The Day We Stormed a Castle, Took a Bath and Henged some Stone

So, remember how we went to Europe back in April. Welcome to Day 3 of that trip! On this day, we ventured outside the city gates and into the English countryside. Our first stop was Windsor Castle. Windsor Castle is one of the official residences of The Queen, and the largest occupied castle in the world. To get to Windsor, we had scheduled a bus tour that was to take us first to Windsor, then to Bath and then on to Stonehenge before returning to London.

It was a little interesting finding our way to the bus station as it was across the street and down a bit from the rest of Victoria Station that we were familiar with at this point. But we made it with plenty of time to spare anyway and boarded for our trip right around 8AM. We would be gone for about 11 hours. Our tour guide was an older gentleman named Travis who was just fantastic.

Windsor Castle

The Tower at Windsor - most of the castles were began as towers built on mounds and then surrounded by a moat of some sort. Then the castle would grow outwards and eventually a town would spring up as the castle became a prominent place to be.

Stacie and I in front of the Tower.

A band of British soldiers playing some funky tunes.

British soldiers marching.

He was really good at not paying attention to us. His eyes darted around like crazy though. It was kind of creepy.

My turn to stand awkwardly close to a man who wanted nothing to do with us.

After touring Windsor Castle, it was time to make our way to Bath. Windsor was about a 30 minute ride from London, but Bath was going to be about 1-2 hours from Windsor. Bath was the most fantastic little town. It was tucked into the hills and had a beautiful river running through it. On the day we were there, there was big rugby match being played between Bath and one of their rivals so the town was all abuzz about that. Stacie and I toured the ancient Roman Baths, but we hustled through them in about 30 minutes in order to spend our remaining time checking out the little city. We were only given an hour and fifteen minutes here, but we've decided that we will definitely return to Bath at some point in the future.

The Roman Baths - built and used over 2,000 years ago.

A look down into the ancient spa.

Stacie and I about to take a dip. Not really - they frowned upon that. But the stone we are standing on is the same stone the English-Romans stood on as they prepared to take their dip 2,000 years ago which I find pretty amazing.

A very cool bridge in Bath. There are shops all along the inside of this bridge - you can see the back windows to the shops in this shot.

This park was beautiful and filled with people relaxing and listening to the rugby game that was being played just across the river.

Our next stop was the famous Stonehenge. You know - a bunch of rocks stacked up in a sheep pasture and no one knows why. Some think it was an ancient clock or calendar. Others believe it to be a religious monument. Some folks think aliens built it. It was pretty cool to see, but once I realized that nobody knows how it got here and nobody is ever going to know for sure, my attention began to fade. Plus I was pretty tired at this point.

Stonehenge

Us in front of Stonehenge.

More Stonehenge - there really wasn't much else out here.

After all of that we made our way back to the city on our bus. It was about a two hour ride, so we napped a bit. When we got back to London we were both hungry, and I was ready for some authentic fish and chips. So we stopped into this little place called the Bag O' Nails. It was there that I decided to order what I thought to be a cold beer. As you can see from the look on my face, I was a little disappointed.

As it turns out, I had ordered a cider while my wife was drinking a delicious John Smith. I tried to trade her to no avail. After being laughed at a bit by the waiter, he brought me my very own John Smith. All's well that end's well. Oh, and the fish and chips were excellent.