On Sunday, we went to Stonehenge and Bath. Honestly, Stonehenge was unimpressive.
We could not get very close to the rocks, because they were roped off quite extensively, and they weren't even all that large. I've seen bigger. The premise behind them is interesting, in that scientists and historians are still not sure how or why the rocks came to be there. There are some hypotheses about both questions; for instance, the rocks could have been moved during a flood, when it would have required less force to move them. And we do know they served as a calendar of sorts. However, considering the rocks came from over a hundred miles away, there are still many questions, and nothing has been proven for sure. The one bit of excitement at Stonehenge was one girl (not from my group) hopped the rope to touch a rock (which wasn't even one of the legit Stonehenge ones, so I don't know why she bothered), and promptly got kicked out.
Bath was much more interesting than Stonehenge. I went to the Astronomy Museum, the Fashion Museum (there was so much to unpack there that I talk about it in another post), a cathedral, and of course, the Roman baths. I also spent some time just walking around the city - it was really beautiful. The buildings are so much older than anything in the US. There was a gorgeous garden on the side of the river, with incredible gardens and sunny grassy hills. A group of friends and I ate ice cream there, while enjoying the atmosphere, and the swans on the water.
The Herschel Museum of Astronomy was very difficult to find, because it was in an
unassuming house on a street full of unassuming houses. We eventually found it, but were heartbroken when we realized the last admission time was 4:15 pm because the museum closed at 5 pm. It was 4:27 pm. After lamenting our tragedy, we turned around to leave, and the door opened! The owner asked us where we had come from, and once we told him we were from the states, he exclaimed, "Well, I can't turn you away after you've come so far! Come in!" He admitted us at the price of children (less than half the cost of students!), gave us a speed run-through, and then set us free in the house where William Herschel lived. This man discovered Uranus in 1781, in the very garden that we visited. Unfortunately, you cannot see it with the naked eye, as I am pantomiming in the photo - William used a 7-foot long telescope. The museum also had this really cool photo (my picture doesn't do it justice) signed by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. I must admit I squealed when I saw it hanging on the wall behind a door. Just imagining those astronauts all touching that
one picture was too much for me. What striked me most about this museum was how chill it was. It literally had this photograph signed by the Apollo 11 mission astronauts hung on a wall, quite easily missed by all but the most observant of eyes! I highly recommend that anyone who goes to Bath, or even England in general, should 100% go to this museum!
After the astronomy museum, I went to a big fancy cathedral. It was under construction because there were people buried under the floor and it was starting to cave in. We could see the excavation site, but there were no bones within sight. Believe me, I looked. The architecture was impressive and all, but I was mostly looking at the floor. It was made of headstones, with inscriptions of the people buried underneath. Some of the stones were so worn away that you couldn't even tell that they had originally had anything carved into them. Those stones would have been in the most traversed area of the cathedral, meaning more people originally saw those headstones; eventually, the foot traffic was so great that the inscriptions were worn away, and the people buried under those stones were likely forgotten forever. It's really interesting to me that what would have been considered prime real estate would generate absolute anonymity - just like in Roman tragedies when the hero's greatest triumph becomes their downfall. I'm sure that is not what the church had intended, but I liked the undertone of unintended consequences that ran through the building, not just with the worn away headstones, but also with the floor caving in on decomposed bodies.
I went to the Roman Baths with the whole group (there's about 30 of us studying abroad together). We got a tour of the baths and the history of the building. Unfortunately, the water
is quite toxic, so you cannot drink, or swim, or even dip your foot, in it. The baths are lined with lead, which is toxic, has 30+ types of algae growing in it, some of which are toxic, and lots of birds are pooping in the water, which makes it even more toxic. With all that aside, the baths would have felt quite nice, as they were about body temperature and 5 feet deep. It was also a lovely green color, so that would have been really fun, I'm sure. Other than that, they are gorgeous. Some of the building is the original stone built by the Romans, although most of the building was rebuilt in the Victorian Era. I was quite impressed with the detail in the architecture. The statues even had bootlaces, which I was not expecting. We toured a few of the different rooms, besides the main bath area. There was a changing room and a pre-washing room, where the Romans would rub themselves down with oil in an attempt to get most of the gross stuff off of themselves before entering the baths. Just a common courtesy, really. There was also a special mini-bath where people would go if they were sick, because they believe that this bath, due to it's special affiliation with the healing goddess Minerva Syncresis, would heal them. Ironically, the Romans that entered this bath likely became more sick than they were earlier, due to sharing proximity with other ill people.
I was quite bummed that we could not go in the baths (although there are some fancy new baths in a nearby spa, using similar techniques to obtain the warm water), but luckily there was a fountain of the water that we were able to drink from. This water was believed to have healing powers (it does have a lot of minerals, so it is good for you, but I would not go so far as to say it would magically heal all your ailments), but it just tasted gross to me. It didn't help that it was quite warm. Nevertheless, I took a water bottle full of this water - who knows when it might come in handy???