Day 7: Stonehenge, Bath, and the Rosetta Stone

Well, I thought I gave myself plenty of time to get to Victoria Coach station this morning (where our tour was to depart from). I woke up at 6:30. I had a decent breakfast (not the full English breakfast—just the buffet). I got on the tube at Paddington station and made my way to Victoria. Only, once I got there, I couldn't find Victoria Coach station. There's so many different stations just in that two or three block area. The tube, trains, public buses, and on top of it all two or three departure points for various tour companies. I must have gone in circles two or three times before realizing that I needed to go another block south. I just barely got there in time (we were to depart at 8:00). It's sad when you're already tired of walking and the day has yet to begin.

The tour bus had some freaky psychedelic interior; all these way weird color combinations of blues and reds and yellows that should have been outlawed by now. Otherwise, it was a typical bus. Our guide was this old British guy, who again seemed to fit the ambience perfectly. A totally peculiar wit. Always joking about the pub and royalty. Reminded me of a lot of old guys I met in Grafton, Australia. Our driver was pretty cool. He was black and joked a lot, playing the straight man to our driver's absurdity. Our group was pretty small. I don't know—maybe 20 of us. There was one chick in our group who was pretty hot. She was with her mom though, so she was kind of hard to pick up on. Especially since it was my last day.

It took us about an hour and a half to get out to Stonehenge. About 30 minutes of that was driving through the city and seeing what that was like. Man, once you start getting out of the center of London, you see a lot of run-down areas. I mean, there were entire districts of unoccupied office buildings—twenty or thirty story buildings that looked like they had been built maybe twenty years ago, with all of the windows broken and graffiti everywhere. I've never seen anything like that. Usually, if there's office space, it will get recycled eventually. But here, it's like they just decided "screw it" and built new buildings. Anyways, it really makes for some ugly looking districts.

But once we were out of the city, there was a lot of country-side. Which kind of surprised me. I would have thought in such a crowded nation that there wouldn't be so much country-side. But I guess you have to farm and graze crops somewhere. I guess it's no different from going to New York and finding country-side so close to New York City. It's a totally different mentality compared to the Texas/California suburban sprawl that you get so used to out west.

My first thought on Stonehenge, from the road at least, was that it was a lot smaller than I was expecting. But up close, it looks pretty huge. We toured it (on our own, unassisted by the tour guide) for about an hour, and I took way too much video and too many pictures. I also listened to the accompanying audio tour. But what I really wanted to do was get close to it and just sit. Too bad they don't let you anywhere near it. You just walk around, 10-50 feet outside of the perimeter. Which is pretty cool, anyways, thinking about civilizations that rose and fell thousands of years ago, before the world was anything like it is now. Yet their curiosities and need to understand their role in the universe was the same. We really haven't made a lot of progress in the latter aspect of this. Five thousand years later, we're still asking the same questions. It really puts a perspective on life. So, yeah, it was pretty interesting from a historical/archeological standpoint. I was just bummed that all of the other tourist and rules got in the way.

From there, we drove north to Bath, going through a number of quaint, one-pub villages on the way. Bath was way bigger than I thought it was, and the architecture was amazing, all those rooftops sloping from the valley into the hills. And that was just my impression from the road. We got into Bath around 12:30, parking right outside a really old Abbey, which was right next to the Roman baths. To avoid the after-lunch rush, we went straight to the baths. The baths were pretty cool. The wow factor wasn't as big as Stonehenge, but it left so much more room for imagination and discovery. It was quite an exercise trying to piece together what the baths might have looked like in their hey-day. The engineering was also way cool. It's hard to imagine people back then being so advanced. I also liked reading about all of the different structures that have been built on top of the baths throughout the ages. What would have made things perfect, though, would have been to actually take a bath there. Oh well.

I ate at a small fish-n-chips place that the tour guide recommended. It wasn't as cool as I'd been hoping. I liked fish-n-chips a lot better in Australia. Maybe I just went to the wrong places here in England. After lunch, I walked around for a little while. Bath is very much a tourist town. There were tons of tourist walking through the main downtown area, and there were tons of shops. The downtown area itself was really designed for pedestrians. There aren't a lot of roads, just walk-ways. Which makes sense for a tourist town. At about 3:00, some of us met the tour guide, and he took us around the city. I'm glad I did that, because he pointed out some cool architecture. Bath was originally built as sort of a retirement place for the rich, and the main architects were a father-son pair. And of course, there was a bit of a rivalry between them. Fantastic architects if you ask me. And our tour guide had a lot of useful facts about the way life would have been around here as the city was being built.

After that, we headed back to London. This was more like a two hour trip this time. I guess it was a bad time for traffic. They dropped us off at Victoria Coach Station again, and I headed immediately to the Royal British Museum. There, I had about an hour and a half to check out things like the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles. Who'd have thought that such a plain and simple stone could pave the way for us understanding such ancient civilizations? There were lots of Egyptian and Assyrian statues/artifacts as well. It was a great museum, and they even let you take flash photography (I don't understand that). I really wish I had had more time there, but I did get some great pictures.

After that closed, around 8:00, I headed back to Paddington. I ate dinner at this Italian Pizzeria near the hotel. All I can say is it sucked. Either the British have no idea how to make pizza and how to create a salad bar, or I just ate at the wrong place. And then I came home. I packed while I watched TV, and now it's bedtime. I've got an early day tomorrow.

Posted May 15, 2003 (10:26 PM) | Comments (1)