Stonehenge and Bath

We wanted to see both Stonehenge and Bath, so we took a group tour.  It was not the most successful experiment.  All those glowing reviews are either by company shills or people with lower expectations than we have.

We met at the Victoria Bus Station at 8:15 -- over a hundred of us, but we broke into two busloads, and we never saw the other group again. Still, fifty isn't an intimate group. Two hour drive to Stonehenge, about an hour to visit the site and tour the visitor center (all this in the rain and wind, of course).  Here's the obligatory photo

You can't go into the actual circle -- you get close enough to take good photos, but it would be interesting to see it from within.  Lots of information about what is known about the people who built this (which is not much), the purpose of the site (not much about that either), and how it was built (they know quite a bit about that).

Back in the bus (which was comfy, but not as nice as our Oxford Tube bus to Oxford, which was just regular public transportation) for an hour's drive to Bath.  We toured the Roman Baths (it was optional/extra cost, but was the highlight of the trip), found lunch (more British food, though I managed to get a salad instead of fries) and wandered around town.  Here are a few photos,

The Bath Abbey

The main pool of the Roman baths, looking much as it did in Roman times (though I suspect it got enough use that the water wasn't green with algae.)

The upper level of the baths; these statues were added in Georgian times, when the baths were first restored.

There are many more rooms to the Baths, and a good audio guide (with some commentary by Bill Bryson) and a lot of semi-interactive exhibits.  I especially liked the origin of 'curses', which were (often petty) complaints to a god, written on lead and thrown into water dedicated to them.  Often "may the person who stole my clothes while I was bathing develop leprosy" or something like that.

A Georgian arcade.  What makes Bath lovely is that the city was (re)developed as a unified whole in Georgian times out of Cotswold stone (here called Bath stone)

This currently seems to be a wine shop.  We aren't sure if "The Giggling Squid" is a recent name or it's been called that forever, but I loved the name

Part of a circle of townhomes, at the top of a hill overlooking Bath (probably the most expensive address) called the Circus.

We spent about 3 hours total in Bath.  Due to parking restrictions, they were rather martinet-like about meeting the bus on time -- we ended up picking up people who had missed their bus from an earlier tour.  Then about three hours back to London.

That we spent more time on the bus than visiting sites was probably unavoidable, but more or less all the tour did is drive us to the sites, tell us where to go and when be at the bus for the next leg.  Our guide had a bit of patter, but wasn't particularly good.  We won't be doing this again.  We went with Premium Tours, but I suspect all of them would be similar.

After coming back, we looked for a "not so British" meal.  Succeeded: Jay had pasta, I had a wonderful kale, lettuce, apple and hazelnut salad and a sea bass crudo, but with the worst service we have had yet.  We are not developing a good feeling about British restaurants.