Aquae Sulis is the Roman name for the city of Bath. The first place we visited of course was the Roman Baths. The complex includes several different bath rooms, the spring, artifacts, and more. Seeing the Roman engineering at work was a humbling experience. After the Baths, we visited the Assembly Rooms, which inspired some of Jane Austen's writing.
We were fortunate that for a day we were going to spend a lot of time outside, it was a beautiful day. We toured around the area near Bath. Our first stop of the day was Stonehenge. Though it was smaller than I was expecting, Stonehenge was in way unimpressive. In a way there was more to Stonehenge than I thought. Like most people probably think, there is the main circle of stones. However, the landscape around Stonehenge is just as interesting. Our next stop was Avebury. Though the stone circle of Avebury was/is much larger than the one at Stonehenge, much of its stone was used for building. Ironically, the Church, which did not like the circle, used the stones to build a church. The town of Avebury is actually set inside of the circle. Next we went to the little village of Lacock. The newest building in the town was built in 1824! Because of this, the town is often used for historic filming. It is used so often, that the filming industry paid to have electricity and other cabling all be under ground to not affect the picture. A couple of the Harry Potter films had locations there. The main street was used as part of Hogsmeade. One can also find the houses used as the Potter's house and Slughorn's house. Parts of the abbey were used as well. I loved wondering around the village because it was so picturesque. Our last stop for the day was another village frequently used for filming, Castle Comb. Most recently, War House was filmed there.
For class, we would only use seven of eight days on a BritRail Pass, so we were encourage to use our extra day on one of our free days. A few others wanted to visit a castle so they searched for ones nearby we could get to by train. I decided to go along we them. We ended up in Sherbourne. First, we visited the Old Castle. The ruins of the Old Castle sat on a hill in the countryside. We ended up being the only tourists there. From the Old Castle, we went to the New Sherbourne Castle, which was Sir Walter Raleigh's manor. At first, we were all a little wary of the cost to get in. However, it ended up being worth it. After taking lunch outside, we went into the castle. We also spend some time exploring the gardens.
The next day, the class headed to Glastonbury, which we had been warned could be quite interesting. We started the day by visiting the abbey, where supposedly the graves of Arthur and Guinevere were discovered. After that we decided to visit the Tor. We took a bus to the base and hiked/climbed to the top of the hill to the Tor. It was quite the work out. Though there is not much to the building at the top, the view of Glastonbury and the countryside is quite spectacular. Despite not running into anyone peculiar, besides our tour guide at the abbey who pulled a Fisher Price dog around on a string and only acting crazy, it was a good adventure.
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