Today we did an all-day tour through southern England.  It began with picking up people from hotels all over London, then regrouping at Victoria Station.  So we realized we could have gone straight to the station and gotten about 2 more hours of sleep.

 

Windsor Castle was our first stop.  The Union Jack was flying over the castle instead of the Queen’s Flag – which meant she was not home.  Still, the castle did live up to its reputation, and certainly rivaled Napoleon’s Apartments in Paris.  Unfortunately, one of the troubles with guided tours is that we were a bit rushed, which was the case yesterday at Westminster Abbey.

 

Next was Stonehenge.  Last summer we bicycled past the reproduction of Stonehenge in Washington.  We didn’t realize how much of the reproduction was also a restoration.  The original one is in ruins.  It’s reported that some of it has been carted off for some of the houses in the area over the past centuries.  It was difficult to make out exactly which stones were which, and tourists are not allowed to go among the stones anymore.

 

Our final stop was all the way across England in Bath, with a tour of the Roman Baths there.  It’s amazing to realize how large that empire was.  Jon noted that the baths were built similarly to ones he had seen in Masada in Israel.  Our only regrest was that it all made for a very long day.