Tourist at Home

My sister's visit resulted in me doing a number of tourist things in England. Yesterday we went on a tour of Stonehenge and Bath. I've never been a big fan of organized tours, and this wasn't really an exception. We didn't have nearly enough time at either Stonehenge or Bath, but without going on the tour we wouldn't have been able to do both. As I expected Stonehenge was awe-inspiring, to look at these massive stones and think about the work that went into constructing this thousands of years ago. The tour organizer commented when we arrived that some people feel that 10 minutes is more than enough time to see some big rocks in a field while others feel that 45 minutes isn't nearly enough time. We were definitely in the latter group.




After a quick visit at Stonehenge we headed cross country to Bath. We toured the Roman Baths, the Bath Abbey and just wandered around town for a couple of hours. Would definitely be up for a return visit to both places at some later date. On the return we encountered traffic in London as a result of a broken traffic light and were an hour late returning. Overall the day was deemed a success.

Today we headed into Waterloo to tour the South Bank. After a ride on the London Eye (check out my picture of the eye below) we took a boat tour down the river to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. We had the same guide on the way to and from the Tower and he told the same stories and jokes on both rides. I wonder how many times he tells the same joke in any given day. I shouldn't complain too much as I did learn a few random facts while on the boat ride:

• St Paul's Cathedral is 365 ft tall one foot for every day of the year.
• The London Eye is 450 ft tall.
• The OXO tour was one companies creative way to get around advertising restrictions along the Thames. They wrote out their company name in a mosaic in the windows.
• The replica of the Globe Theatre is the only building in London allowed to have a thatched roof after the London fire.

Tomorrow it is back to reality and work.