miLE 6,440 - Neolithic, Gothic and Roman Day 2

I'm writing this while traveling at who knows what speed on the Eurostar from London to Paris.  Woke up bright and early to jump on this train. 

Day 2 was a super long day.  I had booked an out of London tour since I figured it was the easiest way of catching a few must see sites without having to rent my own car.  Got up and headed to Victoria Coach station at 8 courtesy of Premium Tours.  One thing I will say is that since Premium Tours has several tours all boarding from the same gate, it was a bit hectic with tons of people just amassed together trying to figure out which bus was theirs.  I was doing one of their newer less popular tours so thankfully there weren't a lot of people on my bus. 

The coach was pretty comfortable and we had a great guide and driver.  First stop was about 2 hours away and on the way the guide talked about different points in the city as well as out of the city.  It was nice although I don't think everyone's coffee had hit in yet. 

First stop was the Neolithic site of Stonehenge.  What is interesting is that as you drive down the main motorway to get to Stonehenge you actually see it and pass it. It just kind of pops on you out of nowhere but it is incredible to see these stones just sitting in the middle of this large plain.  Anyways as soon as we parked, of course everyone had to use the bathroom so we had to wait for that before jumping on the shuttle between the parking lot and the stones.  Our guide was great, she was able to cut us in line which was much appreciated. 

The stones itself is very interesting.  It's not super gigantic like many of the photos make it out to be and it is incredible to think how old they are and what it was meant for.  The whole area is magnificent, not just the stones and then you also had sheep just roaming around with numbers on their sides, making them look like prisoners. To me what was more amazing about the stones is not necessarily their purpose but how they got these massive pieces all the way from quarries in Wales.  I mean we're talking maybe over 5000 years old.  I wonder if it was the same technology they used like the Egyptians who built the Pyramids. We walked around for a bit and then met back up for lunch in the Stonehenge cafe, which was covered by our tour, and then off we went to the next stop.

Thankfully the next stop was only about 20 minutes away or so.  And it is something you can get a glimpse of from far away.  And as you get closer it just gets more and more magnificent.  The gothic cathedral of Salisbury.  That spire is the first thing you see.  And then of course you see the rest of it.  The architectural design, th sculptures, the windows were all so amazing and intricate.  As much as I love the modern look with metal and glass and a minimilastic atmosphere it was a sign to behold.  Then one of the pretty cool things about Salisbury Cathedral is that it holds one of the 4 remaining copies of the Magna Carta written on lamb skin, or it might be sheep skin.  Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take a picture of it but just thinking about what that document meant and why it was written is fascinating.  Reminds you about the power of word as well.  Think about it whether we look at the Magna Carta or the US constitution it was written by people to help the people.  The other part that was a little weird to me is that Salisbury cathedral has a lot of built in tombs, in the floor and on the sides of the cathedral - I felt a little awkward walking over these stone markers as I realize we might be walking over people's bodies.  What was pretty cool as well was that the tomb markers gave some insight into how the English language developed over the years.  A classic example was "Dyed" versus "Died".  All in all was a great hour there.

Next stop was a little bit further away through some amazing English countryside.  We were heading to Bath, the popular holiday town stylized from Roman architecture.  This was actually a pretty nice last stop on the tour.  We walked around to different sites and saw the architecture and how uniform it appeared to be.   There was a lot of people roaming around but it did have a peaceful tranquility to it as well.  We walked around a decent amount so I'm glad we did this last because otherwise we would have been way more tired for the other 2 spots.  I was tempted to get the icecream or the fudge but sadly I resisted. 

The trip back to London was very intense. We left Bath at 5:30 supposed to be back in London by 7:30 but it ended up being after 9pm that we got back.  The main motorway had accident after accident so our driver tried to divert as much as possible to avoid it but ultimately it just took forever.  Wasn't anything the tour company could do obviously so I wasn't upset.  I just put on some music and got a power nap. 

Didn't do much at night since I had to wake up pretty early for this train but did almost see a fight between the owner of a restaurant and some random person.  I just left when that started going on - was pretty funny to see fists raised but no actual fight happening, just a lot of curse words. 

Anyways now I'm just going to check out the scenery as this train speeds by. 

See you at the next miLE!