A touch of the Ancients: Stonehenge and Bath

Day 5

We went on our first day trip today. Destinations: Stonehenge and Bath. Honestly, you can't travel to England and not go to Stonehenge. It's just so old! Plus, I still haven't figured out how they got those stones up on top of each other. I saw a cool diagram showing our buff, hulking ancestors placing the uprights, but I don't know how they got the cross pieces on. I have a million pictures. Here is me picking one at random.

I figured Egyptians were old too.

I think they look rather like pi.
Next we went to Bath. It's a small, but fairly famous town a couple hours from London. This is Bath Abbey. It's beautiful, but my favorite part was the angels climbing up a ladder on the tower.
It also has fantastically detailed stone glass on basically every wall. There's got to be literally hundreds of scenes from the life of Christ.
And here's the Roman baths, built on the natural hot springs. It was originally a site holy to Sulis, a native god, then the Romans dedicated it to Minerva, and built the bath and temple. The bath and bases of the columns are still original Roman work. They built things to last.
An original mosaic.
The legends say the waters at Bath possess healing properties. There's a story about an ancient Briton, Bladud, who contracted leprosy and was exiled. He became a swineherd and wandered the countryside. One day, the pigs got into the mud pits at the natural spring, and when he got them out and cleaned off the mud, he discovered their skin diseases had been healed. He himself then bathed, and was cured. He went on to become king of the Britons and established the spring as a holy place. In tribute to him, there are currently 100 pig sculptures by different artists sequestered throughout the city. Here's on I thought was really cool.
The Royal Crescent, one of the most famous architectural structures in Bath. Jane Austen spent 6 years in Bath, and many of her characters come here.

And here's me doing the Viennese waltz in the Ballroom of the Assembly Hall (or Upper Rooms) where Catherine meets her beau in Northanger Abbey.

And this sign, well, I just thought it was funny.
Other than that, I have now tried European chocolate (Galaxy) and it's quite good. I almost like the milk chocolate, and I don't usually like milk. And the dark chocolate, well, it's just fantastic. I also tried fish and chips. The fish was pretty good. The chips needed salt.