ALL of England in One Day

OK, not really, but we did cover a lot of ground today.

Day 4: The Dreaded Coach Tour

The one thing that my niece requested to see on this trip was Stonehenge. I went to Stonehenge a few years ago and enjoyed it, but I wasn’t really excited about going again. I also knew that it would take at least a half day to get there and back. We started talking about other places to visit along with Stonehenge, and Bath came up. We found a tour with Premier Tours that went to both of those places and…Stratford-upon-Avon. Good lord, how could that be? Being gluttons for punishment, we decided to go for it. This kind of day is not for everyone, but we appreciated it for what it was. We were glad to be on our own for the rest of our holiday, though.

The Pros of this tour:

– We would never make it to every one of these places in one day on our own (this may not be a pro for everyone)

– The coach drops off at the city centre, so there is no walking from the train or bus station

– Admission to Shakespeare’s birthplace and Stonehenge is included

– We were absolved of all responsibility of thinking for ourselves for the entire day

– That’s about it

The Cons of this tour:

– There is very little time to see much at any of the stops

– It is an extremely long day

– Too much time is spent sitting in a cramped coach seat

– We were absolved of all responsibility of thinking for ourselves for the entire day

Premier tours did not pick up at our hotel, so we walked to County Hall to meet up at the Marriott. We were greeted by Tour Guide Mike (who did not lead our tour–he was just the one picking us up), who made many unexpected appearances on subsequent days of our holiday. He was quite an animated dude. Other tour-takers had already been picked up at other hotels, and we were all hauled to Victoria Coach Station to be sorted into our respective tours. The whole process presented an element of chaos to the tour that we did not appreciate. Tons of tours were all lumped together, and you had to push your way through the crowd to get to yours.

Once we were finally situated on our coach, we made it a little ways outside of London then sat in traffic for over an hour because sadly someone had committed suicide by jumping from a highway overpass. This put us way off schedule, and the tour guide was stressed for the rest of the day.

I always love a good foot shot, even if it’s not of my feet.

Our first stop was Shakespeare’s birthplace. This was extremely rushed, and we didn’t get to see the exhibit in the visitor’s centre (if there is still one). We wasted a lot of time getting a scone and some orange juice (part of the tour) in the cafeteria area, then walked quickly through the house, hit the gift shop, and back to the coach. I have no idea if this stop is always like this or if this is where the guide decided to shave off some time, but it was the worst part of the tour.

Shakespeare slept here. We just jogged through.

Next we drove through some Cotswolds villages on our way to Bath. The guide, Allen (AKA Captain Handsome, according to him), pointed out various points of interest, but to be honest, I wasn’t sure if I believed everything he said. He was a bit of a jokester, so I’m not sure if he was being serious when he pointed out “the back door to Prince Charles’s estate” or the mansion belonging to Jane Seymour (Dr. Quinn Jane, not Mrs. the VIII Jane). Still, it was a pleasant ride, except for the fact that my knees were jammed into the seat in front of me. Seriously, I am pretty short, and the leg room was ridiculous.

Something Cotswoldian that we saw on the drive…maybe where Prince Harry smoked some weed?

We arrived in Bath in the early afternoon, and this was definitely the best part of the tour. We were supposed to have a guided walking tour of Bath, but Allen decided to point out several options of places to visit and sent us on our way. We had time to visit the Roman baths, which were amazing. Here we weren’t as rushed and had time to take in the history and surroundings. I was so in awe of the centuries and centuries of history, of the millions of people who had come and gone for thousands of years, and that I was a part of that history for an hour or so. *shiver* Anyway, we grabbed a couple of sandwiches and ate standing up while waiting for the coach to pick us up and whisk us away to Stonehenge.

View of Bath Abbey from the Roman Baths–I just now noticed that giant bird on the upper left. Cool!

Anyone want to take a dip? (Too bad, you’re not allowed. Imagine the germs from all the ages you could be soaking in!)

This is as close as we got to dipping our toesies in the baths.

Wow, the experience at Stonehenge was completely different from when I visited four years ago. I missed that first glimpse of it in the distance from the highway and seeing it come closer and closer into view. We were dumped off at the new visitor centre and took the shuttle. Step off the shuttle, take a few steps, and Stonehenge is just…there. Allen warned us to stay behind the rope, and he wasn’t kidding. We saw a girl run up and touch one of the stones while her friend took a photo. Seemingly out of nowhere, two security persons grabbed her, told her to delete the photo from her camera, and carted her away.

Poppies! Poppies…I feel. so. sleepy.

Yep, that’s Stonehenge.

My niece thought Stonehenge was pretty cool and worth the visit. We opted not to listen to the audio guide and just took it in. We also took a bunch of photos wherein my niece looked like she was leaning against Stonehenge, stepping on Stonehenge, hugging Stonehenge…. My mother, who had no desire to see Stonehenge at all, was fascinated that a photo she took of the sun starting to set in a field behind Stonehenge showed this strange glowing purple light at the bottom. When I looked at my photos of the sun setting in that field taken from a completely different angle, the purple light was also there. Do do do do do. The truth is out there!

The Mother Ship was calling us home.

Although the tour was supposed to drop us all back at Victoria Coach Station, Allen asked us where we were going and tried to arrange a convenient place to drop us off. We were deposited at the County Hall Marriott. Awww, thanks Captain Handsome!

On the way back to the Hampton, we ducked into Waterloo station to buy our 7-day travel cards. The ticket agent spent a great deal of time trimming our photos and seemed pretty frustrated to be doing so. He said, “I don’t know why everyone always brings this size photo.” I told him that the instructions are to bring a passport-size photo. Perhaps British passports have smaller photos or something. I’m not sure of the point of the photo anyway as we never had to show it. Also, I had to show my niece’s ID to prove she was under 16 to qualify for the child’s card. The guy had to do some elaborate maths to determine that she was. We were cracking up.

We dragged ourselves back to the hotel and ordered a pizza at the bar. While it was a hellishly long day, and we were a little disappointed with Stratford-upon-Avon, we enjoyed the tour and what it enabled us to see that we probably would have missed on this trip if left to our own devices. I think I can probably recommend it.