i've found the best place in England

i LOVE bath...i am convinced that it is the most beautiful place in england and its going to be pretty tough to convince me otherwise. i mean, i liked brighton, thought gloucestershire was quaint, but nothing is like bath. its like the florence of england. it even has its own ponte vecchio.

but i'll get back to bath later because first, we went to stonehenge.

brandy has always wanted to see stonehenge and we were finding it quite difficult to get there in one day without breaking the bank or taking hours to get there. luckily, through some new googling skilz i've developed at work, i found anderson tours. i know, i know...i hate the tour bus route and its totally not my style, but what is my style is to discover places with my friend brandy and when it came at an amazing price tag and all fitting within our time budget as well...we had to do it.

so we met up at earl's court with a bunch of other tourists and in 1.5 hours (and a fantastic snooze along the way) we made it to stonehenge.



there are so many theories about the henge. estimated at 3100 BC, the henge is rumored to have been erected for sacrifices, astronomy reasons, or that aliens put it there...whatever your preference...there's even a story about the devil having put it there and dropping a few stones along the way (hence the random stone throughout the wiltshire countryside). there are many theories to choose from. i wonder if any of them are right.

myself, i believe in the astrology or mathematics story myself. the sun rotates with the stones month by month, with station stones being strategically placed for both the summer and winter solstace. the alter in the middle is mathematically exact to the positioned stones outside the circle. to me, its a lot like the mayans. i think we tend to underestimate the intelligence of man from thousands of years ago (mainly because we're egotistical bastards half the time).

but whatever you think is the purpose of those stones...you have to admit that they aren't just a bunch of rocks in the middle of the field. only the top 2/3rds of the stones are visible with the other third anchoring them into place. the slaughter stone looks cool and it would be neat to see it in the rain so that it turns red (hence the name). although the likelihood if it being used for actual slaughter is very minimal. its just the way the rock changes when its wet. there are also many burial mounds surrounding the area, which i found to be quite cool. 45 minutes later, and about 100 pictures to boot, we hopped on the bus and head to bath.

again, i cannot stress how much i love bath.

because we only had 3 hours in the town, we decided to bail on our group and meet up with them for the ride home. while they checked out the roman baths (and really, coming from the hot spring area, what on earth could we possibly want to see...and it was around 32 degrees outside so why go in?). we hiked up the high street, stopped at pret a manger and went and had a picnic in the circus. my future residence.



the circus is georgian architecture at its best. row upon row of townhouses, made in bathstone and completely beautiful. it was designed by john wood the elder and completed by john wood the younger (love it) and is mimicked after the roman colisseum with its 3 classic orders. in each order, the columns get more and more ornate and as they say in wikipedia, the frieze of the Doric entablature is decorated with alternating triglyphs and 525 pictorial emblems, including serpents, nautical symbols, devices representing the arts and sciences, and masonic symbols.


this is one townhouse...check out the columns

follow brock street nearby and you get to the royal crescent. how beautious!



so if you know anything about the masonic symbols, you'll notice that the key is one of the 'key' symbols....sorry, couldn't resist...and if you look at an areal view of bath, you'll find that the royal crescent and the circus create....a key. so cool. there are hidden masonic symbols throughout the entire town (including under windows). you could probably spend days finding them out.



jamie oliver has a restaurant there which i'll have to check out when i'm back there in june for my bread making course. i should make it a weekend! can't wait.

my other favorite thing about bath is jane austen. and if you know me, you know i absolutely adore her. i plan on making the visitor's centre a destination in june so i can fill you in then.



seriously, i can't wait to go there again. it felt like home. i don't know how else to describe it.

we raced back to london to do a haunted walks tour but it ended up being quite lame so we left. but we got 2 cool things from it. we found the address that inspired dickens to write a christmas carol (and stood at ebineezer's accounting firm's address) and we found this place....do you know it potter fans?



it's diagon alley. sweet.