3 days in the city was enough & I needed to get back into the country, so I headed out to Wiltshire to spend some time with an old friend from Uni. On our first afternoon we headed out to see some famous rocks arranged in a circle - that's right, Stonehenge. We first wandered through the stones of Avebury, before heading over to Stonehenge to discover that the entrance was closed. Of course, when you have a zoom lens you don't need to get too close! The sun was setting and and lit up the scene with a warm yellow light - pity about the guy dressed in a fluorescent yellow jacket standing in most of the photos!
The following day my friend had to work so I caught the train to Bath to check out the roman baths. The town is a beautiful old place to wander through, with old buildings leaning over the road and markets and buskers filling the cobbled streets. It was amazing to see how the Romans took advantage of the natural springs to build the baths, using viaducts and some pretty advanced plumbing. They even had underfloor heating by building the floors up on piles of slate. Pretty impressive. As was the wishing pool that was filled with coins that caught the light like so many twinkling stars. It was a clear but chilly day and I wished that I'd had the forethought to bring my togs with me for a dip in the modern baths. I actually held them in my hands while packing and thought, "don't be ridiculous, where are you going to swim?"
The following day we headed out to Castle Comb & Lacock manor. First however, we had to head out to a couple of farm calls as my friend was on duty. It was fun to see the differences in farming practices and try to understand some of the old timer farmers. I think they enjoyed hearing our kiwi accents as well, even though one of the guys described it as, "sounding like the cast of Neighbours!" After seeing to a couple of sick cows we headed over to Lacock Manor, where I think they filmed some of Harry Potter - it's very different without a bunch of wizards and witches wandering around. The little town is very cute, and quite popular for movie productions as tourist cars are not allowed into the village proper and all the old cobbled streets and houses are very well preserved. And of course, no day was complete without a visit to the pub for a nice hot pub lunch and couple of ciders to wash it down!
