It was a bit of an early morning today in order to make it to our tour pickup in time. Sleepy-eyed, and slightly staggering we managed to find our tour bus without too much drama. Our first stop: Stonehenge.

You catch a good look of the monument as you drive in on the motorway, but it's just a teaser for things to come. You're given an audioguide and hop on a short shuttle to get near the base of the rock formation. You then walk up a short pathway next to wheat fields that are peacefully blowing in the wind and get to marvel as the monument comes into view.  

On the topic of wind... it is quite windy with nothing out there to stop the wind for miles. We were lucky enough to have a nice sunny day, but I could see how things would be a bit different if it were cold and rainy.  

You get an opportunity to walk all around Stonehenge, however you are only allowed to get so close. There is a rope that extends all around the monument to keep the tourists back and prevent further damage. Still, you can get close enough to get a feel for just how big the stones are and imagine the effort it would take to move them even a short distance.

I tried to take advantage of the provided audioguide, but found my mind wandering rather than listening. It's a little difficult to fully comprehend just how old these objects are, and it took me a while to wrap my head around that. These are as old (and likely older) than the freakin' pyramids!

Next up we headed to the city of Bath. 

Immediately upon leaving the bus we made a beeline towards the Roman baths. My main goal was to go see the ancient Roman baths. It was a bit of an ancient themed day after all :D

There are exhibits strewn throughout the complex with artifacts that have been excavated. Our helpful audioguide helped us Wade through the history and give a little more context, though I once again found my mind trying to grasp the age of the things we were seeing rather than pay attention to the lecture.

At the ground floor level there is a elevated walkway which allows you to walk above the original stone ground that was in the courtyard. There are images showing what the complex would have looked like originally with pillars outlining where the old Temple would have been. It does a great job helping you imagine where you are standing and again I had that sense of awe thinking about how old the things we were looking at are.

Unfortunately as is often the case on bus tours, we didn't have much time to explore the actual city aside from a quick stroll through the downtown area. The streets themselves are a bit of a spectacle once you get into the residential areas as you see building after building in a uniform Georgian style in the yellowish bath stone. We didn't see the actual royal cresent, however we did drive through a similar one called "The Circus" which has the same uniform houses all lined up in a grand circle with huge trees at it's center. We were told that these houses go for a bargain of 1.5 million vs the 50 million it would take to buy a house on the royal cresent. Yikes.

Lacock was our next destination. I'm just going to nip this in the bud: It's pronounced "lay-cock". That should help save you some future embarrassment... It's an old town that is seemingly preserved in time 200 years ago. That is if you are willing to look past the modern automobiles blocking your otherwise lovely view :D

We stopped here very shortly for a quick stroll around the town's streets. Amanda was happy to learn that a few scenes from Harry Potter were filmed here and made sure she saw them in person :D

Our final stop of the tour was the largest stone circle in Britain: Avebury. I had never heard of this before our tour, but it ended up being reasonably enjoyable... As far as big rocks go that is...

While you are limited where you can walk at Stonehenge you can pretty much do as you please at Avebury. Walk over to the stones, give em a good kick if you like... There's very little fanfare as its really just a bunch of big rocks in a field. In fact, our mini bus parked in a pub parking lot across the street as there were no official lots to use.  

In saying all of that, its as cool as you make it. You are in a field with stones that were placed during the Neolithic period. You can stand right next to these huge stones and put your hand on them. See the hand-dug henge that circles the entire area, and then walk up a small hill and see it all from above. The stone circle is rather large in diameter, and to walk around the edge is a bit of an adventure as you need to cross though multiple fields and Farmers gates (and make sure not to let any sheep out).

On our way back home we made a quick stop at Harrods just to poke our head in. It's multiple floors (6 I think) of luxury goods and quite easy to get lost in the maze of stores. They are laid out on each floor in a big grid (like the looks of a waffle), so you will pass through multiple stores walking down a single line of the building (and at points be surrounded by 4 different stores while in the middle of the building). We attempted to find a candy store, but eventually gave up deciding that we were tired and it wasn't worth the effort.

It was a super long day, so we are going to have a lazy day or two before our next tour to Oxford and get some much needed relaxation.