Day 6: English Countryside

Today we woke up at 7 AM to meet the Evan Evans tour bus at the Millennium Mayfair hotel. We met the “local” bus at 8:10 AM and took it to Victoria Station to transfer to our actual tour bus. Our destinations? Bath, Stonehenge, and Windsor Castle! Talk about an ambitious schedule for one day! We grabbed coffee and water from a cafe in Victoria station after eating our store-bought pan de chocolat in the hotel on the way to meet the first bus.

The first stop on our tour was Windsor Castle. It took about an hour to get there from Victoria (we left Victoria at 9 AM, and arrived at Windsor Castle around 10 AM). At Windsor Castle, we toured the State Apartments, Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House, and the Chapel. We also saw the end of the changing of the guard. It was amazing to be reminded of how much restoration work was done following the horrible fire there in the ‘90’s. The interior of Windsor Castle is so elaborate that it is a “must see” for anyone that visits London. We left the castle at noon to head to Bath (a 2 hour bus ride). We were told to grab lunch on the way back to the bus and eat it on board. We ended up getting BLT's from a sandwich shop (Cinnamons?) at the Windsor Train/Coach station shopping area.

It seemed to take forever, but we finally arrived in Bath just after 2 PM, following a nap on the bus while sheep-watching on the surrounding hillsides and fields. We toured the Roman Baths and walked around the city. It is really cool to think about the history of the ancient baths. Of course, no visit would be complete without a tasting of the “bath water”. Stacey clearly wasn’t a fan, so I ended up finishing it for the sake of politeness. We left Bath for Stonehenge around 4 PM.

We arrived in Stonehenge around 5 PM and took an audioguide tour that highlighted key information until it was time to board the bus to head back to London at 5:55 PM. On the way back, we hit stopped traffic near Heathrow, but were finally dropped off near the Marble Arch Tube station about 8:15 PM. From there, it was a short walk down Oxford Street to Duke Street where we grabbed a quick meal at a nearby pub (the Barley Mow) before heading back to our hotel to get ready for Tuesday’s Ireland trip.