You have to take a day trip to England’s countryside when you’re in London. You could easily find a tour company doing this kind of trip as they are all over the place. Usual options would include a trip to Bath, Windsor Castle, Oxford, Stonehenge, Brighton, etc.
Windsor Caste, England
Since we were unsuccessful in our attempt to meet the Queen in the past few days, we decided to visit Windsor Castle, one of her official residences, hoping she might be there. We also paid Stonehenge a visit, to find out if there are alien remains left in the site. And lastly, we did a short trip to Oxford, to check if Harry Potter left some magical wand we could to use to magically appear in front of the Queen.
First stop – Windsor Castle. The largest and oldest occupied castle in the world, Windsor Castle is one of the principal residences of the Queen and covers nearly thirteen acres. The first castle on the site was set up by William the Conqueror in about 1070. Although much of the castle isn’t open to the public and you’re not allowed to take photo inside, we still had fun roaming around the various rooms in the castle. The rooms were lavishly decorated with priceless furniture, paintings and what have you. They are all massive. I can’t imagine myself living there, it would be horrible. I probably would need a GPS to find the kitchen or my bedroom.
Outside the Windsor Castle
The Queen wasn’t there that day so we didn’t get the chance to have a tea with her. We went to the nearby cafe and ordered a lemon tea instead. Well, that is after visiting the lower ward of the castle where St George’s Chapel is located.
Second stop – Stonehenge. If you’re into UFOs and aliens, you probably must have heard of Stonehenge. Researchers in the past, found relationships between the locations of various stone monuments to the movements of the sun, moon and stars, which is very odd considering that this structure was built some 5,000 years ago, supposedly by primitive people. For that reason, the alien story came up. The story is that when the aliens visited the earth and needed to tract the movement of heavenly bodies, they set up this structure using the materials they could find around, in this case stones. I, however, favors the idea that the place was built for worship. The ancient people must have built this place to worship the heavenly bodies and since they don’t have TV or internet to destruct them before, they have all the time to observe the movements of the sun, moon and the stars and must have collated all those facts when building this structure.
Stonehenge, England
There were not so many people when we arrived, probably because it was raining! We were given an audio guide to listen to whilst roaming around. I didn’t use mine. With all the mystery surrounding Stonehenge, I bet the audio guide’s isn’t really accurate with everything it says. So I chose to approach Stonehenge my way. I must say, I felt like walking on hallowed ground. I’m an atheist so I have no intention of doing any worship ritual there. Yet I couldn’t help feeling that the site was a spiritual space for people at some point. I can’t imagine the amount of labour it must have taken them to put those massive stones in their exact locations. The symmetry and design of it is beautiful. It is not just a prehistoric monument; it is an art, right there in the middle of Salisbury Plain.
At the Stonehenge
Last stop – Oxford. On our way to Oxford, our tour guide was talking about the rivalry between Oxford University and Cambridge University, two of the world’s topmost universities. I didn’t pay attention to him and slept instead.
The first thing I noticed when we got off the coach was that there were so many bicycles chained at the side of the road. I was told that those were of the students.
I was actually expecting that the Oxford University would just be in one massive campus. It turned out to be divided in several colleges and are located in several locations. We visited one college and their library. I secretly envied those students. I wondered if I could have been admitted to Oxford University had I been given the chance… hmmm
One of the colleges in Oxford
As we walked down the street, the tour guide pointed out some of the very old houses. The doors were so short as people were really small back then. (That there is one proof of evolution!) Then he talked about some Harry Potter things, which I wasn’t really interested. My friend Joan though was really into it.
I was knackered at the end of that day. It was worth our while though, I must say. After buying some souvenirs, we headed back to London.
Still unsuccessful in meeting the Queen.
