Windsor Castle, Bath and Stonehenge - October 6, 2012

Other than having landed in England way back in the early 1970's following a trip to visit my parents in Paris, I've never been in England which is sort of surprising given the amount of traveling I've done in my life.  I'd left home for college and my own life before my father accepted an assignment that placed him in Paris with responsibilities that extended to the Middle East and Africa.

This decade has flown by frighteningly fast and I began to chafe with the thoughts that perhaps I never would get to England let alone Scotland and Wales -- places that have become more alluring to me as I've plunged into the genaeological research begun by my father and discovered where my ancestors lived.

So, a trip was in order and as I've written here I finally did fly to England last month and spent several days trekking across England along the path made famous by A. Wainwright.

But that was northern England and I wanted to get to Stonehenge, too.  I've since learned there are stone circles of one kind or another all over the place, Stonehenge probably being the most famous; in fact, we visited one place while on our trek - Gamelands Stone Circle.  My friend, Kathy, with whom I made the trip from the United States, has told me about the Brodgar Circle in Scotland as well as Scara Brae, an important archaeological site, also in Scotland.

We knew we would have at least one day to spend in London following our trek because we wanted to return non-stop to Phoenix and that flight is once a day from Heathrow.  We then decided to spend a full sight-seeing day based in London and also planned to visit the British Museum on Friday afternoon, after we arrived from York.  We had an agenda; we needed to "operationalize" it.

Having made the acquaintance of Heather Williams (of AvoyaTravel.com), a travel agent here in the States who helped us with our reservation at our hotel, we asked her if she would investigate what tours might be available to us and she came up with several combinations, one of the most time-consuming being first a visit to Windsor Castle, then to Bath and the location of the ancient Roman Baths, and finally to Stonehendge where we would arrive close to sunset.  How could we go wrong?  Besides, we could sleep on the coach if we wanted (needed) to.

Early Saturday morning we went down to breakfast and then quickly made our way through the park at Russell Square to a neaby hotel lobby where we were picked up and transported to the bustling Victoria Coach Station -- the hub, it appeared, of all bus (oops, coach) travel in the area.  Our tour was provided by Evan Evans.  We left promptly at 9 a.m. and spent the entire day either traveling (five hours total in the coach) or visiting the locations we chose.  Incidentally, by entire day I mean until after 8 p.m. at which time we were dropped off at the Hyde Park Underground station and given directions to take the Picadilly Circus Line that would get us eventually to Russell Square and then our hotel.  Never having traveled the Underground before, we obtained a quick lesson from another couple who was traveling in our direction and managed to purchase our ticket, carry our ticket, and insert our ticket in the stile when we arrived at our destination.  Interesting process.  Crowded train being Saturday night.

I also learned, while researching this blog piece, that this same line would have transported us to Heathrow had we chosen to travel by Underground rather than the Heathrow Express.  Next time......


First stop, Windsor Castle

We arrived at the Coach parking lot of Windsor Castle about an hour later and made our way hastily (limited time) to the ticket venue and from there to the entrance of the castle itself.  Along the way we passed through an amazing shopping mall populated by several shops with distinguished recognizable names (and some not so recognizable), plenty of eateries (we stopped at one on the way back to the bus to grab our lunch), and a train engine that became a marker for us so we knew we were on the right road to get back to our coach in time.

In time, you ask?  We were admonished that we had limited time and the the coach would leave without us if we didn't get back within the designated hour.  Sure enough, we left two people behind.....  Now, back to the day.

This signpost guided us:

and our goal was to visit the apartments and then go on to St. George's Chapel where we would find the in-the-floor marker indicating the internment location of King Henry VIII.  We were not permitted to take photos within either place; however, there are sites that do provide a view of what we visited and we saw plenty to look at outside, as well.

Including the changing of the guard for which neither of us could grab our cameras fast enough but we did get this view:

And we did find time to thoroughly visit St. George's Chapel:

I loved the spires and the embellishments.

All too soon we needed to return and after losing precious minutes waiting for two people who did not show up, even fifteen minutes after the noted departure time, we rolled on our way to Bath.  Here's a view looking back at Windsor Castle:

Second Stop, Bath


Our guide for the tour provided us with quite the history of the area as we drove along.  When we finally arrived, we found what seemed like hundreds of cars all making their way down to the center of the city for a look at the Abbey (simply astonishing yet we only had time to view the outside)

as well as the Georgian architecture

On to the Roman Baths!

The main bath was originally covered by a roof, long since gone.  Above the pool itself, arranged as guardians around the area are statues of famous names you'll recognize:

Visitors are provided with self-guiding headsets into which one enters the number of the exhibit one passes.  We walked through several rooms and exhibits that provided us with the knowledge that not only were these baths but also, at one time, a temple.

Here are pieces of the temple that have been reassembled.  A model has been built to illustrate what the entire structure looked like centuries ago.

Minerva's Head

Excavations in the area yielded a variety of objects including this beautiful gold brooch:

This Wikipedia site offers a plethora of information about Bath, the history of the area, and the archaeological finds.

Time is fleeting when you're absorbed in something fascinating.  We needed to return to the coach to finish out our tour at

Third Stop, Stonehenge

We arrived with forty-five minutes left until closing time (6 p.m.).  We also arrived at a key point during the day -- close to sunset.  Rather than do any more writing here, I'll simply post a series of photos.  I chose to take a photograph every fifteen paces once Kathy and I had taken the obligatory photos to document our presence at this (to me) magical place.  Not all photos are included, but you get the idea.

Stonehenge is cordoned off.

There were several  burial mounds outside of the area, each one discovered to hold only one body.  Why?

And, here's a rendition of what Stonehenge may have looked like:

Here's a link for more information about Stonehenge.

What an incredible day!

We reached our hotel about 9 p.m., walked right into the restaurant for dinner (and were seated promptly), and then went quickly to bed.  Next morning we packed and were off to Heathrow where we boarded our plane and took off for Phoenix.

I spent the night at Kathy and Bill's, drove over to share a couple of hours with my daughter, and then drove back to Tucson.  The last half hour found me feeling the effects of jet lag but now that I-10 is three lanes in both directions for much of the way, travel along this rather boring stretch of road has become easier.

What a wonderful trip!