Roman Baths

I think the reason the reason they named the city of Bath the way they did is due to the large Roman Bath that is there. This is a picture of the place from the upper balcony. The city is uncovering the bath bit by bit, this upper portion is refurbished to look like it would have back when the Romans used it. The statues are of famous people who most likely had been to the bath in the past.



As you walk in, they have a museum about the bath through different periods of history. They have a bunch of old statues and curses that were thrown into the bath. Apparently old users of the bath used to throw curses written on metal sheets into the bath. Anything from a stolen cloak, to a stolen cow. They would come to the bath, have a scribe write up a curse on a sheet of metal, then they would throw the curse into the bath.



They also show you the underlying structure of the baths when you walk around the museum.



This is a picture of the large bath itself. It's below street level and I think it might have been unearthed and they are still unearthing parts of it now.



Around the bath they have actors playing parts of the people who would normally be found around the bath in roman times. This is a picture of the priest, there was also a stone mason working with some tools in a corner.



Like a lot of other roman baths, they had sauna rooms by pumping lots of hot water under the floors. These are the pillars that held up the floor so the hot water could run underneath it.



This is spring well. It's been around for a very long time, although it used to be higher. You can see the dark line around the walls, that's the old height of the water. People used to bring sick people here so that they could be healed by the waters. They let us drink some of the water at the end of the tour, it was pretty disgusting to taste. Just warm and bad tasting.

The River Avon

While I was in Bath I also took a tour down the River Avon to the town of Bathhampton. I took the Pulteney Princess that aptly started at the Pulteney bridge (shown above). On the way up the river I didn't get many good pictures because I was stuck in a bad seat, but on the way back I got to sit at the front of the boat and got a bunch of pictures.

I would have stayed at Bathhampton, but the next ride back was already full which meant I would have had to wait 2 hours before I could get a boat back.



When we got to Bathhampton there were a bunch of people on the pier making a fuss. It turns out that we had blocked in a swan and her goslings. They were pretty cute, and got out without any problems.



This was the weir at Bathhampton with a bridge in the background.



Turns out I could have taken a smaller electric boat, but the boat I was on wasn't that loud, so everything turned out okay. Although it looks like the ducks liked their boat better.



These are just some photos I took off the bow of the ship as we were headed back to Bath.









It turns out that you can even rent boats to ride down the river. You can see the place to rent boats back on the left. There are both row boats and punting boats. Either one needed two people, along with most of an afternoon, so I didn't take any of them.



There is also a weir at Bath proper. The seagulls are having fun now that the guy and his Labrador have left.



And here is a picture of Bath and it's surrounding country side as seen from the boat.

Stonehenge

So last Saturday I took a trip to Bath, and from Bath took a tour of Stonehenge.



The entrance fee to Stonehenge includes an audio tour. I'd always been of the opinion that Stonehenge was one of the most mysterious sites on Earth. Shrouded in the mists of time (as the audio tour said). But after listening, it sounds like it's well known when parts of Stonehenge were built. The original henge didn't even have any rocks in it, just wooden spikes surrounding a type of empty moat. Although, interestingly, the moat had been dug by hand using deer antlers as pick axes and cow shoulder blades as shovels. It turns out the original site without rocks was created five thousand years ago, whereas the small rocks in the middle showed up a thousand years after that. The larger rocks were put in a few hundred years after.

They didn't know how or why they moved the stones into their positions, but it was kind of interesting to see. I don't know if I totally believe Craig's idea that once you've seen one set of rocks you've seen them all, but Stonehenge was less mysterious and captivating than I had been hoping.



Most pictures you see of Stonehenge are like the first few in this post, with no one wandering in among the stones. I'd always figured that was due to the fact that they were professionally taken after hours or something. Turns out that's not the case. When you come to see the stones they don't actually let the public in among the stones. There's a path around the outside that you're supposed to follow. I talked to the workers there and it turns out that anyone can set up an appointment to go walk amongst the stones, but I think you can't do it during normal operating hours. I didn't ask, but I wouldn't be surprised if it cost money to do so.



The rock there on the floor is called the sacrifice stone. Apparently, when it's wet, that stone turns a reddish color. It turns out that these stones have a lot of iron in them. When it rains, the iron rusts and since this stone is lying flat, the rust collects and causes red pools that look similar to blood. All the big stones have the same iron content and would do the same thing if they were laid on their sides.



Around Stonehenge there are a bunch of burial mounds. I had a few minutes before the tour went back to Bath so I took a quick walk over to see them. It turns out that now they're sitting in someone's cow pasture. Luckily the cows weren't angered by me entering their paddock.



I took a walk up to the top of one of the burial mounds, which it seems had been done many times before. And if you look closely, you can see a few others have decided to take a picnic lunch at the top.

London

So, on Saturday the 19th I finally made it to London. I took an hour long train ride from Brighton to Victoria Station in London and it only cost 10 pounds (14 pounds after online fees). When I got to London I was within walking distance of the building above, the home of Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace.



To get the cheap fare I had to get to London a bit early, and I was too early for the changing of the guard. As you can see there were only a few people hanging around the Victoria Monument in front of the palace.



So to kill some time I decided to go see the Canadian monument commemorating Canada's aid to the UK during the first and second world wars. I thought it would be big and memorable, but instead it was just this little disk and a small waterfall behind it. It's nice there was a memorial, but I thought it would be bigger. There were also memorials for campaigns in India, and for Australia. Both were bigger.



