Bath and Bristol (Glastonbury and Stonehendge soon to come)

"This is so bizarre, the order of our Stonehendge, Glastonbury, and Bath tour is going to be completely oposite!" I thought I'd mention that right off the bat. You see, poor Beth was thrown for a momentary loop when this happened. Honestly she didn't know what to do with that "It's completely backwards!"

I laughed.

As you know, Beth and I went on a tour of the above mentioned places and we had a fantastic time. You may not have known the fantastic time bit, but I bet you guessed it! We took about a million pictures, soon to be placed on facebook, and well... had a great time lol.

Bath was our first stop. We got picked up by our coach at about eight in the morning, threw our stuff into the back and promptly met the nicest bus driver we've ever encountered and our absolutely lovely tour guide. John and Susannah. The trip to Bath was three hours with a break inbetween to stretch our legs. Boy did we need it! The bus we were on was comfy for discount, I suppose, but ment for people with much shorter legs than either Beth or I possess. We forgot that we owned knees after a while. Eek.

But yes, Bath was lovely. On our drive in we were told all about the specific lime stone quarried and used in the city. All houses and buildings that are errected in Bath MUST be faced with this stone. It leaves the city looking ancient and spectacular. We went into the Roman Baths first, had a tour of the ruins and enjoyed the hokey audio guide. I quite liked looking into the different rooms and noting the decimated structures, but this wasn't my favourite part of my stay in Bath. An amusing part though, was when Beth and I both tried the healing waters of Bath. Normally you have to pay fifty pence to get a glass of this stuff, but because Beth and I were with Procentium tours we didn't. Beth got her glass, and I got mine. She drank hers first. Then I mine.

It was tasty... seriously... I love the taste of sulphur. Thirst quenching really. Beth and I were amused at least. She had a cold, so we were waiting to see if it worked on her congestion (we're thinking it didn't, I insist that it's because she didn't believe enough in the powers of Minerva Sulis).

After this we were both hungry for lunch and thus pulled out our pre-made lunches and snacked down. We did a bit of self-exploration and shopping after lunch, but it was a bit dull when we stumbled out of Bath's main city core. After a bit of this it was time for the walking tour. I enjoyed this part the most. We got to see the city and be told all about the interesting stories and such associated with it. My favourite was about the way three of Bath's city streets were named. Aparently this guy was really trying to get a council to agree on a name for these three streets, but they felt they had better things to do. Eventually one of the council members got so frustrated with him that he stood up and shouted "Be quite John [whatever his last name was]" and thus this fellow name his streets Quite, John, and his last name. I thought that was pretty great. To finish off was my favourite part of Bath, which was the Abby.

Queen Elizabeth called it the "Lantern of the West" when first she entered it, and Beth says it's a much deserved name. Without too much interior lighting this Abby is very bright and sparkly. Beth, who has been to far more Abbies than I have, says it is by far the best lit. The outside face has beautiful carvings and stonework of angles climbing up and down a ladder. Aparently this image came to the creator in a dream--as do many such things for artsy people.

I love going into old places of worship, or areas where there is true meaning instilled into the very air of the place. It's calming, or emotional... whatever it is, it makes you feel and that is spectacular.

Overall I think Bath is a beautiful city, but better explored by people with larger budgets than either Beth or I have. For instance, I'd love to go to the spa at Bath. Oo lala.

From Bath we got the surprise of going to Bristol! How cool is that? VERY! We didn't know that we'd be going to a different city for our overnight stay and found it to be a bit of a bonus. So once we got settled into our rooms at the Holiday Inn Express Beth and I went out in search of food. We'd decided that since we'd spent time hanging around Roman ruins all day, we should go for Italian. Thus our quest began.

We learned in Victoria that a good way to get recomendations on how to find a quality meal was to ask the front desk. We did so and were directed to Baldwin street for our dining needs. Unfortunately we ended up on the wrong street when trying to get past a roundabout and had to find our way back to Victoria street which would then lead us to Baldwin. We asked a nice looking couple where to go and they gave us directions that seemed a bit strange, but we followed them. We didn't have a lot of hope as we found ourselves behind a bunch of buildings, looking around (in a well lit area) and thinking "Aren't we just walking around this tower here?" Well, that's what we thought, but aparently if you walk in a semi circle/circle around this building you end up on a different street. Mind boggling.

We found our way just fine from here. One of the highlights of my night happened around the time as we were crossing over the Avon and saw a bunch of swans floating on it in the light of the walk way paths. So picturesque. Unfortunately in the pictures I tried to take, this scene is not at all portrayed.

So, now that we're on Baldwin we find a few restaurants, but only three that were Italian. The first looked shady to me, and thus I opted against it. The next looked fabulous, cozy, and reasonably priced... but we wouldn't be able to get in for an hour. That was fairly disheartening, but we set out to search again and found a nice place to rest our feet and fill our stomachs. I don't remember the name of it, which makes it hard to give you a meaningful review, but, I would say it was more Southern Italian and catered to the idea of Italian restaurants. It's decore was exactly what you would expect of a smaller Italian restaurant.

We were told that we'd have to wait for our food, but I didn't really feel that was the case. The food was nice, but nothing special even though both Beth and I ordered dishes that should have been something special. It really felt like something I could do at home with a tinned sauce, but then, I'm a good cook! Again, I sound negative, but I don't mean to be. My standard for Italian at an Italian resturant is quite high after being spoiled a year ago at Il Teratza in Victoria. Hard to beat that. I just felt the portions and quality were out of sync with the price. Doesn't mean it wasn't good, just mediocre. It sure hit the spot though, and as usual Beth and I had a lovely time dining out together. At the end of our meal, just as we were going to pay the bill our waiter stopped at another table first and dropped off their dessert... dear god.

He was about to hand us the bill, but asked us first if we'd like anything else. "Um..." we both said, sending covetous looks towards the amazing mystery dessert handed to the couple across from us "Uhhh... you know... giving them that dessert before handing us our bill was a clever move... uuummm..."

He told us to take our time, laughing, and we asked him to give us a dessert menu. Oh dear. We ordered what we thought it was the other couple had ordered--though we were between the tirimisu (eek spelling) and the chocolate thing we ordered. Well turns out that their monster AMAZING dessert was the tirimisu, but that's ok because what we had was AMAZING as well. It was a cake with milk, white, and dark chocolate mouse layered densly over a chocolate truffle crust and dusted with coco. Now, you all know my feelings on chocolate, and that is that less is more, well this dessert was perfect. Absolutely perfect. It was high quality, rich, and lovely. It's not often I say that about chocolate desserts, but this one earned it.

As we walked back to our hotel room, hopefully burning some of the calories as we went we noticed something a little odd about Bristol... the youth dress up as super people and myth figures and roam the streets... We're not kidding. On our evening out we saw a few Super Men, Spider Man, Bat Girl, Nacho Libre and three drunken leprochans... I'm sure we saw more than that, but those were the most memorable. We were trying to figure out the occasion but it escaped us and we still don't know...

Well it was back to the room to enjoy some television (which will likely be the last time till we're home) and get some rest. We were both foot sore and Beth was fighting off a cold--I was as well on a lesser level--and thus we both took some Lemsip (neocitron) and had a lovely drugged sleep.

The conclusion of our tour will be written toot sweet, but I have homework and a day to start!