Bath and Stonehenge Sept 2015

Its been a while since I have written on my blog and I'm sorry for not writing sooner.  Its been really hard to for me to put my thoughts into words lately.  I'm going to try.

We took two separate day trips to visit Bath and Stonehenge.  Each visit were very special and unique.

The Royal Bath

Stonehenge

Bath is a small city about 100 miles from London.  Its a very pretty town set on a rolling countryside. Its famous for its natural hot springs and 18th century architecture.  The Romans came in the 60 AD and set up temples and baths, the country's only hot springs.

We went to visit Bath with friends.  It was such a nice easy drive.  They boys were not happy that they had to sit in the car for 2 hours.  Ever since we moved to London, they do not enjoy riding in the car.  They rather ride the trains and buses.  And when Aarav found out that we could have taken a train to Bath, he was quite upset.  So, we got to Bath around 11 and walked around a bit before we had a nice picnic lunch.

After lunch, Aayush was fascinated by one of the street vendor.  The vendor had a few pigeons with him and was offering to have the pigeons sit on your hand for small fee.  Aayush, our friends daughters and Gitesh all took turns with the pigeons.

We were off to see the Roman Baths.  It was really cool to see how the romans enjoyed their social life and all the history.  We were not allowed to touch the water, but some of us did!  I was one of them.  To my surprise, the water was very hot.  I'm glad that  I did touch the water.  It made me realize how nice it must have been for the Romans to enjoyed their baths.

After the visit to Bath, we tried to go have tea at the oldest building in Bath, built in 1482 AD.  But, the lines were too long and the kids were not going to wait.  So, we got the kids ice cream and had them run around in the town square. The square next to the Roman Baths and the Bath Abbey, a church.  After the kids had their fun of running around and eating ice cream, we went to see the Bath Abbey built around 1148 AD.  We didn't have much time to enjoy it since it was about to close for a private event.

It was time to do some walking and enjoy what Bath is all about.  One thing that I didn't really enjoy was all the retail shopping stores that were there.  They have taken over the city.  Why can't companies have to take over even small quaint towns.  Is it so hard for them to drive to London for shopping?

Anyway, we walked past the Circus.  The Circus is a circular row of townhomes build between 1754-1768.  In the middle is a circular park with trees that were planted back in 1810.  The last stop was to see the Royal Crescent.  Similar to the Circus, but in a more grand scale that was build 1767-75.   To put in perspective, both structures are OLDER than U.S.A.   And, both were build by John Wood Jr.

The Circus

Trees Planted from 1810

The Royal Crescent

Our next trip was to Stonehenge.  The Stonehenge is a famous prehistoric monument in Britian.   It was believed that it was constructed between 3000-2000 B.C.  There are two circle of stones that make up Stonehenge.  The inner circle is made up with stones called Bluestones.  They are from the Preseli mountains, in south-west Wales.  The outer stones are Sarsen stones.  They are from a Wiltshire, 25 miles north of Stonehenge.  Seeing this monument for the first time was breathtaking.   Our first glimpse  of the Stonehenge was from the road.  It was interesting to see how the site is so close to the road.  It was interesting and hard to believe how close the road had been built to this monument.  We started at the visitors center where they have recreated a village of the people helped create this site we have today.

Village

We had a choice of either going on a bus to the site or walking 1.5miles.  We decided to walk.  The boys were not so happy to walk but I'm so glad that we did.  If we had not walked to the site, we would have missed out on some very pretty sighting along the way.

Sheeps on the right side

Farms

We were also abel to see a few burial mounds as we were walking.

It felt like we were walking forever to get to Stonehenge. The boys were getting tired and there was a few times when we thought we were near, but it was still a great distance away.  Maybe the bus would have been the way to go.  But, at last....

We finally saw it!!! It would be a short time till we will be able to reach and see it up close ourselves. But first, the boys stopped to pick a few flowers for me!

We were finally at STONEHENGE!  It was a journey to get here but it was all worth it.  To marvel at this monument that was built so long ago. It was such an awe moment for all of us.  The boys were fascinated by there audio and were trying to get as much information as possible.  They were teaching us what they were hearing.  

From the road!

 We had a wonderful trip to both Bath and Stonehenge.  Both were very memorable and different.