Sun 22 Aug 2004
Went to Stonehenge in the morning. It’s about an hour or so from Bath via car. It’s quite impressive, and they have roped it off so you can view it withough people climbing all over the stones. – the downside is that you can only get so close. It’s only a little 1-foot high rope surrounding the monument, so you are just on the honor system to not run up to the stones. There were a fair number of visitors when we got there, but all were behind the ropes. :)
After Stonehenge, we went down to Salisbury – by way of Amesbury. We stopped in Amesbury by accident, believing we’d reached Salisbury. Ooops. But since we were there, we went in and toured the Cathedral in Amesbury. Eventually we got to Salisbury and toured the Cathedral. We saw one of the 4 surviving copies of the Magna Carta (and the best preserved). It was written on a single sheet of vellum in Latin in 1215 AD. On the way back to Bath, we stopped by Avesbury to see the stone circle there. It’s much bigger (spread out over more area), and totally accessible – kids were climbing all over the stones and people were picnicing. Fun. Had a nice dinner at a pub in Amesbury (I had venison pie – yum!). When we got to Bath (~8pm) we went to the Roman Baths again to see them lit via torchlight. After the baths we stopped at “Lambergetta” pub (its theme being the Lambergetta scooter). Younger (good) crowd (20-30’s) there. Nice comfy leather couch to enjoy Guinness. Pubs tend to close at 11:00, so we trotted back to the BB and called it a night.