London: day 4

Monday: Starbucks breakfast. All day tour to Windsor castle, Stonehenge and bath. 

Windsor castle is quite extraordinary! The chapel is breathtaking. No photos were allowed inside any of the interior walls of castle or chapel but it was all amazing. We had an audio guided tour which was very informative. The Queen was there today! Usually she would be back in London during the week but today she was in Windsor castle. We didn't go to her private residence but we were able to walk through to other 2/3 of the castle. Quite amazing!!  

Stonehenge was about an hour drive away from Windsor castle, it started to rain a bit on our drive but it was beautiful scenery in the countryside. We were dropped off about 1 mile away from the stones and had to take a little shuttle up 1/2 way or so. We walked the rest of the way up to the stones and they were beautiful. We couldn't go all the way up to them an touch, it was roped off and we could only see from the short distance away.

They mentioned the foot traffic would make the ground erode much faster. The stones were surrounded by fields of sheep and a 'motorway' in the distance. The stones were placed just right for the light to come through and I believe it was more used as a 'calendar' and to track time. There were lots of 'hills' in the ground where it was said that people were buried right there. We made our way around the stones in about an hour and had a latte before we headed out.

Bath, England was another hour away (continuing west). The city from a distance was so gorgeous. We were dropped off at the museum of the Roman Baths. It was pretty impressive. This whole city was made years and years ago for the 'rich and wealthy'. They would build a 2nd home and enjoy the baths, hot rooms, immersion pools, etc during their stay. The waters were said to be healthy and healing. The Royal families would come and women who couldn't get pregnant would come looking for miracles.  The remnants of the baths was incredible. There was untreated water in the big pool area and you could clearly distinguish the different rooms: dressing room, immersion pools, hot rooms, etc. Afterwards we to the circus area where Nick Cage used to live. It was a beautiful wealthy part of town. Then we headed back through the beautiful countryside. We could see the border of Wales on the way home. I never knew we were so far west to see another country! It was impressive! 

We were dropped off at Victoria train station, we went to dinner--we had a full dinner, dessert and even after dinner drinks to finished the long day!