Windsor Castle, Bath & Stonehenge

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So I've been pretty slack about updating my blog since I've been back, mainly due to lack of travel, fatigue and just plain laziness.

Windsor Castle

So I started off by myself at 8am and got on a Evan Evans tour out to Windsor Castle. Going on another tour proved to be a weird experience as the people on the tour were slightly uh... more "aged" then Contiki (18-35).
Basically I wasn't going to get a tour where everyone was drinking and making immature jokes..instead what I had was an "Eccentric" lady who would rave on about her husband, her dog and all the other generic crap no-one really gave a flying fuck about.

When we were getting on the bus, it wouldn't be the laid back "I'll sit wherever I feel like with whoever I feel like" type of trip, instead it was a bunch of lemmings trying to pile out the nearest fire exit as soon as possible because the people behind them were on fire.
This one rather uh.. "Well constructed" lady literally just pushed me out of the way. I should've swung at her.
Sheesh it's no wonder people have high blood pressures when the simplest task of getting on the bus is a fucking race.

Anyway, Crazy lady continued to ramble about her life and all the mishaps etc that went along with it. She then touched on how losing someone close to you isn't cool and mentioned something about cancer which I personally felt was too far over the line. There were elderly people on the bus who had undoubtedly lost someone they know personally within the last 5 years or so being reminded of it by some fucking tour guide. I bit my tongue and sat patiently waiting for someone to cast the first stone but no-one said anything. Grr.

Windsor Castle is the largest inhabited castle in the world and dating back to the time of William the Conqueror, is the oldest in continuous occupation. The Queen spends a lot of her time there mainly on weekends.

While we were there we had the pleasure of watching the changing of the guard. This is about a 30minute presentation which consists of a guy in a red suit screaming at some guys holding rifles, screamer pacing up and down about 30 times, another group of guards turning up, a band turning up and then everyone leaving.
20 minutes of it was enough for me. I really wish I had that 20 minutes of my life back. At least I can say I've seen the changing of the guard though right?

Bath

Next up was Bath where we went to see the Historic Roman Baths. The hot springs were originally found by the Celts but after the Roman invasion a temple was constructed in 60-70AD and the bathing complex would then be built up for several hundred years afterwards.

Essentially it was a public bathing area which were built on hot springs. The audio guide they had was crap and I felt pretty tired after hearing crazy lady ramble on so I didn't read much more about it. Have a look at the pictures, it was awesome.

As I had lost track of time, I didn't explore Bath any further. I really wish I had, but I didn't want to get left in a town with no way of getting back. Stink buzz.

Stonehenge

So finally it was time to see one of the most famous sites in the world. Stonehenge. This was fucking amazing.
Archaeologists believe the site was erected between 3,000BC and 1,600BC and is aligned with the setting of the sun and the changing of the seasons.

When people say "Oh it's just a bunch of rocks" it's like, yeah, well you're a talking piece of shit and there's something that amazes me about the fact that someone as stupid as you can actually remotely construct a sentence. But seriously, 'a bunch of rocks' try 5000 year old that weigh 50 tonnes and have somehow been taken from Wales to their current location which wouldn't have been a walk in the park.

Gareth (friend from Scotland) actually has a theory that they moved the rocks in winter and had people throwing water on the roads so they could slide the rocks along. When asked "How did they raise them" he responded "Fuck knows."

When I was walking around looking at the circle I noticed in a few of the rocks appeared to have faces or engravings in some of the rocks. Maybe it was just because that's how they are, but yeah.
In a few of the pictures you can also see what appears to be paintings. The only problem with this is that with the history of the site it could've happened at any stage.

The place was seriously amazing. I got this weird feeling being there. It sounds kinda hippy-ish but at places of great significance like this there's just a really airy feeling. I can't describe it, it's just something I felt and made the place that much more significant for me.

Eventually got back to Hannahs at 8pm. 12 hour day.

Have a look at the pictures!

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Photos

Hogwarts Gate
From Harry Potter (damn flash)

Comments

[Nathan]

Hogwarts gate
that wasnt the flash of ur camera dats real magic......