This will be the first of four, possibly five, posts about our trip to Europe this August. I know August was a while ago, but it's been hard to find time to edit my own pictures as I jumped right back in to my photography business once we were home. After constant nagging questions about when these pictures would be finished from my mother, I finally decided that I needed to make the time to work on some of my own things so that it's not next summer before I get our vacation pictures tackled! I have the pictures in a little bit of a chronological order of events from our time in England.
First up was changing of the guard in front of Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, I didn't get great pictures during the actual changing of the guard as it was insanely crowded and we weren't able to get in a good position to really see anything. We came back later when there was no one there to get some other pictures of Buckingham Palace. Much less stressful!
When in London you have to get pictures by the iconic telephone booth. That cute couple on the end is Andreas and Laura- the whole reason we were in Europe to begin with! When Andy told us that they were getting married in August and that we were invited to their wedding (in France), Eric and I talked it over and decided we just had to go. Something like this only happens once in a lifetime, and what better time to go than now. I know that Andy was SO surprised when mom told him that we were all coming. And I'm glad we all did, because we got to meet and hang out with his now wife Laura for a few days in London, as well as Andy's brother, Alex.
Here we are at Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. That's Andy's brother Alex standing on the far right. We had a great time checking out the crown jewels, finding the ravens (they have seven- the required six plus one extra!), and learning all about the history of this once bustling castle.
We did a little walking around and checked out the London Eye- but didn't ride it because the line was forever long. From the Eye, you got a great view of the city of London. They were remodeling Big Ben, which was a little sad, but they did leave the clock face open on the one side.
Our next day in England was spent on a day trip to see Stonehenge and the city of Bath. Up first, Stonehenge! There are so many mysteries about the origins of Stonehenge, so it was really neat to learn some of the history that we do know about the stones and their construction. We couldn't get very close to the stones (unless you want to pay a lot of money to be able to walk in the center circle), but even being so far away, the magnitude of this place was overwhelming.
As a side note, the location of Stonehenge, or should I say the main highway, is a little strange. While these pictures make it look like Stonehenge is in the middle of nowhere, it is actually very close to a major highway. Because of this, traffic to get to Stonehenge is horrendous. Since the road is so close, everyone slows down as they drive by to say that they've "seen" Stonehenge without actually coming up to the monument. Our guide told us that there are plans to put the road underground so that the traffic issue is solved and to make it feel like Stonehenge actually is in the middle of nowhere.
Aside from the history of all of the stones inside and just outside the main ring of Stonehenge, there's also a huge stone far outside the main structure, known as the Heel Stone (which is the top right picture in the collage below). The Heel Stone marks the place on the horizon where the summer solstice sunrise appears when viewed from the center of the stone circle. And then the alignment from beside the Heel Stone looking back towards the stone circle is to the winter solstice sunset. How cool is that!
I'll spare you the story of losing my father, and then my brother, right before the bus was supposed to leave, but we definitely thought that they were going to be left at Stonehenge. Moral of the story, if you're going to go get something to eat that's in a different room than where everyone else is (and the bus is leaving in like ten minutes), be sure you tell somebody where you are going.
After our visit to Stonehenge, we got back on the bus and traveled to the town of Bath to explore an ancient Roman Bath. The town in itself was so cool. Every building in this town is built with the yellow Bath stone.
Inside the Roman Bath, we saw statues of important Roman figures, viewed ancient artifacts from that time period, and even got to taste the water from the hot spring that supplies the water for the bath (which was hot and did not taste great). The bottom left picture shows where the water from the spring comes up to go into the main bath area.
On our last day in London, I was finally able to convince mom to just wait in line to see the inside of Westminster Abbey. Eric and I went in with her while dad, James and Andy did a little exploring and souvenir shopping. I think it's safe to say that mom would say that the long line was worth it. And while we couldn't take any pictures inside the church, I think the architecture on the exterior of the building speaks volumes for what the interior looked like.
And there ends the England stint of our European vacation this summer! Stay tuned for our next stop, Munich, Germany.
