Windsor, Stonehenge and Bath

There are a lot of interesting things about UK, one of them is that holidays here don't have names. They just call them Bank holidays. There is early May bank holiday, then late May bank holiday, then August Bank holiday and so on. Further, all these holidays are on Mondays to enable a long weekends. Convenient!

There is something about long weekends, though! You have to do something different on long weekends. It is just another day off, but somehow it seems like a crime to spend long weekends lazing around at home. So here we are, off on a day tour with Golden Tours, London to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Bath. Our journey starts with meeting David, our fabulous tour manager at the offices of Golden Tours in Victoria, London. We then board the coach and depart for Windsor Castle, our first stop.

Windsor Castle is one of the three official residences of the Queen, presumably the best as the Queen spends her summers here. It is the largest inhabited castle in the world, and that is the beauty of it. There are a lot of great castles in the world, but most of them are in ruins, unused for centuries. This is a residence, all of the rooms we saw are actually in use. In fact, they warn us upfront that on any given day, the Queen may decide to use a particular room for something (like the State dining room for having a banquet) and then that room will be closed for visitors. So for today, we have told the Queen to restrict herself to her personal quarters :-).

Our tour guide, David is great. He is very knowledgeable, friendly and witty. The tour is a mix of nationalities - Americans, French, Spanish, we are the only Indians. David connects with everyone with ease, he even speaks in all these languages. He tells us about the history and the present of the castle, always with a witty twist to every event or fact. Windsor Castle has a gun room which is full of guns the British seized from Tipu Sultan, as well as Tipu's gold tiger. David actually tells the guard standing there, "See, this gentleman (pointing towards me) has come all the way from India just to take back Tipu's tiger, so would you mind looking the other way while we take it away?" David really made the tour fun.

We are able to catch the changing of guard ceremony at Windsor, which again is made interesting with David interpreting it. Here's the layman (or David's) version of the exchange that happens between the current guards and new guards during changeover, in layman's language.
The incoming guards come in with trumpets and band.
The existing guards get on alert in case the coming army is an enemy army.
Existing Guards - Hey Guys, you look British, are you really British?
Incoming Guards - Of course we are. We have come to relieve you. Talk of gratitude!
Existing Guards - Please present your credentials
Incoming Guards - Here they are
Existing Guards - You guys ready to give an arms inspection
Incoming Guards - Yes Sir!
Existing Guards - All looks good. Take over guys, we need to run.
The chapel at Windsor was also interesting. Unfortunately, no photos inside the castle or the chapel. After finishing our Windsor Castle tour, we went around the Windsor town and then on to Stonehenge.

Stonehenge is the main reason I am on this tour. One of the first books I remember reading in childhood is "101 unsolved mysteries of the world" and Stonehenge is certainly one of them. A collection of huge stones in the middle of an arid land arranged in a sophisticated manner 5000 years ago with so many mysteries attached to it. The place has an aura around it. The immediate thing that strikes you is - why would someone do this? The most acceptable theory is that it is some sort of a altar of Sun-God worship, because the first ray of the solstice morning sun falls directly on the centre. Still, why? There are better and easier and grander ways of worshipping sun all over the world. 5000 years ago, when metal tools were not known in this part of the world and civilization was at its formative stages, someone launched a project which lasted 1500 years which involved bringing stones from Oxford and some from as far as Wales, no means of transportation apart from rolling these stones over logs across these vast distances; which involved designing so that 29 pillars arranged equally spaced formed a perfect circle and the beams atop those pillars exactly fitted; which involved placing those stones at exact location when the concept of a crane was 4800 years in future; which involved the drive to continue for 1500 years such a project - the whole thing is sheer impossible and does not make sense, still it was done and there those stones stand as a reminder to us that we cannot explain everything.

The weather is holding very well, and the vast plains allow a good wind to come through, heightening the magic of the sublime, spiritual sort of experience. It is lunch time now, so we head over to a nearby English pub for lunch, before heading on to the town of Bath.

Bath, as the name suggests, is a town famous for its public bath. This place has the only hot spring in UK and the ancient Roman conquerors set up the Roman public baths here which used the waters of the spring and were meant to cure a lot of ills. We did not find anything great in the place, I mean its just another hot spring, there are dime a dozen in tropical countries. After the Roman baths, we do a round of the town of Bath, which has one interesting feature - all houses look exactly the same apart from the abbey. The whole town was designed by one architect and he sure did not believe in variations. All three storied houses, quite drab looking, and people were happy to live in those, they were posh. Can't understand these things!

Back onto the highway for the coach to drive us back to London while we catch a nap. A great trip overall. Thank you David, once again.