Stonehenge………what can I say?  That place rocks (huh huh….get it?  Rocks?  Stonehenge?….yeah, you can probably tell that Andy is taking his turn at blogging today…)!

 We had a really pleasant day yesterday with our friend, Marie (she and Treasure were friends at the UW graduate school, and she just happened to be on a trip here to the UK.  We met up with her a day or two ago, and we’re spending the rest of our time in London with her).  We hopped a GrayLine bus tour to take a tour of Salisbury, Stonehenge, and Bath.  It was a good break from the city and allowed us to see some English countryside.

Salisbury is a beautiful little town with an absolutely gorgeous cathedral (contrary to one’s initial expectation, this is not the originating site of the steak dish with which we are all familiar).  There’s lots of history regarding this church – including how it has the tallest church spire around, it took several years and multiple stages, was ransacked by the king’s men when it was a Catholic church so that he could promote the Church of England, and so on – which I am sure you can read more about online.  We ran into a local grocery to grab a quick lunch and felt very much like college students as we dined on some steps along the street.  Then it was back on the bus and off to Stonehenge.

 Stonehenge is in the middle of fields.  We heard sheep as we looked at the ancient stones.  No one’s really sure of the purpose of the structure, but one circle of the stones was dragged to the location from Wales…nearly 100 miles away.  The structure is old – estimated at around 5000 years old.  Again, there’s probably a better history located on the internet, but we enjoyed being able to see this historic site.

Finally, we ended our day in Bath.  This is probably our favorite part of the trip to date.  Bath is a wonderfully pleasant little town in the countryside, complete with street musicians, a local chocolate company, cute little flower bunches hanging out of windows, and of course the Roman Baths, which date back to the times of the Roman Empire.  These baths come from a natural spring, and the Romans built a temple over these springs as a tribute to Athena, their goddess of wisdom.  Many people would come to this location to alleviate all kinds of ailments – arthritis, rhumetism, and so forth.  At any rate, the town was absolutely gorgeous, and we want to go back – particularly because they have the largest spa facility in these parts (which opened last September).

 Today, we will spend our final day in London, and will see Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, the Tower of London, and a couple other things.  More on that adventure this evening!