Beautiful Bath & the Mystery of Stonehenge

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Hello.

As many of you now know, my Dad has been diagnosed with cancer & I will be returning to New Zealand shortly. It's unknown how long I may remain there (if not for good) & things have been upsetting & stressful, so I'm sorry for the late posting. Will keep you all in the know, & will hopfully make it back to take more pictures of exciting places.

The following pictures are from our trip to Bath & Stonehenge on July
16th. It was nice to get out of the city & go & see something
different - even the bus ride was exciting & it was interesting to see
that the UK countryside is a lot different from New Zealand. There
were only small rolling hills & very few livestock. Bath itself was
an incredible town that is built on a very steep hill. All the houses
are in these amazing rows down the hillside & they are all kept in
such beautiful condition. It really seemed to be a slice of another
culture, compared to London, which is the same as any other busy city.
Bath has the only thermal springs in Britain, & they were first
discovered by the Romans, so the original hot pools (baths) are
surrounded by Roman buildings & temples (or what's left of them). The
museum there has done their best to preserve the culture & artifacts
of that time. You can no longer swim in the pools, but there is a new
complex down the road. I definately enjoyed the trip to Bath more
than anything else I have done since arriving in the UK. It's well
worth a visit!

Stonehenge was good too, although not quite what I had been expecting.
I thought you would have to walk some distance to get to it, & that
it would be up a hill or something, but it is right next to a main
highway into London. It's funny to think that's it's only about an
hour's drive out of the city. It was interesting, but there were so
many tourists (like us, I guess), but at least the day was sunny.
There was a lot of spare grassy space around so you could bring a
whole group out for a picnic & a game of soccer or something, if you
wanted to. Unfortunately you can't actually walk right up to the
stones, but it was still a good day.

It was a really good tour & I really enjoyed myself. I think Vaughan did too except for the loud Spanish guy near him on the bus on the way back, but I'm sure he's over it by now. Recommendation - Bath, in general!

Take care - talk to you all again soon.
Love Toni xxxxxxxx

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