Stonehenge & Bath

A few weeks ago, Capa sent all students on a trip to Stonehenge and Bath. It was just a day trip: a few hours on a bus with a tour guide. Our first stop was Stonehenge, which was...freezing. It looks exactly like the pictures you've seen of it. In fact, it was smaller than I expected. It was in the middle of this hilly area, surrounded by sheep. While the site itself was sort of underwhelming, the history that we learned about it made the visit. Its hard to even imagine how old it is, since it was made 3 centuries ago. With this in mind, the sophistication of the monument is pretty mysterious. There are many myths about what the purposes of the stone ring were. But the most fascinating question is how it was made! The stones range from 4 to 25 tons, and it is believed that it would have taken 30 million hours of labor to create. There are 900 other stone rings similar to Stonehenge in the British Isles. Learning all of this made the trek around the pile of rocks much more worth it.

The rest of the day was spent traveling to and exploring the city of Bath in Somerset. We visited the Roman baths, which are still filled with (green) hot water, supplied from hot springs. 

The city outside the baths is so old, and so beautiful. The roads were all cobble stones, the buildings all made of limestone, and the streets were small and filled with little shops. There was something so quaint and charming about the little city. Our tour guide showed us examples of the Roman, medieval, and Georgian aspects of the history. 

My favorite part of all was the Circus, or the Royal Crescent. It was built in the 1700's and was inspired by the Roman Colosseum, but instead the front of the structure is the inside of the circle. It is a huge circular building, shaped much like the Colosseum, 3 stories high, and very big. It creates a half circle around a huge lawn. With the sun shining above the circular building, the scene was so breath taking and peaceful. The use something called a "ha-ha" instead of a fence. Since fences would take away from the physical appearance of the scene, they built a sort of ditch to keep unwanted animals out. It is kind of hard to explain, but the lawn has a cliff, almost like a big stair. But the most interesting part is that it is hard to see the cliff, because the green of the lawn blends in together. It was even difficult to get a picture in which you could tell the "ha-ha" was there! I thought this was really clever!

I was sad to leave Bath by the end of the day, but in that time we had actually seen the whole city. It was  pretty small, which almost makes it more endearing! I would definitely recommend it to anyone!