Snow, Rocks, and Abbeys, Oh My!

Ok, so, I'm posting this entry a few days ahead of time because IT'S BLIZZARDING IN LONDON!!!

Which means, all the buses and most of the tube stations were suspended.  Which means, unless I wanted to walk 3-4 miles in the snow to work this morning and back at night, in the dark, I couldn't get to work today.  Actually, hardly anybody got to work today.  Thankfully, I can make the lost day up on Friday.  Today was spent catching up on homework, laundry, and TV episodes missed since I came here.

Anyways, the Bath trip...

We departed early Friday morning for the west country.  We passed through many quaint little English towns and by many a farm before reaching our first stop: Avebury.

Avebury is sort of like a cousin to Stonehenge.  It's a little younger and rocks aren't stacked on top of each other, but the outer circle of rocks is quite a bit larger in diameter than that of Stonehenge.  We walked around the entire circle and went through the village of Avebury before departing for Glastonbury.

Prepare for a quick history lesson: Glastonbury is most famous for Glastonbury Abbey.  Jesus was said to have traveled to England with his uncle, St. Joseph of Arimathea, and built the Abbey.  St. Joseph was supposed to have later brought the Holy Grail to Glastonbury, therefore making it a frequent destination for King Arthur and his knights.  In the 12th century, monks supposedly found the bones of King Arthur and his queen, Guinevere, buried outside one of the chapels, and they reburied the bones underneath the Abbey floor.  Later, King Henry VIII destroyed the Abbey in the 16th century in his quest to convert England from Catholicism to Protestantism.

Some of the Abbey still remains and we got to walk around it a bit.

After our tour of the Abbey a few of us ignored our hunger long enough to venture to the top of the Tor.

The Tor is a very steep, slightly-less-than-600-feet-high hill atop which there's nothing other than an abandoned old tower.  It's said that King Arthur rescued Guinevere from this tower.  The walk may not have been so hard if it wasn't so windy!  But we were rewarded with wonderful views once we reached the top.

After Glastonbury we had a brief stop in Wells in order to see the Wells Cathedral.

It was an extremely pretty and ornate Cathedral, and there was an organ playing inside that gave me goosebumps.  Also, it's home to the second-oldest functioning clock in the world.

After Wells we made it to Bath, where we stayed the night at the YMCA (yes, YMCAs exist throughout Europe).  The next morning we toured the Roman Baths, built while the Roman Empire occupied ancient England.

The effect was slightly ruined by clown noses adorning a bunch of the Roman statues.  It would be funny for April Fools' Day or something, but I don't know why they were up now.  Still, it was all pretty amazing.  Afterwards we explored Bath a little on our own.  A few of us picked up buns from the Sally Lunn's Bun place (circa 1700s).  Then we went on one of Bill's walks, the main focus being the Royal Crescent.

After Bath we ventured on to our final destination: Stonehenge.

Stonehenge is a lot tinier than you'd think.  The stones are probably only about twice my height.  The number of tourists and the tackiness of the gift shop/cafe sort of ruin the effect Stonehenge might otherwise have on the viewer.  I think Stonehenge would be really cool at night, especially with a full moon or something.  Still, we had fun hamming it up for the camera.

I'll post videos at another point, since my temp Internet doesn't have the capacity to upload videos to the Internet.