Day 7: The Day I Was Chauffeur Driven In A Mercedes Benz

It shouldn't matter that Mercedes Benz makes tour buses, the fact remains that I toddled around the English countryside in a chauffeur driven Mercedes. And all the world should envy me my earthly splendor!

Yes, today was my day long guided (Mercedes) tour bus, super intense, love 'em and leave 'em tourist site bonanza! I visited Bath, Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral in a whirlwind!



I had to get up VERY early in the morning, but was in cheery spirits. I arrived at Victoria Station, lucky early, because I wasn't able to find the buses. I found a pay phone and for 60p called the office, who helped me differentiate between Victoria Station and Victoria COACH Station, which about a five minute walk away. In my English, Coach is an America bag company. It does not immediately bring to mind images of grand carriages, or in this case, beefy tour buses. But I got there in plenty of time.


Evans Evans Tours is the name of the company, recommended by my old friend Rick Steves. Evans Evans self proclaims they are...





This young man annoyed and grossed me out tremendously. I've decided those who do not mind the well-placed boundaries of civilized society will, in the future, be harangued on my blog. The justice of the unjust is writ by the writer's ruthless pen!

Our first stop was in Bath, a wonderful, gorgeous spa town that dates back to the Roman occupation. The waters in the spa are supposedly curative, and the city saw a boom in Georgian times, that is, the continuous reign on the George's I, II, V, IV, spanning about 1720 to 1830. So everything in the town matches this Georgian style, and the harmony of the architecture is just s spectacular sight.


This is the Crescent, a beautiful circle of Georgian row houses. Unfortunately we didn't get to leave the bus to see it.


So excited! One of the places I was most wanted to vist on his trip was the Roman Bath. Built, funnily enough, by ROMANS, it was eventually completely covered by silt from the river, so once it was finally recovered it was in excellent condition. It is apparently the best preserved roman bath in the world.



It is made of of several rooms, with waters of many different temperatures. The water from the spring comes out at a warm 46 C.


I love a good contraposto, don't you?



Obligatory. You can also see the Abbey of Bath in the background.





At ground level.



Touching the water! It was warm!


And the frigidarium, which is now a wishing well.


Someone didn't want to trifle with change.


They had these cool projections of Romans walking around.


Wishes!






Bath is well known for their blue glass.








One of Bladud's pigs. The story of the waters starts with Bladud, an heir to the throne who contracted leprosy and was cast away to be a swine heard, all of which had leprosy, too. The pigs, drinking from the spring, were cured of their disease, and Bladud quickly followed suit, and was able to be reinstated as heir. So pigs are a special animal in Bath. You can try a small glass of the water in the Pump Room, but OF COURSE I forgot, and I will never forgive myself for it. Even though it's supposed to taste terrible.


One of the very few bridges in the world that has shops across it. The most famous being the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. The river is the Avon, which is not to say it is Shakespeare's Avon upon which Statford sits. Apparently Arno is just am old word for river.

There are also these really cool horse canals. They're very shallow, so horse can walk through them, but because the load they are carting is floating on the water they are able to carry something like 28 times the normal weight!


A wonderful view of Bath from the hill. You can really get a sense of the unification of the Georgian architecture here. Just marvelous! You'll also see many windows that have been bricked over, painted black and with matching, painted windowpanes. This was a way to get over a window tax imposed by William III. Since he couldn't do an income tax, he decided to tax windows, the idea being that the richer you were the more windows you would have (ie a bigger house). So people started blocking off windows as a means of tax evasion!


This is called a foley castle. They were wee little baby nugget castles that people built since a real castle costs a lot of moolah. Foley like fake, also like foley sounds, like fake sounds for movie sets.

Our next stop was to Stonehenge! Since you can't go inside the stones anymore, they have put a couple on the outside for people to touch.


Touching a Sarsen stone! The Sarsens are the really big stones.



