Blogging Around The World Wiltshire & Bath!

Cover Design: Cara Williams Photography: Cara Williams Copyright 2012 by Cara Williams All rights reserved

By Cara Williams

CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Chapter 2: 3 5

Chapter One
Saturday 6th October 2012 For Jon's birthday, I has bought us a 'luxury weekend break in Wiltshire', at the Cedar Hotel, in Westbury. I had bought it through KGB and thought it would be the picturesque, rolling hills scenery I had imagined... To start with, I misread our train tickets and we arrived at Paddington two hours before our train was due. After some whining, Jon saw this as an opportunity to eat, so he had a sausage roll, bacon roll and maybe a second sausage roll, before we finally got on the train. On arrival at Westbury Station, we got a cab to our hotel. It was a 10 minute drive, through the smallest village I had ever seen. It comprised of a Chinese/Fish n' Chip takeaway, a cafe, a tourist office and a slightly run down pub. We then passed an abandoned Peugeot dealership, which seemed to be a point of interest in the village. The cab driver took great delight in telling us that the dealership was being turned into an Aldi. A happening place. We checked into the hotel (after being told that they didn't have a record of our stay and making up a room for us). The room was okay, but not quite living up to the weekend I had envisaged. After unpacking, we headed back into 'town' to get our bearings. The tourist office looked like it hadn't been open in years (I can see why). We realised that we were miles away from any hills, water or attractions. We consoled ourselves with a coffee and pastry in the one cafe in town. I knew that Stonehenge was roughly nearby and that Bath was in the opposite direction, so we headed back to the train station to look at options. We decided to get a train to Bath the next day and look at day trips to Stonehenge from there. We thought we'd check out the one pub in the village The Labour Club. It was a dive. However, Jon made a new friend in the owner, Jasper, who was a motor cross

enthusiast. He organised motor cross events for Red Bull. B y the time we left, Jon had an invite to a Red Bull event the next weekend. I think Jasper's multiple tattoos, piercings and bright pink mullet unnerved Jon however and he politely declined. We had dinner in the Thai Orchid, which was hidden amongst houses on the main road. It was amazing, (but expensive) food. Sunday 7th October 2012 We were up and eating breakfast at 8.30am, ready in plenty of time to get to the station. Or so we thought. We got cocky with our timekeeping and decided that if we walked fast we could get the 9.44am train, rather than the 11am train. Jon hurt his leg almost immediately after leaving the hotel and the walk took half an hour, rather than the 15 minutes we'd estimated. I ran on ahead to get the tickets, but there was a queue at the ticket machine and then the machine wouldn't accept my 20 note, so Jon paid for the tickets on his credit card and we got on the train with seconds to spare. It took half an hour to get to Bath. Impressions were good. Most of Bath's buildings are made from the local, goldencoloured, Bath Stone and the dominant architectural style is Georgian. Bath Abbey is beautiful. The town is a mix of the old and the new, with an amazing variety of restaurants and shops. We had to pay 1.20 to visit the Parade Gardens, which sit on the bank of the River Avon. In the gardens, there were quirky characters, made out of flowers, which represented various Olympic Sports and a display for the Queen's 60th year. We had pre-booked a 'Scarper Bus Tour' to Stonehenge from Bath. It cost 15 each (plus 7.80 each for Stonehenge tickets)

Chapter Two
The drive to Stonehenge took about an hour, during which time our driver pointed out some local attractions. One of them was Cley Hill, (which is a UFO hotspot in the UK). He also pointed out 'The Westbury White Horse' which is a 163 feet high by 166 feet long carving in the escarpment of Salisbury Plain. The original horse was carved by tribes people hundreds if years ago, to mark their territory. The horse has since been restored and cleaned, along with the other 90 or so similar markings on other hills.

Stonehenge itself was much smaller than I imagined and it stank of cow shite (we later learnt that the farmers had mucked their land, and not some eerie omen). TV shows never show the gift shop and queues to buy tickets and and audio tours, so I was disillusioned. We got an audio tour however, which lasted for about 30 minutes and basically said that no-one has any idea who built Stonehenge and why...I found the whole thing quite eerie, especially as there were huge numbers of black crows hovering around the area. The most popular theories are that Stonehenge is an ancient calendar, or place of religious ritual. American astronomer, Gerald Hawkins found 165 points on the monument that were linked with the solstices, equinoxes and the solar and lunar eclipse. At the dawn of the summer solstice, the sun, the center of the Stonehenge ring and the two stones - (the Slaughter and the Heel Stones) are in alignment. Our bus headed back to Bath at 4pm. After an hour and a half, we left Stonehenge, back to Bath. On the journey back, the driver played 'Salisbury Hill' by Peter Gabriel, which was inspired by the beauty of the Wiltshire countryside. On arrival at Bath, everything was closing, so we got an earlier train back to Westbury. Back at the hotel, we went to have our complimentary dinner in the hotel restaurant; (part of the deal). I regretted eating there, as the Waitress was also the Chef and Manager and our food took forever. The menu was extremely limited and the food was really poor. Again, not quite the weekend I had in mind. As there was nowhere to go and nothing to do, we had an early night. Monday 8th October 2012 Three words; wet, cold and raining. We had to heck out at 10am and then had until 5pm to find something to do. We decided to get a bus into Bath (which took almost two hours) rather than the train, as the bus took quite a scenic route Bradford-OnAvon looked particularly pretty and a place I'd like to see at some point. Back in Bath, we went to see the Circus, which is a Grade I listed example of Georgian architecture. Divided into three segments of equal length, the Circus is a circular space surrounded by large townhouses. Each of the curved segments faces

one of the three entrances, ensuring that whichever way a visitor enters there is a classical facade straight ahead. We also visited The Royal Crescent, which is a street of 30 terraced houses laid out in a sweeping crescent. Built between 1767 and 1774, it is among the greatest examples of Georgian architecture in the UK.

As it started raining heavily, we wandered around the shops for a while and then decided to go to the cinema. We wanted to see Paranormal Activity 4, but timings meant the only film we could see was 'Taken 2'. It wasn't bad. We then had a drink in a pub to escape the rain, before heading back to Bath Station, for our 5.38pm train back to London.