Windsor Castle was our first stop of the tour. It lies about 30 minutes outside of London and is used as the Queen primary residence when she is not at Buckingham Palace. We couldn’t see as much as I was expecting since we were only there for an hour and a half. It was just enough time to get a few pictures, walk around, see everything, but there was no time to linger around one sight. This was probably the biggest downfall of the tour as a whole, but it was still nice to be exposed to all of these landmarks that are outside of London that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. The castle was so big, and the view was incredible. I wish I could have seen the front of the castle because all I saw was the side and the back.
Our next stop was 2 whole hours later in Bath, England. Bath was such a cute English town. All of the streets were extremely narrow and it was excessively hilly. I know our coach driver does this all the time, but I still don’t understand how he maneuvered some of those streets with the giant coach we were in. We went into the Roman Baths and saw those. It was cool, but I feel like I needed to know more about them to really have a full appreciation for it. I plan on learning more about them when I get back into the States. It’d be a shame to have visited some place so rich with ancient history and to not fully appreciate what occurred there thousands of year ago.
The last stop on our tour was Stonehenge, which was another hour’s drive. It was smaller than I was expecting, and the stones weren’t as white as I feel like I had seen in pictures. Our group took a lot of pictures as we always do, complete with jumping pictures. Everyone MUST have a jumping picture when they go to Stonehenge! We were only there for about 45 minutes before we boarded the bus and headed back to London. 45 minutes was a little too short, but about right considering there really wasn’t anything to see at Stonehenge besides the stones themselves. I just don’t understand how people from thousands of years ago, before the wheel was invented, managed to move some of these rocks over 200 miles over hundreds of years to form some sort of prehistoric observatory (at least that’s the leading theory right now). It boggles the mind!!
We got back into the city at about 8pm and had dinner at the restaurant, Ask, which we had eaten at a few days before. It’s located on the block behind our hotel, and has some of the best rose wine I’ve ever tasted! They let me take the bottle home, which is something they normally don’t do.
When we got back to the hotel, we made reservations to go to the Absolut Ice Bar near Piccadilly Circus. It was so cool… literally and figuratively! When we got there it was -7 degrees celcius inside the bar, so they provide your with a parka and attached gloves that you have to wear while inside the bar because everything is ice! The glasses our drinks come in are ice, the bar is ice, the tables, the walls, the floor, everything! My drink was actually really good. I ordered the Absolut Vertigo. Some other people’s drinks actually glowed a little which was a little strange for me, but they seemed to enjoy them. The ice bar sessions are only 45 minutes to prevent anyone from getting too cold, which is fine because we were ready to go right about then anyways.
We headed back to the hotel to finish packing, because in the morning we leave for Paris! Goodbye London, it’s been real! Now onto the rest of the trip!
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