Today was take two of our trip to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and the Roman Baths.  There was again shuffling of people, but this time we made it on the bus!  I hope everyone else did too!

First up was Windsor Castle.  So cool.  Bren loved seeing Queen Mary’s Doll House and dolls.  Aidan loved seeing all the military gear- swords, shields, armor.  It was all very cool.  It is amazing how much history has been preserved!

The second stop was Stonehenge.  No one knows when or how Stonehenge came to be.  Our tour guide told us lots of possibilities.  Whatever the reason it was amazing to see.  It started to rain a little bit- first time the kids have been outside in the rain this whole trip!  But that didn’t stop us from taking it all in.  Absolutely beautiful!

It rained pretty hard during the bus trip for our last stop to Bath.  But by the time we got there it was sunny again!  The Roman Baths and Pump Room are also quite old.  There are relics there taking back two centuries ago.  The springs are still active and the water warm.  You can taste the water at the end of the tour.  The kids were not fans.

It was a long day but we were very glad to be able to take the trip, especially after all the trouble!!

Today we had booked a tour similar to Saturday’s with the same company.  We were to see Windsor Castle, The Roman Baths and Pump Room and Stonehenge.  We were picked up by the shuttle service at the meeting point and brought to the central location- Victoria Cross Station- and saw lots of people for the same tour.  Too many in fact.  After being shift three times (apparently there were three buses for the said tour), we were left out along with a couple from Australia.  The manager put us in a cab to meet an earlier charter bus at one of their locations.  We got there and they were not helpful.  There was no bus.  There was only the option of a refund or rebooking.  And after some arguing a cab ride back to where we started from- they actually were not going to do that!

So we went with the rebooking and decided to switch tomorrow’s plans with todays’s plans.  We went to Oxford!

We took a bus about an hour north west of the city.  It was a cool place to see!  It is of course a college (university) town.  There are lots of bikes everywhere! After a quick lunch at Pizza Hut (had to keep up the travel tradition- we went to one in India too!), we met up with a tour.  You guessed it, a Harry Potter tour.  This was a walking tour that showed off places in Oxford in the movie.  Our tour guide was a lot of fun- a recent Oxford grad taking a “sabbatical” before figuring out what to be when he grows up!

Aidan loved the trivia and came close to winning the trivia game- a girl from Denmark was a bit quicker.  He even remembered some of the history of London from our tour bus the other day!

It was an unexpected change in plans but everyone did great going with the flow.  It was a good day to get out of the city- loads of traffic as the Tour de France came through!  Hopefully tomorrow we get to see the places we thought we would see today!!

We’ve been so busy going place to place that today we decided was going to be an easy day.  We took our time getting up.  Chris made pancakes, our typical Sunday breakfast.  But pancake mix here is more like crepes.  The boys still liked them though!

We headed into Jubilee Gardens to go to the London Eye. The London Eye is the huge ferris wheel that opened in 2000.  It was not intentionally going to be permanent, but rather part of the millennium celebrations in London (it took 7 years to build!).  But it is now part of tourist London.  There is a short 4-D experience before getting in line.  The line looks endless but goes by very quickly- it only took us about 30 minutes (coincidentally the same mount of time it takes to go around)!  On a clear day you can see up to 25 miles.  We had great views!

Part of the park is a playground.  The kids had lots of fun playing there.  When then went on to walk to Cleopatra’s needle- by Aidan’s request.  We passed it the other day on the bus tour.  It is amazing that there are statues that date back thousands of years ago in the city!

We then walked through Covenant Gardens and Leister Square- both busy with people and street performers.  We bough some candy to enjoy- there isn’t a picture because it went pretty quickly!

The rest of the afternoon/early evening was spent relaxing and getting ready for tomorrow’s adventure- we are heading off on another all day trip that includes Stonehenge!