Tea and Crumpets: Entry Tour Pictures! Jan 2

Here are some pictures from my entry tour - I'll caption them later :)

Day 1 - Jan 2: Stonehenge

Not too bad for just getting off of an 8 hour flight and a 30 min bus ride! :)

Audio tour signs, we punched them into these little remotes and they talked to us about different point in the area

The horizontal stone were anchored to the vertical ones by that little nook at the top

What the Stonehenge allegedly looked like just after completion

Day 1 continued: Bath (My favorite city I have been to yet!)

Street performer: violinist on a tight rope

Bath Abbey - So beautiful at night

Day 2 - Jan 3: Bath (still!)
Beginning of our walking tour of the city!

The front of the buildings were all cookie-cutter straight, but when you went around to the back of them (in this picture) they were all unique and different.

Queen's Square - where the wealthy would stay in the early Regent Period. Jane Austen resided in a unit directly behind this picture.

Royal Crescent - where all the wealthy would stay in the late Regent Period (around 1830-1850, around the time Jane Austen was writing). Our tour guide said one of the units was up for sale a short time ago...it sold for over $2 million!

This part of the Royal Crescent was built to block the smell of feces and urine blowing from where the chamber pots were dumped. The upper class didn't want to smell that all the time!

A typical Regent/Georgian garden

The green glass you can see in the middle of this is a thermal spa. The hot spring pool is what is causing the steam. Too bad it's way too expensive!

Look familiar? Les Miserables shot some scenes around here! A big scene towards the end was filmed here - I won't say what it was incase someone hasn't seen it yet :) Ask me and I will tell you!

A hot spring pool that is much less expensive to rent.

A pumping room the Jane Austen mentions in one of her novels. This is where the hot water is cooled just slightly to a more hygienic (and tolerable!) temperature.

The bath that the Royals would use when visiting Bath

The architect of this hotel made the top of the hotels mocking the strong differences in social classes. The left one represents the country/working class, the middle is the wealthy, and the right is the Royal and nobilities.

First look at the original Roman bath!

Roman bath with Bath Abbey in the background

Source of the hot spring

A model representation of how the Bath and the temple of Sulis Minerva, the goddess of the Bath, looked like in the Roman era

Crest above the entrance of the temple of Minerva

Sacrificial alter, where the Romans would burn animal meat as offerings to the goddess

Stairs leading to the bath (the original entrance would be through that door)

Original Roman sewer to help with the flow of the hot spring water

The bath at ground level

Hand-made Roman plumbing - still works today!

The windows with the dome above it is a really nice restaurant overlooking the bath. I think I'll have to stop there if (when!) I go back

Jane Austen Centre - This guy was so cute! He stood out here everyday greeting visitors. I couldn't help but to take a picture!

My first tea in England! Jane Austen blend, of course!

We ventured inside Bath Abbey later that night. It was so beautiful!

Bath Abbey was where the first King of all England was crowned in 973. Queen Elizabeth visited the Abbey in 1937 commemorating the 1000 years of the crowning of King Edgar.

This organ was so big! The biggest I've ever seen (that is before I went to Salisbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey!)

The oldest memorial stone we found

This memorial was dedicated to an American Senator! The description explains that he was from England and moved to America.

Day 3 - Salisbury
This was one of the torches in the Olympic Torch Relay that went through Salisbury on it's way to London

A 300+ year old court room. The defendant would be behind the railings in the corner under the portrait in the back. There were stairs leading straight to the cells so the accused would never cross the general public.

Where the magistrate would sit. People now use this as a location for civil ceremonies. Kind of a weird place to get married!

A covering for poultry trading used in the 1500-1600s

Typical architecture around 1500-1600 give or take

A beautiful church in Salisbury. Not the cathedral yet!

Such a beautiful mural. It was painted over during the Reformation and rediscovered in the 1800s under white paint and has since then been preserved to it's almost original design.

It's amazing how wood is keep this old church up!

Swans! I had never seen swans outside of a zoo or similar before!

The doors close at night, still to this day. The people living inside have to carry a skeleton key to get inside!

Originally where widowed wives of clergymen from the cathedral would live. Now elderly women live in it.

And we've arrived at the Salisbury Cathedral!

I can't even begin to explain the massiveness of the cathedral. It's just huge!

The oldest functioning clock in the world!

Reflection pool - it's so crystalline that our tour guide said on a pervious tour she gave, an American woman thought it was a table an put her expensive Nixon camera on it! Ooops! Way to go Americans :)

If you looked up from where I was standing, the pillars in front would lean in because of all the weight they're supporting.

We all said this reminded us of Harry Potter! Right behind this is where an original copy of the Magna Carta is kept. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside because it's so frail. It's one of four copies still remaining today.

Day 3 (still) - Brighton
Yummy seafood pasta! I tried my first oyster that night :)

The best dessert I had on this trip: deep fried bananas with cinnamon sugar and two scoops of home made french vanilla ice cream topped with a wafer and carmel drizzle. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

The houses were so pretty!

This was a "mew" - originally the horse stables for the wealthy but have now been converted into housing. The tour guide said they are sometimes more expensive than the front houses!

The original Brighton Pier but was destroyed in a freak hurricane and then in the 1980s was burnt due to arsons, destroying any hope of rebuilding it.

The Grand: where the Irish Republican Army planted a bomb intending on assasinating the prime minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet as they were staying in the hotel while attending a Conservative Party conference Brighton. You can see where the bomb went off - the middle-ish section of the building without railings.

The new Brighton Pier is to the left

Royal Pavilion: Built for the Regent King George IV by the same architect who built the Royal Crescent in Bath. The building is based off of Indian architect, yet neither the architect or King George had been to India.

Entrance to the Royal Pavilion

Statue of Regent King George...yet everyone says that he was a very large man!

Wall art - artists pay to paint the walls here. It also deters the amount of graffiti in the area.

The lanes! This was so cool! It was two or three blocks long and sold everything from venders selling knock of bags to lesser known designer stores. You could even buy vegan leather shoes - ironic I know, but it's a real thing!

My new friends, what else can I say :)

Exploring the pier

The beach was mainly stones so when the waves came it, it moved all the rocks. The sound was so loud and powerful, something I'll never forget

They had carnival rides at the end of the pier. Two of the girls in the group and I went on one, so much fun!

Day 4: Bodaim Castle
Built around 1300 for Sir Edward, a Knight of King Edward III

There were ducks everywhere! It was almost as if it was their castle!

The castle was so pretty - just like what you would read in about it a book

The oldest remaining original portcullis in England

The castle had its own water source, this well, so that if it were to have been under attack it could be self-suffeicient. The water was very unclean, so it was usually brewed into a weak beer that everyone drank, including the children.