Bath, Stonehenge and Salisbury

Very long day today. We woke up early to go on a tour bus out of London, and spent the whole day moving from place to place!

Bath was really enjoyable, such an appealing city! The Georgian style houses were gorgeous and it was easy to picture Jane Austen there! We only had an hour and a half there, because of the tour timing, which was unfortunate. There was a lot more there that I would like to see, so maybe I'll try to find a way to go back! We opted to go visit the Jane Austen Centre since that was my primary motivation for going there. Apparently you can only visit the exhibition on the tour every half hour, and we got there right after a tour had started, so the lady told us to go have tea in their tea room. The tea was really lovely, and when we told the waitress we wanted to make the next tour, she told us that they could let us into the tour late. That was not true, so we missed our tour and were unable to wait until the next one :( That was a major bummer, but we did have a nice tea so that was good. We completely missed the Roman baths though, so I think another trip is in order.

The next stop was Stonehenge, and I was concerned that I was going to be underwhelmed. That was not the case. Stonehenge is really incredible! When you are there, and you see how amazingly HUGE those stones are, and consider that they did not come from that region and that the people who built it did not have any kind of machinery, it totally blows your mind! They were also so smart to have it set with the sun! I have a very poor sense of direction so maybe that contributes to my disbelief - I need my phone to tell me which direction I'm facing!

After Stonehenge, we went to Salisbury to see the cathedral, which was very beautiful. While we were there, a local choir was rehearsing for a concert to be held tonight, so we were able to tour the church with beautiful background music! The church is really incredible. It's huge, first of all, and again when you consider that it was built by hand, so long ago, it's even more mind boggling. The tour guide also told us that the foundation for the church is only four feet deep! It is really incredible that it's stayed up for as long as it has! I spent some time just looking at the stained glass. Most of the windows are not the ones built with the church originally, but they are so gorgeous. It brought me back to stained glass class in high school; ever since taking that class I have a new-found appreciation for how hard that art is!

Rebecca and I are both incredibly tired from the day, so  I think bedtime is in order. Tomorrow we are going to have a much more relaxed day, doing a little bit of shopping and walking a different part of London. Until then!