So this weekend I took a trip with the college to Avebury, Glastonbury, Wells, Bath and Stonehenge. It was a lot of fun, not to mention that the English countryside is gorgeous! Driving through it I immediately thought of my dad.. maybe I'll buy him a retirement home there after I make my millions. ;) The countryside is filled with fields, sheep and cows, and is every shade of green you could think of. It's quite stunning and peaceful, it's hard to believe that it's only a few hours drive away from the bricks that are London.
We started our trip off in Avebury, which is a neolithic site of huge concentric circles, the outermost circle being a mile in diameter. It doesn't look like much, certainly not as well-preserved as Stonehenge, but the countryside where it's located is gorgeous and a lot less touristy than Stonehenge. The only downfall is that it is covered in sheep poop. Covered. It was like walking through a mine field, because there were these giant pieces of poop everywhere. And where there wasn't poop, there was slugs who were giant and black and looked like poop. So it was a lose-lose situation wherever you decided to walk. I wish I could say that this was only at Avebury, but sheep are everywhere ergo.. their poop is everywhere.
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| A day at the Rocks-bury.. get it?? [insert pity laugh here] |
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| There was a moat around the entire monument, dug by the neolithic people whenever they constructed Avebury. |
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| SLUGS. I didn't grasp the full disgustingness of them until I saw this picture.. ew. |
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The Avebury site is thought to have a male side and 'male' rocks, and a female side with 'female' rocks.
Pictured here is the female side.. the rocks are smaller and not as imposing.
There was also a huge phallic rock in the middle of the circles.. I was a little sad it wasn't there anymore, :'( |
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| ME AND A ROCK. Notice how unscathed by poop my shoes are.. :) |
Next we went to Glastonbury, which is the site of the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey as well as the Tor. Glastonbury Abbey has many legends associated with it, amongst the most famous are that King Arthur and Queen Guinevere's bodies were found buried there by monks, and that the Holy Grail was brought here and buried by Joseph of Arimathea. Looking at the ruins of the abbey and trying to imagine the sheer size that it must have been is a little mind-boggling, considering there's really not that much left of it.
Climbing the Tor was beautiful.. an easy walk compared to Arthur's Seat. Way back when it used to be an island called Avalon, but today it's a large hill with one part of a monastery left on top. It is quite beautiful, and there are sheep all over it.. obviously.
A side note about Glastonbury; there are weird spiritual shops EVERYWHERE. Magic, psychics, tarot card readers, crystals to heal you, magic water.. yoga studios. Haha. Let me put it this way - if you ever wanted to purchase acid, you'd probably purchase it here.
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| The Tor from the bus on the way there. |
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| Glastonbury Abbey! |
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| Where the high altar would have been. |
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| How nice and decrepit. |
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| There would have been a floor here at some point. |
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| A nice wall with some flowers and ivy.. not that you needed that description at all. |
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| Sheep grazing on the side of the Tor. |
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| Looking down at Glastonbury (and sheep) |
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| Ope, it's me |
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| Farms, farms, farms - the new Motley Crue hit song. |
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| Sheep charging awkwardly down the hill, right before my very eyes! :O |
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An elderly crossing sign..
why don't they have these everywhere so that I know where to wait to stalk cute old men? |
Next up on our little jaunt across the English countryside was Wells, which is a small town but there's a beautiful abbey there, and it's just very quaint and cute all around. There are also swans that ring a bell when they want food there, which we didn't get to see, sadly.
After that, we finally made it to Bath, which is a World Heritage Site. It's gorgeous, it's built on hills so it's basically like Duluth, except that it matters more to the heritage of the world. But there we visited the Roman baths which used to be here when it was called Aquae Sulis back in the day.
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| The abbey in Wells. This is a smaller version of what Glastonbury Abbey would have looked like. |
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| The abbey in Bath at night. |
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| The Roman Baths! |
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| Mmm.. sulphur bubbles. |
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| Posing with the Roman ladieesss. |
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Drinking the water.. it tasted like the water from my house, but warmer.
So.. I don't think that bodes well because everybody generally thinks it tastes disgusting.
It's also supposed to increase fertility.. GET AT ME. |
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| The Royal Circus.. it's a circle. But I couldn't adequately demonstrate that in a picture. |
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| More Bath. |
And then we went to Stonehenge.. Which is not nearly as large as you're lead to believe. It's still impressive, but at the same time it's a little bit of a letdown too. I think most people just like it for the photo op. I have many more pictures from all these places in my Facebook album, because I didn't want to make this a ridiculously long post, because it already is one! Regardless, Stonehenge was really pretty but I must say I did like Avebury better.. Plus there weren't any sheep at Stonehenge (!!!? I know right) so that got some cool points deducted from it.
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| The infamous Stonehenge. |
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| It was windy. |
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So windy, in fact, that I did this.
(There was an 50-year-old Asian man who was doing this exact pose. So I copied him, naturally.)
(And then while I was doing this, another Asian lady came and started taking my picture..) |
That was a long post. Oops. Until my next obnoxiously long post..
xx
