quite easy to spend all your time in the city having a ball doing so many different things all over the place and then you realise you havn't left town in months....

Anyway this day tour to Stonehenge and Bath was recommended to me by my flatmate. Its with Anderson Tours for less than £50. Jumped on a bus at 8am with spainish, russians, asians... think I was the minority. We head out of town and the tour guide tells us lots about the archeological finds and construction and history of stonehenge and the people that lived there - I eat every word but most people on the bus are sleeping cos they cant understand english. We go to stonehenge first and jon the crowds of colleges and schools and spend an hour having a good look at the rocks. It was what I was expecting, no bigger or smaller, and I did learn some interesting facts and history about it which I didnt know before.

We carry on out to Bath through the gorgeous english country side .. we catch glimpses of Bath through the trees before we drive down into the valley. The tour guide had lots of history and archeological info about the original roman town and how they were there for 300 odd years before the saxons came in - they didnt understand the roman way of life or what they're architecture meant and let their buildings crumble and built another town over top... Then how the king with leprosy came to the town to be healed in the waters and made Bath the capital. Then how queen anne was sick and came to the healing waters .. they say there were 3 people to follow her to the town - an events planner (PR guy who organised events and got all the rich people to come to bath and made it fashionable again) and 2 architects who built up the roman buildings again and kept the roman architecture of the town intact.

Its a gorgeous town, all the buildings are made from honey-coloured limestone out of a quarry not far away. The streets are cobbled with hanging flower baskets, there are cutest little antique shops and tea shops and beautiful little gift shops... I saw the royal circle (the architect John Adams snr. was fascinated by stonehenge and the entire design and placement of the roads and houses reflects the design and placement of everything at stonehenge!) The roman baths are the best preserved/most intact structure of its kind in northern europe and its the only hot springs in england. It was a sunny afternoon and town was buzzing with crowds of sightseers and locals alike and buskers performing to crowds in the town squares. Had 2-3 hours there, left at 3:30 and did a drive by some other points of interest on the way out and headed back to London. everyone slept on the way back and I was pretty tired at the end of the day!