Our Trip to Europe

Day 16 – London

We were up early this morning to meet up with our tour guide for the Stonehenge Tour. It was about a 2 hour drive to Stonehenge. I think our driver made it in about half that time!!! He drove like a maniac the entire time. I put on my seatbelt, held on for dear life and did a lot of praying.

Stonehenge is out in the middle of nowhere. Lots of fields, cattle, sheep and then there it is. It was a mix of overcast, sun and rain. We started circling the structure with the sun shining and by the time we had walked around to the other side it had started to rain. The people who built Stonehenge also have hundreds of burial mounds sprinkled across the countryside. Stonehenge has a very mystical aura about it. The stones used to construct the circle were brought from over 200 miles away and some of the stones weigh 50 tons. How they transported them and how they hoisted them up on top of each other has never been figured out.


Our next stop on the tour was Bath. This is a beautiful town. Lots of flowers everywhere and almost all the buildings are built from a cream colored limestone. We went in to see the Roman Baths and had a very interesting tour there. We were on our own for lunch so we wandered down to a place called Retro Café. It was very quaint, lots of locals and we had a great lunch. It was sunny in Bath. We also walked down the street to Sally Lunn’s home. She was the creator of the Sally Lunn bun. We went inside and bought a bun and found out it is like a HUGE hamburger bun. I thought it would be like a big sweet roll but I was wrong. Will need to get some jam to go with that big old hunk of bread!!



Next on the tour was Windsor Castle and the sun is still shining. Now this is a castle!!! It was absolutely huge. Lots of guards even though the Queen wasn’t in residence while we were there. We headed over to where they have Queen Mary’s dollhouse was on display. This thing was monstrous in size. It was at least 5ft by 5ft and had four floors in it. From there we were toured through the Royal Apartments. We went through 20 rooms of absolute opulence. I have never seen so much gold leaf in all my life. The entryway had lots of armor two statues of life-size horses and riders and lots of coats of armor. The church on the grounds was not open for tourists as it was Sunday and they were having services there. We saw the gardens with lots of roses and several waterfalls and fountains. This place was just beautiful. After leaving the castle we walked through the town of Bath. They have lots of little pubs and cafes with tables all over the sidewalk and into the street area that is not for pedestrians only. We stopped in at The Three Tuns and tried an English cider. It is kind of a mix of apple juice and beer. It was interesting tasting and very easy to drink. You could knock a few of those back without thinking about it. Time to head back to London. We are tired but have had a very good day.

Tomorrow we will travel to Amsterdam to link up with our group for the Rick Steves tour. We are very excited about that.