Friday 14 August

Well we have had two busy days back in London. On Wednesday we walked to Canary Wharf  and spent the day looking around and doing a little shopping. My feet were quite tired by the end of the day but it was all good.
On Thursday we got up really early and made our way to the Victoria Coach station which is in tow. We had to catch a bus then go on the underground train to get there. When we got there it was packed with people and we found gate 16 which was where our coach was going from. The coach arrived - it was a beautiful and very comfortable big double decker bus. We sat up on the top level of the. Bus and off we went.

Our visits were to Windsor Castle which is one of the residences of the Queen, to Bath which is the little town where the Roman Baths are and then go Stonehenge where the circle of stones are. It was an 11 hour trip in total.

Windsor Castle was the first stop. It is enormous and only one of the homes that the Queen owns.
Our guide's name was Frank and he was fabulous. He was very knowledgable about all the places we visited and he had a great sense of humour. Our driver was Rob and he was very quiet but that is fine because his job was to drive us there safely.

Just a small part of the castle

The tall part at the front with the tower is where the Queen stays when she is in residence.

 

Another view of the castle

Then off again, this time to Bath to see the Roman Baths that were made many hundreds of years ago by lots and lots of people. This would have been such hard work but they were certainly well used by the people who went there. There were hot springs, cold plunge baths and the central pools. Areas for women and areas for men. It was also a place for great conversations.

The Central Pool

A statue

A flowing spring 

Then we left the lovely town of Bath. I would have liked to stay there longer and definitely would like to go back there some day. Off we went in the coach for another hours drive to Stonehenge. Stonehenge was built in several stages about 5,000 years ago as a simple earthwork enclosure where prehistoric people buried their dead. The stone circle was erected in the centre around 2,500 BC. There is still a lot of mystery surrounding the area but it is also thought that some people may have come to the place in the hope that they will be healed of injuries or sickness. There are also mounds of earth in the area called barrows which are also burial sites for important people. There are two types of stones there- the larger sarsens and the smaller ones are bluestones.