Alrighty! London Round Eight! I think! I’ve honestly lost track a bit at this point. It’s funny because after my very first visit to London, I decided I didn’t like the city enough to desire going back anytime soon. But I just keep ending up back here because it’s one of the easiest ways to get to Europe from Seattle and because there’s so much to do in the area. So, here I am, once again, and certainly not for the last time.

I was tired upon landing from my red-eye. Seven hour flight plus a five hour time difference meant that I left New York at 11pm and landed in London at 11am. Well, that’s how the flight was scheduled, anyway. In actuality, my plane was late to arrive at JFK, and we therefore were also late to board. Then, some forty minutes after original departure time, we pushed back from the gate, only to hear our captain announce that only one runway was in operation for both takeoff and landing, and there were thirty planes ahead of us in line. There was another JFK to Gatwick flight just one hour ahead of us that also left late, so that also made for a long customs line once we got to the UK. I was standing behind a family with NINE KIDS. They looked like they ranged between two and sixteen years old. Amazingly, all of them were perfectly behaved, mini adults. I’m sure the parents were pleased, since two other kids in line were screaming their heads off.

With all of these delays, I didn’t get into London proper until about three in the afternoon. Yeesh! I admired the British Library, Kings Cross, and St. Pancras for a bit before checking into my hostel and dropping off my bags.

Most attractions and museums close at five, so I had just over an hour to explore the National Portrait Gallery.

It was a very interesting gallery, especially since I’ve never been to a portrait gallery before. It was laid out based on subject rather than artist, like most museums, and in fact, many of the portraits had anonymous or unknown artists. There were some very famous portraits here, though – portraits I recognized from Google and history textbooks. See how many English monarchs you can recognize:

This one below was pretty funny. I couldn’t figure out why it was all stretched out until I read the description plaque: it was painted so that when viewed through a tiny hole in the side of the frame, it looked as though the subject’s head was popping out of the background in 3D.

Quite silly. I also enjoyed the few unfinished paintings on display.

Another exhibit focused on famous friendships and was mostly comprised of photographs. I thought these were pretty sweet.

And then, of course, there were some more modern-style portraits. These were my favorite, and lots of them were self portraits.

There were also some (kind of strange) shadow-y portraits. Not sure how to feel about these ones.

The building was very cool, too.

And here are some last favorites:

In the end, I was kicked out with the rest of the stragglers. I wish this didn’t happen to me so much. (And I also wish museums wouldn’t kick people out fifteen minutes before their posted closing time!!!) I managed to snap a few cool ones on the way out, and I do think I managed to see most of the museum. Yippee!

Next, I slipped into a church for a bit and listened to some street performers in Trafalgar Square. ‘Twas very pretty, despite the clouds.

I also found a rare and used bookstore that was BEGGING to be ransacked, but I just didn’t have the bag space.

Then another underground back to the hostel. I can’t remember what I did for dinner… Must have just snacked on a meal deal and called it good. I thought about doing laundry but decided against it since I still had two clean shirts to go. I would come regret this decision in the near future.

My room in the hostel was kind of meh. The air circulation is always awful in London hostels for some reason, so the room was suffocatingly warm and smelled like feet. Unfortunately, we only had one set of windows that cracked a couple inches open right onto the busy street in front of Kings Cross, so every night, we had to decide between hot and smelly or motorcycle sounds and sirens blaring right below our heads. This night, I chose hot and smelly, but an hour later, someone else decided the windows should be open, so I did not sleep very well. It was seriously so loud.

My Wednesday was dedicated to a bus tour to Stonehenge. Amazingly, with all the transportation and entrance fees required to get to Stonehenge from London, it would have cost me about $70-80 just for the visit if I’d gone on my own. Instead, I booked a $120 day trip that included a visit to Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, Salisbury Cathedral, and Bath.

Our first stop was Windsor, and the Queen was home! (No sightings, though.) We arrived about forty minutes before the castle opened so to minimize our unpredictable time in line, so we didn’t get into the castle grounds until about 10:00. We only had an hour here, so it was a bit rushed, but it was still enjoyable.

Saw some Royal guards on their way out of the castle…

And there were some pretty views of the town below.

Unfortunately, there were no photos allowed inside due to the security risk, seeing as this is an official residence of the queen. I did manage to snap a couple photos of the beautiful ceilings, though. Pretty sure there’s no security risk there.

