Some Rocks, a Bath, and a Castle

Yesterday was our excursion day.  Before we’d left Kansas, Jared had found an interesting day-long excursion for us to do.  We started off the morning bright and early boarding a bus that we’d travel on all day long.  A 45 minute drive and we arrived at Windsor Castle.  It was quite a wait and a process to be allowed into the spectator areas of the castle, but once we were in it was really quite cool to see how there was almost a little town inside the walls.  We even got to tour some of the “State Apartments” that had dining rooms, bedrooms, and sitting rooms for show.  Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside there, so you’ll just have to imagine the bright colors, antique furniture, and elegant decorations.

After Windsor Castle, it was a 2 hour ride out to the town of Bath.  The major site there were the Roman Baths that dated back to about 42 A.D.  It’s amazing how innovative the building was for that time and how well kept much of it is.  Our only complaint though was the limited time we had in Bath.  The town itself looked very historic and beautiful and we could’ve used many more hours to explore it.

From Bath we drove out to Stonehenge and got to walk the path around the giant mysterious rocks.  Jared and I had joked beforehand we weren’t really sure what to expect.  We knew they were just rocks, but we felt that we HAD to see them in person either way.  I will say they were even larger than I expected, but I was slightly bummed we had to keep a pretty good distance from them (though I understand why).  It was also interesting to look around at the landscape and see this historic site in the middle of a bunch of farms.

After that it was a 2 hour trip back to London and we still had to eat dinner.  All in all, our day ended around 10pm after starting around 6am.  It was a long day (but much of it was riding a bus).  The trip overall was well worth our money we thought to have it all organized for us and the guide was sharing information along the entire bus routes and while we waited in line at each location.

Today we plan to explore one more museum and then spend a lot of time playing packing Tetris with all the items we bought and the mess of items we’ve made between all busy days digging into our suitcases to grab items quickly.  Should be a slower day on this end, but as to be expected, we’ll be up bright and early again tomorrow to catch a train back to the airport and start the journey back, which includes a 2 hour layover in Boston and then a 4 hour flight back to KC.