Bath & Avebury

This past Saturday, I went to the countryside towns of Avebury & Bath. Avebury is very small, and likely very similar to how it appeared for the last few hundred years. Its claim to fame is that it is amongst a large ring of stones similar to Stonehenge, which is nearby. The stones act as a calendar, and were dragged from 10 miles away with "sheer brute force" to their current locations. For lunch, I tried an English stew in the local pub and it was pretty good. My favorite part about Avebury was that it was so quiet, old, and absolutely beautiful. The English countryside is not a sight to miss; it is truly remarkable in the simplicity of its sheep-spotted, rolling green hills.

We then drove to Bath, where the ruins of a Roman bath still stands from when the Romans first adopted England as part of its empire. This was essentially a recreational center, and strategic way of immersing the English with the Roman culture. The Romans believed the baths they discovered had religious significance, due to a lack of knowledge about hot springs. As a result, they would write curses (mostly against theives) on small rolls of paper and then throw them into the hot spring to be answered by the Gods. Some of these rolls of paper lasted through time, and are still on exhibit in the museum that now surrounds and completes the ruins.

After visiting the baths, a small group of us walked to the top of the town to view its famed architectural feat, which is a very large building on a hill overlooking the town nestled in a hill. On the walk to the top of the town, we passed through a collection of buildings referred to as a "circus" (I'm not positive of the formal name), and it is four curved buildings that face a central grassy area with large trees. The streets in Bath are bustling with tourists, and are full of shops and cafes.