Bath, Stourhead, and Stonehenge

Last weekend we went on an overnight trip to Bath. I absolutely loved Bath, it was so beautiful! I feel like I use the word beautiful to describe everything, but all other words escape me and I just can't think of any other way to describe it. The modern day city of Bath was built completely in the Georgian style, so all the buildings and houses are uniform. The first thing we did was go to the Roman Baths, which have been around for thousands of years since the Romans first came and conquered England. They were a bit expensive and as such I wouldn't go again, but if you ever go to Bath, you have to go to the baths. It's interesting, and they are the whole reason that there is a Bath. There were painted pigs all over the city (and the city surrounding it) so as we walked around we tried to keep an eye out for those. We only got 16, but it gave a whole new meaning to our trip in Bath. I also made a visit to the Jane Austen centre, which I didn't tour, but it was my Austen pilgrimage. We just wandered around and looked at the beautiful city and surrounding countryside.

The next morning we headed off to Stourhead, an very large estate. The gardens were designed by a man called Hoare who loved the Neoclassical style instead of the French style of gardening that was a bit more popular. This means that Hoare's garden is more of a wilderness instead of an ordered garden. It was so...breathtaking. The lake, and the greenness of it all, along with the birds singing and the blue sky made it that much better. We followed that path around the garden (which you have to take counterclockwise because that is how it was designed to be walked) and eventually wound up at the Temple of Apollo which was used for the first proposal scene in the new Pride and Prejudice movie. We were only able to go into the house for a few quick minutes because we needed to get on the bus to head off to our next destination, but the Duke of Marbury still lives in the house and therefore we were unable to go upstairs, but it was a beautiful mansion house.

Our next destination was Stonehenge! If ever you decide to go there, a half hour is probably all you would need, but it was a cool place to see. My mate and I came up with several theories of why Stonehenge existed, all of them ridiculous. Because we were a school tour we weren't able to use the audio tour (which seemed strange...why would students want to be educated anyway?) but really, how much could be said about a bunch of really old rocks that no one knows anything about?

Stonehenge was the end of our trip, but when we got back Jessi (my mate) and I went to see the new musical Never Forget which is based on the music by a 90s British boy band by the name of Take That. We had no idea who they were before we went, and we were surprised by how big they apparently were in England! The whole audience was singing along with every single song, and cheering loudly. At the end everyone got up and danced and sang along with the actors. We did too, but we mostly just laughed. It was crazy! But so much fun, and something really completely British.

Love you all and I'll see you in only 10 more days! Ack!