Stonehenge, Bath, & Stourhead (aka Pride & Prejudice re-enactments)

Every Wednesday the program goes on a day trip to an area outside of London. Our first trip was to Stonehenge, Bath and Stourhead. We got on the coach at 8 am and off we went. Our professors gave intro lectures on the intercom before each place. And we also watched the new Pride and Prejudice (more on that later).

Stonehenge - smaller than I expected. Many of the stones (about 5 tons in weight) come from about 250 miles away. They were brought here before the invention of the wheel. We don't even know what this place was used for. Could of been to worship the sun god (the sun rises in between the different stones each month and rises through the most grand on the summer solstice. Many burial grounds surround the area so it was a place of significance. Its interesting that this was an ancient sight even when the Romans arrived in 55 AD.

Pembray Bridge in Bath

Roman Baths- They piped water from hot spring into their baths. This was a place of worship, healing, exercise, socializing and cleansing. There are more Roman Baths in Italy, but this is the only one in the UK. The Romans built it here when they invaded bringing much of their culture, like this pubic gathering place for example. There was no scientific explanation at the time for this hot water, so it was considered a gift form the gods and people would throw coins in the baths to the goddess Minerva.

Exploring the Stourhead Gardens. Some of the best landscape architecture around. Its made to look natural but every little thing was purposely placed.
(Elizabeth, Ilarene, Tricia, Rebecca, Kaitlin, me, Sammy, and Sarah)

This is Apollo's temple in the gardens. This is where Mr. Darcy professes his love to Keira Knightly in the pouring rain Therefore we had all sorts of impersonations going on when we got there. This is Diana and Coryl.

She runs across this bridge in the movie before getting to Apollo's temple

When we got back in the coach we went back to this scene and it was so fun to see it again after just being there. The gardens were absolutely gorgeous. We spent 2 hours walking around and taking pictures. That night I went to Nanda's for dinner with some girls (they gave us 5 pounds since they usually feed us). Exhausted!