On our way to London from the Calais to Dover ferry crossing (here's the white cliffs, not a very good picture)...
we stopped in Canterbury to see the cathedral where Thomas a'Becket was killed by the knights of the king. I tried to read The Canterbury Tales to everybody in the car but nobody would pay attention.
Here's the spot where they killed him.
One day we visited Stonehenge and Bath. Stonehenge was so fascinating. Our audioguides told us all these different theories about what the purpose could have been and who could have built it (and other stone circles in Great Britain) and how. (One of the theories involved aliens.) To me it was just so amazing all the things that lined up perfectly, that matched sun positions, that were so precise from people who didn't have machinery.
Here's what they think it used to look like.
Here's an overhead view of what it looks like now. The ring of raised earth around the edge of the picture is part of the whole thing.
In this picture you can see the little hump on the top of the tallest stone. Well all the vertical stones have that tenon that exactly fits into a mortise on the cross piece stone sitting on top of it. Somehow they brought these stones in from a long ways away, carved mortises and tenons, raised up the vertical stones and then lifted the horizontal stones into position on top. The vertical stones weigh 25 tons each. This was one of my favorite places!
In Bath we saw the ancient Roman structure built up around a natural spring so that people could bathe. After the Romans left the place was not used for a long time until a Queen of England bathed there and 9 months later finally had a baby. Then it became very popular again as a health spa.
Here's the original Roman Bath
We ordered tea (water) in the fashionable Pump House. We got to sample various "biscuits" and "scones" that come with tea.
While in London my parents and I would sometimes continue sightseeing after the kids got tired and convinced Eric to take them back to the apartment. But we had Murphy's own luck every time. We took a boat ride down the Thames instead of riding a bus and so got to Greenwich after the Royal Observatory had closed. We could look inside the gate and see other people straddling the Prime Meridian but not go in and straddle it ourselves.
One afternoon we hurried to the British Museum because they were open late on this day of the week, only to find out it was closed because it was Good Friday. The British Museum is only closed 3 days of the year and Good Friday is one of those days. So we had to go back another time when we had less time and rush to see a few things we wanted to see, like the Rosetta Stone and a couple of mummies.
I couldn't get a good picture through the glass.
This guy was just buried in the sand. Look how good he looks!
Whereas this guy was put in a box first and didn't turn out so well.
I'll have to save the rest for later except for this one last thing. We went to King's Cross Station to find Platform 9 3/4 so we could take a picture. That area of the station was under construction so they had this piece of paper with a brick wall painted on it set up for the tourists to take pictures with. Only Grandpa and Rand would do it, everyone else was too cool. Also, you can ride the actual train they use to film the Hogwarts Express on the route they film it on, but it wasn't running in April!!
