Stonehenge, Lacock and Bath Tour Day

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Today was a late start (thankfully). We had our Stonehenge, Lacock and Bath Tour. The bus was completely booked with about 50 people on it. Our first stop was at Bath, where we had a tour of the Roman Baths, which was quite interesting. The city was only established as the Romans had a penchant for hot baths etc, so they established one at the only thermal spring in the UK. Much of the historic part of Bath had only been uncovered in the last 100 or so years. Time went too fast here and we quickly found ourselves back on the bus for the next leg.

Lacock was next on the itinerary. Apparently Camilla grew up here as a child, and her daughter also. We were told of a little bridge that would be a good photo opportunity, so we headed there. Didn’t realize it was THAT little. Took some pics and headed for something to eat, not very hard to find, with 2 streets in the town!! Had some beautiful scones, and headed for the bus to head to Stonehenge.

On the trip to Stonehenge, we came across a lot of “thatched” houses. The thatched roofs were to last 10-15 years and cost up to 20 thousand pounds to do, as thatchers were now very scarce. Also, we passed part of the way around a corner to find a bus on the other side of the road. Only room for one bus and a car. It took about 20 minutes to work out how to pass as both busses had cars piled up behind them as well.

We arrived at Stonehenge to find the tourist shop had closed. This was explained by the tour operator that we wanted the last tour and the shop would not have been open anyway. This was quite disappointing as we have been collecting tourist books of places we have visited and there were some great photos in the window that I would have liked to buy (Hale Bopp comet in background and a Solar Eclipse). We’ll have to try to get them via the internet. We crossed over the road to the stones, and split into two groups to go inside the circle (to satisfy security). This tour is the only one allowed inside the stones. Everyone else has to stay outside a perimeter rope about 30m away from the outside of the circle. Before long, we were inside the stones. They are huge and it amazes you knowing they moved 20 tonne stones 80 miles to put them here, and that was before the wheel was invented, so they must have been dragged. The sun soon set, and it was very hard to try to get photos without people in them, but we managed to get a few. The group could have been better organised. Everyone wanted photos, but others were always in the frame. We could have all been in the same spot for photos, and then moved, but there wasn’t any organisation. Just as the sun started colouring up the landscape nicely, we were called back to the bus. If we only had another half hour there for photos with the sunset, but the tour guide wanted to get back to London. Oh well. We boarded the bus and went back to London, a bit disappointed, but blown out by it all as well.

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