England: Now With More Stonehenge!

Sorry about yet another long delay! I just moved down to San Diego to start my PhD program and am still in the process of getting settled.

My brother and I flew from Munich to London on Saturday morning. He was basically just passing through on his way back to the US (his flight was later that day), but I was sticking around to hang out with an old friend of mine (Emily) and see some other parts of England. After a really confusing trip on the Underground (everything is under construction and thus a giant non-intuitive mess), we got to Paddington Station and went our separate ways: I went off to Bath and he went to Heathrow.

Ninety minutes later, I arrived at Bath. There was a Roman city here back 43 AD, centered around the natural hot springs beneath the area. They build a large temple and bath around them which still remains, hence the name. The city is full of old churches and buildings, many of which have been there for hundreds of years:

 

At the center of the city lies the Bath Abbey, originally built over a thousand years ago but rebuilt in the 16th century. It's really pretty, outside and in:

 

I met up with Emily when I got in, and we mostly just walked around the city and caught up on Sunday, intending to do the major sightseeing stuff on Monday when her husband (!) got in. On Monday we got an early start to the day, going out on a morning tour of Stonehenge and Lacock (a really old little village). We stopped first at Lacock, where many movies (including Harry Potter!) have filmed. The town is filled with adorable little cottages. Apparently this one was used as Harry's parents' house:

And this was used elsewhere in the movies, though I can't remember where:

 

After a brief tour of the village, we continued on to Stonehenge, stopping to see home thatched-roof cottages on the way:

 

At last we arrived at Stonehenge. As many of you probably know, Stonehenge is a weird arrangement of stones that were erected about 3000 years ago. Their exact purpose still isn't known to us. I have a ton of pictures of it, but here's a couple of the best:

 

 

After walking around for a while, we went back to Bath to wrap up our sightseeing there. We did a tour of the ancient baths, though unfortunately I don't have many good pictures due to my batteries dying and the lighting being poor. Here's a couple, though:

 

 

I left Bath Monday night to spend the night in London, since I had a flight the next morning. Before heading to the airport in the morning, I tried to squeeze in a little sightseeing, though it ended up pouring the whole time. Here's Westminster Abbey:

And here's Buckingham Palace:

 

And that's all there is, because I was getting drenched and didn't have much time.

So that's my big European adventure! I'm hoping to do one more post that just talks about my feelings and opinions on all the places I've been, since I haven't shared much of that. Hopefully I'll find some free time (hah) to write that up soon and put it here. Thanks for reading!