By the time I got back to Buckingham Palace there were lots more people standing around Victoria memorial and in front of the gates, so I settled in to wait for an hour before the changing of the guard started.



The Scottish Guards were those on duty when we first got there. There were only 2 people on guard at first, but then a bunch of them came marching around the Victoria memorial and into the yard in front of the palace.



Behind the Scottish Guard, came the Scottish Guard band. It seems like each set of guards has it's own band that follows them around.



Afterwards the Welsh Guard came around the Victoria memorial and into the yard. You can tell it's the Welsh Guard because of the green and white feathers in their caps.



The Welsh Guard also had it's own band. But now that we had both bands there, it seemed like they decided to have a battle of the bands. The Scottish and Welsh bands switched back and forth playing songs from the Jackson 5 and Eric Clapton. I didn't recognize many of them, but the Canadian lady in front of me said that's what they were.

While they were playing guardsman were marching around in front of the doors.






Once all the music and marching was done, both bands, the Scottish guards, and most of the Welsh guard marched out of the yard, around the Victoria memorial and down Pall Mall. Leaving only two Welsh guards guarding at the doors of Buckingham Palace.



After watching the changing of the guard, I walked through St. James park which was really quite naturalistic. I remember reading somewhere that the English prefer much more natural gardens compared to the highly manicured gardens of the French. This is a pretty good example of that I would say.



After heading through the park I walked down to Westminster Abby. Like most other historical places in England, they didn't want me taking pictures. So I only got a few from the outside. It was quite interesting as I saw gravestones for Lewis Carroll, Lawrence Oliver, and the Bronte Sisters.



Once we got outside we were allowed to take pictures. This is the cloister area of Westminster Abbey.



And this is the cafe the erected in the cloisters of Westminster Abby. If they can erect a cafe in the cloister, how come we can't take pictures? I swear it's got to be because they can make money selling postcards.



After taking an audio tour through Westminster Abby I headed over to Westminster Palace. I never knew that was the name for the parliamentary buildings. I guess that's why the building seems so ornamental. I can hear Craig cringing from here at my lack of knowledge of English history.



From the park behind Westminster Palace I got a fairly good look at the Thames and the London Eye. Trips up there cost 30 pounds each and, from what I've read, aren't really that good. The Tower Bridge is further up the river, but you can't see it from here.



After wandering through the park I started heading down the road towards Trafalgar square. On the way down the street I passed this nice looking horse with a slightly frightening sign that the horse may bite and kick passers by. Nevertheless, people were still lining up to stand beside them and have their pictures taken.



Then, at the end of the road, I ended up at Trafalgar square with a man standing atop a very large pillar. It looked like Napolean, but I can't think why they'd put Napolean at the top of a plinth in London.



And on the other side of the plinth is the British National Gallery. It's free to visit, but they charge a few pounds if you want to take the audio tour. I figured I"d get the 60 minute tour and then get another one if I wanted to see more. Turns out the tour they gave me had almost every picture in the collection, but just gave me a list of the most important paintings. Like everywhere else though, they wouldn't let me take pictures while I was inside.

So I started going through the list of 30 paintings or so, and stopped at any others I thought were interesting along the way. There were images by Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, Van Gogh, Picasso, and many others. I figured that doing the 60 minute tour would take long as I always fly through museums, but just by stopping at random paintings I was rushing to finish the tour 3 hours later to get done before the closed. The audio tour really helped, I think it's the first time I've been to a museum where I actually stopped and looked at most of the paintings.



After seeing the national gallery, I noticed that St. Martin in the Fields was right next door.



When you go in, it seems like a fairly normal hall. Albeit with a pulpit in the middle. And there's a strange window at the end that I'm sure must symbolize something. But it does sound good. There was a girl there practicing for the performance that evening. I took a video but it didn't get any sound which is really too bad, because it was really nice.



After getting some dinner, I walked up to Piccadilly Circus. I found these painted elephants up and down the street. I think they were for some charitable cause, but I can't remember what.








On the way back towards Victoria station I stopped on the other side of the horse museum to take a look at the horse grounds. I think they practice riding in formation or some other guard changing stuff here.

Brighton Marina

So on Saturday the 12th I didn't have anything to do because I had to stay in town so I could see the USA vs. England World Cup game (score was 1-1 by the way). So instead of just hanging out at home I figured I should go out and do something. So I headed downtown to see what I could see.



While I was walking along the beach, I noticed that there was a tiny little train station. The train said it would take passengers to the Brighton Marina. A few days earlier Huw had told me that he had spent 30 minutes walking out there so I figured taking the train would be much faster.



Once I got to the marina I walked along the break water. From the break water I could see the entrance to the harbor itself.



Apparently a lot of people enjoyed fishing from the edge of the break water. I even talked to a few Brits who had just come back from Vancouver. Apparently I was good luck because they had been fishing for four hours before I came and hadn't caught anything. But while I was talking to them, they caught six fish. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that they'd just moved to a new part of the break water.



While walking on the eastern break water you could see a huge building up on the cliffs. I was told later by someone at work that it's a fancy private girls' school. I couldn't find it on Google Maps, so I guess I'll just have to believe him even though there's a girls school near there but not at the same place I saw the large building.



The other interesting thing you may have noticed is that apparently Dover is not the only city with large white cliffs. There's even a windmill out there for some reason. I'll have to go there some day.



Some of the boats here were really nice, although most of the nice ones for sale were over 100k.