You know how Princess Eugenie had a gargantuan royal wedding the likes of which rivaled Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s earlier in the year? The princess’s wedding dress, reception dress, and tiara were on temporary exhibition in the castle. That was quite cool.

On the far side of one tiny, octagonal room, a suit of armor stood against the wall. I remarked to myself that it was clearly made for quite a large man (the suit had a nice round tummy), and on further inspection, I learned this was one of King Henry VIII’s suits! From his larger, later years, obviously.

I was relieved to be able to take (non-covert) pictures again once I was outside, but I was also surprised to see that I still had time to spare! I’d been so rushed because of our strict time limit that I had marvelously ended up over-rushing. I took this opportunity to stroll around the castle grounds a bit and admire the gardens a bit.

And then I found some ice cream! I’m really not crazy on ice cream at home, but put me in Europe on a sunny day, and I can hardly resist. I went for the Blackcurrants in Clotted Cream. I was recently discussing with a friend the fact that currants are all over European (and apparently also Asian) cuisine, but they are almost nonexistent in American cuisine. It’s just not one of the common fruits. My theory is that currants aren’t very pretty, and America is obsessed with marketing. Strawberries and bananas and oranges make for pretty labels, but the little black circles that are currants don’t really make the mouth water. Even though they’re so good! So I’ve made it my mission to eat currant-flavored things whenever I get the chance.

It was delicious, but the line moved so slow that by the time I got my cone handed to me, I had about two minutes before the scheduled bus departure time. Aaaaand ice cream was one of the only two things we were asked not to bring on the bus. Ice cream and hot food.

So this meant I had to speed walk and speed eat all the way to the bus. It surely would have been a bit more enjoyable without the stress, but I was still happy in the end. So creamy. So curranty.

I was surprised to be handed a little lunch box when I boarded the bus, stuffed with a water bottle, a cheese sandwich, chips, a cookie, and a packet of raisins.

As we continued along, we passed field after field of rapeseed, these bountiful yellow-flowered plants that produce lots of oil and are apparently super easy and rewarding to grow in the UK.

After another hour or so, we pulled into Salisbury, the town you have to train into to see Stonehenge via public transportation.

We weren’t there to see the town, though. We were there to see the cathedral.

So pretty! Famous for housing one of the four original copies of the Magna Carta, this cathedral was quite grand, indeed.

There was a choir practicing for their Good Friday concert during our visit, so that was pretty neat, and the arches on the ceiling reminded me of the arcades in Bologna, so that brought about a bit of happiness for me.

There was also a beautiful fountain in the center of the floor. I stared at it for several minutes because the solidness of the black, still surface and the reflection of the stained glass windows were so mesmerizing.

And some pretty painted ceilings.

I made it over to see the Magna Carta at one point, and I just stared at the tiny tiny letters hand-printed on the parchment. One older American man even told me to study hard because there would be a quiz at the exit.

The document was housed inside a tiny little black-curtained tent in the center of the room, and it was encased in two layers of glass. No photographs were allowed, in order to preserve the document from flash and light. Outside the tent, though, they had displayed an older version of the glass casing that had been attacked by a man with a hammer some years ago. Thankfully, the glass did its job, and the man was not able to harm the document. Scary!

A little more playing outside…

And then back on the bus! To Stonehenge!

We were dropped off at the visitor center and museum, and from there, little shuttle buses took us up in groups to the famous stones. The last step was to take a little walk up the path, and ta-da!!!!

I was pretty excited. I’ve been wanting to visit Stonehenge for so long, and I’ve just never been able to fit it into my schedule. It was crazy to finally be standing only a stone’s throw away from this relic of the past. (Tehehehehe.)

The entire time I was there, the Stonehenge song by Ylvis was stuck in my head, and it is even playing back there as I type. It will probably be stuck in my head all day, now. If you’ve never heard it, go have a listen. But beware that I warned you of its catchiness.

The most interesting thing I learned about Stonehenge on this visit is that there were likely many monuments like these spread out in the area, and this is just the only one that has survived. It is a ruin in its current state, with entire 40-ton stones missing completely from the arrangement. Another thing I thought was interesting was that back in the 1800s, people were allowed to chisel off pieces of the stones to take home as souvenirs! This has since been outlawed, and now, visitors have to remain behind a short rope surrounding the stone circle. (This makes for great, people-free pictures, though. Give and take!)

So…. I took a lot of pictures. It was just super exciting.

Back by the visitor center, there were also little Neolithic houses and tool/material demonstrations.

