A Testimonial to Bath and Stonehenge by Rachel Priebe

I am in no way whatsoever a morning person. I’m the type that has to set up six different alarms five minutes apart and sometimes I still don’t wake up. So when I found out I had to be at the London Center at 7 am to board the bus that would take us to Bath and Stonehenge, I was less than thrilled. But trust me on this one: it was so worth the early rise.

As previously mentioned, we got to the London Center at 7 am and boarded our ~Mercedes~ coach buses shortly after. The bus ride was not long (considering I was sleeping for most of it) and we arrived at Bath, where we went straight to the Roman Baths. No, you can’t actually go in the bath. Don’t worry though; at the end of the self-guided tour you can drink water from it. I’m not going to tell you if it was the best water I’ve ever had in my entire life or the nastiest thing I’ve ever tasted; that would ruin the surprise.

After the baths, I went on a walking tour provided by Simon, a professor at the London Center who doubles as a blue badge certified tour guide. This guy is AMAZING and I’m definitely his #1 fan. He took us around Bath and showed us many things including the Circus and the Royal Crescent, which I originally read as the Royal Croissant because I was pretty hungry at the time. After the walking tour we took a beeline toward the nearest food place and despite being a very picky eater, I tried a local staple called a Cornish pasty; it was absolutely delicious and a necessity for anyone visiting. We also went to Sally Lunn’s where we bought ourselves some buns, which are huge and another necessity for if you’re ever in Bath.

Off to Stonehenge! We got back on the bus and in no time we arrived at our next destination. We went from the bus to a shuttle that would take us closer, and then there they were. The rocks. Never have I been so excited about rocks in my entire life. We took tons of pictures and some people were even holding each other up to try to mimic the formation that the rocks were in. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to go close to the stones or touch them. My friends and I spent a lot of this time throwing around conspiracy theories about the mysterious history of the stones and who put them there (aliens, obviously).

We parted ways with the rocks and I got back on the bus happy, and then was even happier when I remembered I hadn’t eaten my bun from Sally Lunn’s yet. When I got home, I popped it in the oven, put some jam on it, and ate the whole thing. As I was doing so I thought to myself: waking up at 5:30 am to make it to the London Center on time so I could drink bathwater, eat a bun, and look at rocks? Absolutely worth it.