Touching a Preseli blue stone! These are the small, inner circle stones, which came from 150 miles away in Whales....how did they do it....


Ta da! I wont get into the theories here, but you can look them up. They were smaller than I thought they'd be, actually.


Why does he get to go into the circle?



What a spectacular, 4,000 year old thing to see.


Our wonderful guide Daniel, or O Danny Boy as I sang/called him to myself, offered to take people's pictures for them, which was nice. It was very rainy, so he had to be quick so we could get our umbrellas back aloft.


But if you're collecting a book of pictures I've taken of myself (good idea), then here's your obligatory self-portrait.

Our next stop was at Salisbury Cathedral, where we saw the best preserved copy of the original 1215 Magna Carta. It was crazy to look at a piece of vellum that old, in such good condition. No pictures, naturally.

In that same room, next to the Magna Carta, was a 1611 bible, for all my MoBIA friends. It's the first one I've seen here! And I chatted with one of the managers about MoBIA, which she had heard of.


The cathedral is undergoing a massive restoration, which will take longer to complete than the cathedral took to build. I actually had a chance to chat with the Director of Restoration, which was awesome.


There was an art exhibition going on, that I didn't really like, where the artist put these resin sculptures in places to create a commentary on the role the average person plays in these buildings. I think his point wasn't well made at all, however.


Th massive spire on the cathedral was actually added later, and the building was never meant to support the weight of it, something like 6,000 tons. Sir Christopher Wren measured to where the center of the four supportive columns was, and that's the little plaque. On the lower right hand corner, however, is where the point of the spire is. It's leaning!


You can see the column bowing. It has since been stabilized, but what a crazy thing to see! Each column has sunk at a little different level.


I had a good time and really enjoyed the things I saw, but we barely sent any time at these places, which was very sad. I would love to go back to Bath, and will have to see about fitting it in.


Is this a big enough candy bar?


The tour bus returned a little early, around 6:30, so I decided it was a good time to go see Harry Potter, since I've done all the night waking tours that aren't pub crawls. So I went on to Leicester Square, where every HP premiere has been held, and bought a ticket. It was only playing in 3D this night. Take a look at that ticket. Two things are incredible. One is that there are assigned seats. Which I kind of liked and kind of hated. I suppose it would be very useful for midnight opening night kind of situations, so you wouldn't have to wait in a line for 4 hours to make sure you got good seats. Next, check out the price of that ticket. OUT...RAGEOUS. And that's in pounds! It comes out to a little over $32.00. And get this-glasses aren't free. You purchase them for another pound, which tacks on another $1.60. I nearly fainted, but aside from seeing the last Harry Potter film in this very special location, I did make some new friends, a mother and daughter, who live in Brooklyn! Small world, I know, I know. I actually don't know their names, but if you're reading this send me an email!

I haven't bought any real souvenirs, and am thinking more and more about getting a set of the British edition of all the Harry Potter books. I think I'd have to buy a cheap suitcase to check them on the plane with, but the $25 fee is probably still less than shipping them, what do you think?

And please, don't expect much by way of souvenirs from me. For one thing, everything is startlingly expensive here, and for another, I've never really understood souvenirs. Unless it's something useful, why would anyone want a memento of my trip? To remind you that you didn't go on my amazing journey? What? See...no sense...

And lastly...
I'm getting sick. It struck me suddenly near the end of the bus tour today, and I can pinpoint the exact moment I became contaminated. The passenger behind me sneezed. And as her mother was never good enough to teach her daughter to cover her nose, her simple act was transmuted to one with a canon- like deadliness. The shot was fired, and the merciless heat seeking artillery, taking flight, sought airborne vengeance. On me.

It was a surprise attack, and was unable to launch a defensive.

Off to bed now to ooze. But I must stopper this issue before tomorrow evening, when I take champagne in Buckingham Palace, and Her Majesty the Queen will be none too pleased to know I've brought an armed canon into her home.