England

  Bath, England, United Kingdom
Saturday, September 6, 2008

Hello again from England!  I'm now in Bath after three nights and about three full days in London.  Everyone I've met here has scoffed that I spent such a short amount of time here, but I've definitely managed to make the most of my time and see everything I wanted to see!  Here's a recap of the past few days:

London Day 1:  After sending out my "I'm here" post, I started exploring the are just north of the Thames.  I stopped to check out the large and looming St. Paul's Cathedral.  Like most historical attractions here, there's a relatively steep admission price to get in so I admired it from the outside.  Just across from St. Paul's I crossed the river on the Millenium Footbridge - a bridge that was designed to sway in the wind, but swayed so much it tossed several people over the edge when it first opened.  They had to install special shock absorbers to fix it.  The recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre is just on the other side of the bridge.  I intended to just go check it out, but each show night they sell the standing room tickets for £5.00 so I decided to see a show.  I had some time to kill before it started, so I trekked back across the river down to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge.  The Tower of London is where the Crown Jewels are held and where many a head has rolled.  Back at the Globe, I stood for 2 hours and 40 minutes through "Liberty," a play about France post-French Revolution.  It was good, but the coolest part about the whole experience was just seeing something in the theatre.

St. Paul's Cathedral - London

 

Millenium Footbridge - London

 

Tower Bridge - London

 

Globe Theatre - London

London Day 2: Thursday morning I got up relatively early and booked a bus tour around London.  It's an incredibly touristy thing to do, but it's really the best way to see all the major sites of the city quickly and without having to walk miles and miles. The bus runs several routes around the city with guided commentary, and you can hop on and off at any stop! My ticket price included several walking tours and by coincidence I was in the right place at the right time to catch the Changing of the Guard walking tour.  We didn't actually watch the guard change at Buckingham Palace but our tour guide got us front row views at St. James palace (where Prince Charles, Camilla and the princes live) where the new guard comes out and is proceeded by a marching band all the way down to Buckingham Palace.  We got to march right along next to them as they entered the palace grounds.  That only happens once every two days, so the timing was pretty amazing!
 
In the evening I took another walking tour: this was one the ghost tour of London.  No ghosts to be seen, but it took us down some cool back alleys in London that I never would have explored otherwise.  We saw where Mrs. Lovitt's pie shop and Sweeney Todd's barber shop were supposed to have been, where Lord Admiral Nelson received his orders for the Battle of Trafalgar and his ghost apparently roams and a few other supposedly haunted places.  It also included three pub stops - not really sure what that had to do with ghosts but no one on the tour complained!

Changing of the Guard

Big Ben - London

Westminster Abbey - London

London Day 3: I took a morning stroll through Hyde Park and the Kensington Gardens, which were just next door to where I stayed in Bayswater.  It's a huge area that's incredibly easy to get lost in.  Lots of people walk their dogs there without leashes and I was so impressed at how well-behaved all the dogs were.  Within the park is the Princess Diana memorial fountain and a playground.  At the far end of the park is Kensington Palace, which is where she lived after she and Prince Charles were divorced.  There are many memorials tacked to the fence outside the palace.  The anniversary of her death was last week, but I get the impression they are there all the time.  After that, the weather started looking a little more dismal so naturally I decided to see if the queen would invite me in for tea at Buckingham Palace.  She wasn't home, so I had to pay to get in.  Almost all of the big attractions here have pretty steep admission costs - so for the rest of them I've been content to take pictures from the outside.  The staterooms were open to the public and there was a great audio tour.  It played music before the commentary started, so as the orchestra played as I walked up the grand staircase it was like the soundtrack I wish always played in my head.  Aside from that, the coolest part was the special exhibit: the grand ballroom set for a state banquet.  The queen has only had about 90 state banquets in her 50-something years of reign so it's a huge deal.  The china and silverware take 3 weeks to polish and they start setting the table 3 days in advance!

In the evening, I met up with Spencer who some of you may remember from my trip to Fiji.  Spencer was in the Peace Corps when I was there, and I lived with him during my independent study.  Spencer is more famously known for his starring role in the tsunami-fleeing story (read about it here: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/akb2ic/fiji-2006/1146760080/tpod.html)  It was great to see him again, and we both enjoyed telling his coworkers the tsunami story together. 

Buckingham Palace - London

Horse Guards - London

Bath: This morning I boarded a bus for Bath.  It took a little over three hours from London.  Bath is England's only World Heritage Site and it's completely deserving of it.  Absolutely every inch of it is picturesque.  The highlights of the city are the Roman Baths, the Bath Abbey and the Jane Austen history here.  Today I visited the baths which are still in working order as the Romans designed them over 2,000 years ago (with many modifications to the buildings by the Victorians) and went to see the Jane Austen Centre.  I took a Jane Austen class last semester, which is what turned me on to this city in the first place.  Northanger Abbey and Persuasion are partially set here, and Austen herself lived about five years of her life here.  I would say that Bath still has many of the same qualities it did back when she wrote about it: it's still a town for visitors, where people come to shop and be seen (and visit the spa, of course). 

Bath Spa and Bath Abbey - Bath

Tomorrow I plan to tour the Abbey and just stroll around this amazing town.  I'll take more pictures tomorrow (hopefully the current downpour will stop) and post them soon.  In the afternoon, I take a quick train to the city of Bristol where I'll board a plane and head for three nights in Barcelona.

Bye for now!

Amanda