Paris and London
May 20, 2010 to May 31, 2010 (12 days)
Day 11 – “Did you just see that?” (I asked Dave as I saw a guard at Windsor Castle wipe off his shoulder after mistakingly bumping into a person in the crowd.)
Monday, May 31, 2010
So first off, just to clarify - we are having a good time in London, it is just that Paris was better. © Secondly…let’s go through today…
We took a tour today and went to three locations: Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath. We got up at the crack of dawn, and were supposed to meet our coach at Whitehall, but after a minor freak out of going to the wrong street named Whitehall (all too common in Boston), we met the tour guide and we got on a bus. We were then shipped off to Victoria station where approximately 200 people were divvied up among X number of buses and departed to their individual destinations. Our first stop was the Windsor Castle.
At Windsor, we took a tour of the castle and were able to take pics outside, but notin. We saw some beautiful rooms and some strange ones (who has a “latern room?”),and lastly, Dave got very excited because we saw the changing of the guard in thecourtyard!!! And it was the guys with the fuzzy hats, to boot - how excited was he? Ithink he almost peed his pants.
We then traveled to Stonehenge - now I know it seems weird that we spent a wholeday doing this, but a side note: this is a HUGE country and takes a long time totravel. The first half of the day (or two/thirds) were spent going to Windsor and thento Stonehenge - and another note: the British love their audio guides (TheStonehenge one was pretty comical actually. “During this time, most of the men werefarmers - MOOOOOO.” as they gave you real animal sounds to associate with being afarmer back in the 1600s.) Stonehenge was pretty cool - and Dave took enoughpictures from every angle to make one of those 3D puzzles.
We then went to lunch - and by this time, it was about 3pm - and we were STARVING!We pulled into this little English town (very quintessential) and it was PACKED. Thetour guide was ready to have an aneurysm because of the crowds and traffic, and themost hilarious part was that it was all attributed to a Scarecrow Festival - oh yes, youread right - Scarecrows everywhere!!! It was like Wizard-of-Oz cloned - kinda nuts.Dave also got his vital fish’n chips, which he enjoyed. I, on the other hand, got a riceroast - I’ll let your mind wander on that one.
Lastly, we were off to Bath, but because of the scarecrow infestation, we were late,and sadly, when we got there - most things were closed. The one store we did getinto and buy more product in was the chocolate store - Thorntons. Yeah, we neededthat. We were going to see the Roman Baths, but it was a bit too much money - so wejust looked around the city. There was one really nice bartender that we went to visitin a pub that we went to ask where to buy a pint glass for Dave, and he not only gaveus one - but gave us the bubble wrap for it too.
We arrived home and third time’s a charm - we got a seat at the Sherlock Holme’spub where Dave “stole” another pint glass (well, the bartender told him just to walkout with it). Pretty funny. So that was our day.
Although London is fun, we still loved Paris and are now wanting to move there. Ourvacation has been fun, but we are looking forward to seeing Packi again and eatingin our home and sleeping in our own beds. See you soon!