Avesbury- Glastonbury- Wells- Bath- Stonehenge

As the subject would suggest, it was a busy weekend.

We left earlier than I would have liked Friday morning for Avesbury. I don't think many of us (if any) had heard of the town, but it is the site of a large monolithic structure like Stonehenge. It is much larger than it's more famous counter part but it the stones didn't travel as far as a distance and they were never carved into their shapes. It was still very impressive and beautiful. There were also sheep roaming all over Avesbury, so avoiding stepping in anything unpleasant was quite a task. The nice thing about Avesbury is that you can actually touch the stone (or sit on the one known as the Devil's Seat). When it was built the stones were said to aid in fertility- women would rub against the stones to encourage pregnancy.


Next we headed off to Glastonbury. The town is famous for several things, the first of which being the ruined abbey. Thanks to Henry VIII and his need for a male heir and money, Protestantism became the new national religion and many Catholic churches and abbeys were damaged or destroyed. The abbey at Glastonbury is one of the most famous examples.

Glastonbury is also supposed to be the burial place of the Holy Grail. Joseph of Arimethia is said to have visited and may have brought along his nephew, Jesus. There is a fountain where the grail is supposedly hiding, but I didn't want to shell out the cash to see it. Glastonbury as a town reminds me a lot of Ithaca- I saw my first hippies of England here and there were plenty of "grow shops" around, including a Lord of the Rings inspired one.

Lastly, Glastonbury is steeped in Arthurian legend. There is a tower called the Tor on top of a natural hill- all in all the whole thing is 512 feet tall. Guinevere was supposedly trapped in the tower and Arthur was unable to rescue her, mainly because at the time all of the land surrounding the Tor was swamplands. On Friday, however, the sun was shining and we (and about 30 cows) had no problem climbing up the hill to the Tor. The view from up there was absolutely gorgeous- you could see the country side for miles. We stopped by a pub for a refreshing drink after the hike and ended up getting warm beer and cider- silly Brits.

We had a quick stop at Wells Cathedral, which I actually recognized- thank you British Art and Architecture. It is a stunning building and the town of Wells itself is pretty scenic. Robin, Erin, and I visited the oldest continually inhabited street in England. It was swamped with uniformed school children when we were there, but whatever. We strolled around town for a bit and stopped off for some gelato before getting back on the bus to Bath.

We got to Bath right around dinner time, so after dropping our stuff off at the YMCA (yes, people do actually stay in them here!) we wandered around and found a pub that was serving 2 dinners for £6.95. The food was great, but the service was pretty awful. Omar and I did end up getting free desserts of belgian waffles with rasberry syrup and ice cream though. Omar also got carded at the bar because "he just looked younger" than the rest of us. The bartender let him buy one beer with dinner, and then I got the rest of his drinks for him. Omar, Robin, Erin, and I decided that we didn't want to wait 2 hours for Andrew to finish his Guiness after eating 2 bacon cheeseburgers (he though the 2 for 1 deal was for one person), so we strolled around Bath at night. It's got a really great atmosphere- very friendly and a bit like American college towns.

The next morning was a trip to the Roman Baths. It's amazing to think that you can still see a structure in England where the Romans walked and lived. The baths are the only natural hot spring on the whole island. The water is over 110 degrees F! The museum was really interesting and we had little audio guides narrated by Bill Bryson (if you haven't read anything by him, I highly recommend it!). After seeing some middle aged male street performers wearing nothing but thongs entertain the crowds using a combination of acrobatics, fire, and sparklers held by their bums, we went for a slightly more dignified walk around Bath guided by Bill. The Georgian architecture is visually stunning, but I quite prefer my quaint little British cottages.

After Bath we stopped at Stonehenge. It's a bit less impressive than Avesbury in a few ways- it's right next to a major roadway, which takes away from some of the magic of the rural setting, and it's quite a small structure comparitively. Avesbury took 45 minutes to walk around and you can walk around Stonehenge in about 20, and that's with a large barrier around you and the monument. You can't touch the stones here, which is kind of a bummer, but it does have it's redeeming points. The stones were hauled over a much longer distance and they were shaped and smoothed. The whole thing is built with tongue and groove technology, which is a bit difficult to do in the hard rock with primitive tools. The ditches around the structure were dug with a cow's shoulder bone- pretty time and labour intensive. All in all, it was a great end to the trip.