Bath and Stonehenge

I'm pretty sure I was in Rome this weekend. The only thing that brought me back down to earth was the fact that everyone was still speaking English. Bath is a city in England that was built by the Romans back in 43 AD as a spa resort, being known as Aquae Sulis "the waters of Sulis." Sulis was worshiped as a nourishing, life-giving mother goddess. Excavators have found messages scratched into metal to her. These are actually really funny because they're all curses made on people who have done the writer wrong, aka stolen their clothes while they were bathing.

City of Bath:

River Avon:

The Pulteney Bridge:

The Circus (3 curved shaped buildings that form a circle):

Four of us went to Bath and had a pretty rough start to the trip when we had to wake up before 4am to catch a bus by 4:30, and a train by 5:25. But arriving in Bath and soaking up its beauty revitalized us (and maybe I'll give a little credit to the delicious bacon and egg on baguette breakfast I ate).

We had booked a 4-bedroom in the best hostel in the city (the YMCA). It was nice to share a room with only people you already knew. And especially great when we were able to pass out by 11pm and didn't get woken up at all during the night.

YMCA hostel:

View from front:

So obviously the main attraction to Bath are the Roman Baths. I'll let you see them for yourself, because describing them just won't do them justice.

Roman Baths:

Over the centuries, the popularity of the baths decreased until Queen Mary (who was thought to be infertile) bathed here and bore a son 10 months later. Soon after, Bath's waters were thought to have cured another Queen of disease. Due to these events, Bath's popularity soared. And for good reason, it's BEAUTIFUL.

We even got to try the baths' hot spa water. Interesting to drink warm water, but here's to hoping it gets rid of all of our colds!

Right next to the baths is Bath Abbey, the church where King Edgar had his late coronation in 973 (after taking over the throne in 959). While we were touring, the orchestra was practicing, it was lovely to walk around the church with music playing to your thoughts.

Bath Abbey:

Again, I love the ceiling, it reminds me of the one in Westminster:

We also went to the Fashion Museum, where the main exhibit of course centered around the Royal Wedding. They had wedding dresses through the ages, the oldest dating back to the 1600s. In one of the more modern exhibits, they had the scandalous Versace dress Jennifer Lopez wore to the 2000 Emmy's. Even though it won Dress of the Year, I for one think it's kind of ugly... you can decide for yourself.

The Fashion Museum:

Wedding dress exhibit:

Jennifer Lopez's Versace dress from the 2000 Emmy's:

On Sunday, we took a purple bus tour to Stonehenge, which is about an hour outside of Bath. We received commentary on the way as our bus driver pointed out a horse carved of stone into the hillside, thatched roofs, old jail cells, and crop circles (we didn't actually see any, but the pictures of them were crazy). This crop circle appeared right across the road from Stonehenge, apparently within an hour, don't know if I really believe that story though.

The Single Julia crop circle:

Proximity to Stonehenge:

Stonehenge was magnificent. It's absolutely amazing to look at something built around 2500 BC. And it's weird that no one knows why or even how it was built. There are ancient legends that it was built by Merlin the wizard, the Devil, and even aliens.

At Stonehenge:

Unfortunately, Stonehenge was maybe the coldest I've been here. I would run in circles/pace as I listened to the commentary around the edge of the rocks. And when it was done, you can bet I booked it inside. The weather overall was very sporadic during our trip. On Sunday it went from freezing to comfortable and hail to rain to sunny in a blink of an eye. My umbrella had no idea what to do.

Getting home was an event. We had booked a train, but since the train station in Bath was closed for construction, we had to take a bus to Bristol. We had a ticket for the 17:45 bus, and so did about 75 other people. Which wouldn't have been a problem, but there was only one coach available at the time, meaning only about 55 seats. Thankfully, we were able to push our way on, but I felt bad for the 20 people who didn't make it and you could still see in the station as we pulled away.

On a happier note, we started planning Spring Break today - Greek Isles anyone?