BATH AND STONEHENGE

From Cardiff where we had spent the night we haven't seen a lot, except some buildings in the rain ! It had started to rain, the first time since we left London a week ago.

When we arrived in Bath, which is a very beautiful town, it rained so much, that we took a Sightseeing bus to take us around with some others from our group instead of following our guide who did a walking tour !




I douldn't take a lot of pictures because the windshield was full of raintrops, but we saw a lot of the town and the guide, an English lady was absolutely great, she told us a lot of anecdotes of what happened in Bath during the centuries, as for example the men and women taking a bath in the source water fully dressed and then once dry they drank the water ! The clothes were full of fleas and bugs as they were never washed and so were the hair too.

After having a coffee which warmed us up, we continued our way through the rainy but beautiful landscape to Stonehenge.



I had been in Stonehenge last year in August (see here) so I didn't follow the others for the guided tour with headsets on your ears. I watched them from outside  and looked at the stones from far, they looked so different in the rain  as when I was there last year while the sun was shining and the sky blue.

On the way back to London, we got all a list of email adresses from all the members of our group and a beautiful red T-shirt from the Expat Tour company. Then it was time to say good bye, and we took the tube back to St. Pancras station. I had booked a Bed & Breakfast near the station in a little square enough far away not to hear the noisy main street.

We arrived at 6 in the hotel and stayed, we didn't even go out for supper we still had some muffins and other things which we ate with a cup of coffee and then went to sleep.

JOHN LENNON's BIRTH PLACE AND STRATFORD ON AVON

After breakfast early morning, (we are now used to get up at 5.45 each day), we had our daily fight for the seats in the bus ! It's really a shame. There is one Indian guy who sneakes out of the breakfast room, stayes besides the bus and as soon as the driver opens the doors he jumps in and throws clothes and scarfs on several rows of seats, while the others are still at breakfast ! This made me so angry that I followed him and leant against the door so he couldn't go inside and he didn't dare to say a word looking at my face ! All the others laughed and we had a lot of fun.



Finally everybody was happy and we started singing Beatle songs while our driver showed us the Bus stations where the Beatles met and the Pub where they used to write their songs. We also stopped at John Lennon's  home.  We had always thought that he came from a very poor area, but this wasn't the case at all ! All the houses in this street were rather nice.

Meanwhile we know each other and we are a real nice group of 10 nationalities. It's very interesting for all of us because we all have another style of life. Thanks to blogging I knew already quiet a lot about Australia, Malaisia, and Canada.



Before leaving Liverpool we went to the Anglican Cathedral of Liverpool. It had beautiful stained glass windows but what impressed me even more, was that it was the first church I saw in my life which had a souvenir shop and a restaurant IN the church !

After a long drive again, we finally arrived in Stratford on Avon to visit all Shakespear places. Where he had lived, and all the houses of his family and finally the church where he was burried and you had to pay 2 £ to see the grave.



We had seen enough churches and graves and were tired so we rather wanted to sit down and have a coffee in this street where Shakespeare lived. I also was in pursuit of a cat of which I had heard thanks to Barbara from Words, Words, Words.

After having asked in a first souvenir shop I was told the cat would live a little further. I asked in the second shop and the owner smiled, told me the cat's name was Angus and that he always walks up and down the street, and that he thinks that Angus belonged to another shop a little further down the road.
There the people also knew Angus and apparently he goes into all shops and in winter sleeps in the once where the radiator is the warmest.



These are pictures from Barbara's blog, and it is such a pity that Angus didn't show up ! That would have been so funny.

We were very tired when we arrived in Cardiff and after dinner we went immediately into our room to rest and go to bed early.

Tomorrow is the last day of our round trip !