Bath, England

For our first free weekend from planned Florida State activities, a group of 9 of us decided to go to Bath. The city is known for being a site of the famous Roman Baths and is also located near Stonehenge. We left thursday night on the train and arrived around 00:00. After getting completely lost and helped by complete strangers, who happened to be around our age and acted as tour guides for our walk to the hostel, we were finally able to relax and enjoy our vacation.

Our first day was spent taking a tour at the Roman Baths

We learned all about the history of these heated baths that have been around since about 75AD, which probably doesn't sound very cool, but these were the entertainment of the day and acted as the spa for the public to go and worship, in this case, the Goddess Manerva. The tour highlighted the time in which the baths were at the height of their popularity and gave details about the lifestyle that surrounded them.

On Saturday we took Mad Max's tour which took us to Stonehenge and to Lacock, which was the site of a lot of filming in the Harry Potter movies.

Stonehenge was beautiful, but also probably the windiest place that I have ever been. It is crazy to think that these 7 ton rocks were carried 100s of miles from their origin to this location. I really enjoyed learning about all of the theories for why the monument was built, but seeing it in person was an unreal experience. Then the rest of the tour was going to Lacock where we were able to see Goddrick's Hollow, the house of Professor Slughorn, The graveyard where Harry's parents were buried in the movie (which happened to be right behind the church where Camilla's daughter was married), and the house that was used as Harry's parents house (where they were killed) in the movies.

The rest of the trip was spent enjoying the city, seeing the Royal Cresent and the circus, having tea at the Pump Room, which is where all of the aristocrats had tea, and doing a little shopping.