England

From wild, untamed Iceland we arrived in a completely different world: the civilization of England. Here, grand old buildings and immaculately manicured grounds were the order of the day, and after the ruggedness of Iceland it seemed to us that no patch of ground was left uncultivated.

After a stopover in London for the night, we picked up our rental car and drove to our first stop, Salisbury.

Salisbury cathedral has the tallest spire in Britain. Rather grand, what!

Salisbury is only 8 miles from Stonehenge, so like any good tourists, we paid a visit to the other neolithic boulders at Avebury, instead, where you only have to pay for parking and can get up close and personal to the stones themselves.

 

These sheep were.

So what was it like, seeing these ancient, massive boulders placed in some kind of order for some unknown reason by people all those centuries ago?

Well, it was like seeing really big rocks in the ground. The sheep in the picture above were not the only livestock around, and they'd left their mark in the grass in many places, so we had to be careful where we walked. A village had been plonked right in the middle of the configuration of stones, as well, as the circle of stones extends for quite a distance, so it was a curious mixture of old meets new.

John's fearsome strength is countered by this immovable object.

Having been duly awed by the size and grandeur of the ancient stones, we journeyed on to Bath. We liked it so much we visited again the next day! It was a most lively place, with buskers (some pretty good!), tourists and general crowds thronging the lovely town centre. We sampled some traditional cornish pasties for lunch, and they were very nice. I could get used to sampling all this exotic food!

A very sensible monument.

As seemed only fitting, we visited Bath's namesake, the Roman baths. It was an evening visit, which was quite cool - especially so, as all throughout our time in the UK it was amazingly warm/hot! We religiously listened to all the audioguide commentaries, so it took us 2 and a half hours to get round it all.

A drain.

We refrained from swimming in the actual baths themselves.

The next day we checked out the Fashion Museum, charting the evolution of fashion in Bath from the Georgian times to the present day. Sure, they had guys' clothes too, but mainly this was a chance to look at beautiful to outrageous dresses.

Outrageous.

I love the shape - but just slightly overdone in the styling, perhaps.

Pretty!!!

So pretty!!!!

We also stopped by the Jane Austen Centre, and learned all about how she did like Bath as a place in general, but not as a place to live; consequently, she wasn't very happy during the time she lived there with her family. Although Bath served as a source of some inspiration for her later writing, it didn't inspire her to write anything while she actually lived there.

Mrs Bennett had stopped by and left a message! She spells her name slightly wrong though...

During our time visiting Bath we stayed at an airbnb which was an apartment in a converted church building, built in about 1870. It was a great place to stay - it had been renovated, so was completely modern (apart from the stone outer walls), but it also had a massive round stained glass window in the living room, and several small windows in our room in unusual, unexpected places.

On our way north, we stopped in a very pretty little town called Stow-on-the-Wold for dinner. It seemed beautiful and quaint, with its small size, old buildings and cobbled streets. I felt it gave us a proper taste of tiny English villages - it was utterly charming, and relatively quiet in the evening, especially compared to Bath. This may sound strange, but it reminded me of what I anticipate Italy will be like.

We then passed through Stratford-upon-Avon, on a Saturday when it seemed there was an event on, and consequently HORDES of people. Once we had undergone the taxing rite of parking, however, it was a pleasant place to wander around. We joined the multitudes of tourists to behold Shakespeare's birthplace from outside. We also saw a "friendship flower bed" that paid a mention to its sister towns, one of which was Taranaki's Stratford!

Hamlet looking a bit tortured.

In our final day of gallivanting around the English countryside, we checked out the Peak District. We visited Lyme Park, which is most famous for The Lake that Mr Darcy emerges from in Pride and Prejudice (the only proper version - I trust I don't need to specify). We took a tour of the grand manor, a flying visit of the gardens, and I took a couple of photos of the lake.

The grand but slightly faded old manor with John.

The lake, although pretty, just wasn't quite the same without Colin Firth.

We also rambled about Eyam village, the "plague" village, famous for how many of its inhabitants were killed in the Black Plague. Some of the cottages had plaques outside, by the road, listing who had lived and died there during the plague. It was sobering to see the devastation it caused families; one family of nine was completely wiped out; in another house, one lady survived, but lost 24 relatives (including in-laws).

All in all, England was a beautiful place, in a far more stately and historical kind of way than Iceland. The accents were also neato, and I found myself thinking more ponsily. We could have stayed longer quite happily and explored more, but London was calling...