We had a bit of a mishap when one of the ladies from the back of the bus decided to return fifteen minutes late, despite calls from her groupmates. This was bad news bears and had the guide and the ladies in front of me in a pretty bad mood. Oh. That reminds me. The guide was kind of meh. Very much seemed like the type of tired, cranky old Englishman that would come with an expensive, fifty-seat bus tour. He was funny in a very dry way, and while we stood in line at Windsor, I could tell he was a bit distressed by the fact that those of us in the front of the group were paying less attention to him and more attention to the young, enthusiastic tour guide for the group in front of us. Oh well! He got the job done, I suppose.

Our last stop was the town of Bath, famous for its Roman baths, believe it or not. We only had just shy of an hour here, and this was when I realized I had been somewhat silly to book such a packed tour. I certainly believe we had long enough at Stonehenge, but I think that was because this was the main attraction of the day tour. The three other stops felt rushed in a very silly way. Like, rushed in such a way that it was clear these four attractions were not meant to be visited all in one go. I wish the tour description had included how long we would have at each stop, because people usually spend several hours at Windsor, and a whole day could easily be spent at Bath. This last stop hurt the most for me, because wandering tiny towns is one of my favorite things to do. There’s something freeing about being told, “You’ll be bored after an hour or two.” To me, this means, “You’ll be glad you decided to spend nine whole hours here!” I’ve got a gold star in Taking My Time.

The bus dropped us off on a bridge right over a beautiful city park with a river and blooms galore.

I caught sight of a tall pointy spire though, and that always draws my attention. I wandered over that way to find a beautiful church and even more pretty water.

Next, I found my way to the train station so that I could grab a map. I mean, seriously. Who drops a person off in the middle of an unfamiliar town without a map and says, go have fun, be back here in fifty minutes! The nerve…. Once I had the map, I felt a lot better about exploring without the feeling that I would wander myself in circles and be unable to find the bus again.

I walked the main shopping street of the town and was quickly sucked in by a crepe stand.

Nutella, banana, and whipped cream. YUM. It wouldn’t cool down, so I had to eat it with a fork and knife and allow each bite to cool so I wouldn’t burn myself. Some sort of magic heat-retaining Nutella must have been employed.

One of the main attractions of the city, besides the Roman baths, is the abbey.

It was so pretty! Unfortunately, evening service had just started by the time I arrived, so I was not able to enter the main chamber. I was able to pop my head into the lobby so I could look in the windows, though. My tourist map boasted that the ceilings in the abbey were unlike any other in the world, but I remarked to the woman at the entrance desk that the ceilings reminded me of those in Kings Chapel in Cambridge. She smiled and said, “That’s because they were designed by the exact same people.” Ha! Like no other in the world…. Sure…. I was also a little tickled at my worldly knowledge. (:

Then back out to find the bus. Yes, a quick little visit to this city, indeed. Maybe I’ll be back some day…

I was in a bit of a mood at the end of this tour because of how rushed I felt in Bath, and then our driver took a scenic route where almost all the scenes were on the other side of the bus, so I was sadly craning my neck to look out the windows of my neighbors.

Oh! I had an awkward thing. The group across the aisle from me was a mom and two very tall, fairly attractive boys. I took note of this because I like to look at pretty things (tehehe), but I was mortified at Stonehenge when the guide walked along the bus aisle to dispense our entrance bracelets. “Are there any children? Sixteen and under?” he asked, to which one of the boys said, “Oh,” and raised his (super long) arm high in the air.

Sixteen! I was giving goo-goo eyes to a sixteen year old. At least I still had his brother, though, right? Well, in the end, the guide had one extra child bracelet, so he decided to offer it to the older brother. “I’m seventeen, though,” he said, and the guide assured him that this didn’t really matter.

It mattered to me, though. Seriously. It should be a crime for high school… what? Sophomores? Juniors? to be so tall. It is very misleading to the general Lizzy public!

Bahahahaha. Okay. Enough of that. Even with all of the age confusion, the rushed ice cream eating, and the down-to-the-wire visit of Bath, I still had a lovely, if tiring, day. Here’s me waiting for my train back to my hostel.

See? Happy. Tired. Maybe a little watery-eyed. I think I must have just yawned. Really, though, I was pretty excited to have finally fulfilled my dream of seeing those crazy stones. More London-area adventures to come.

Cheers/ best wishes,
-Lizzy-wa