Day 9
Stonehenge
Stonehenge needs no introduction. It would have been cool to walk among the stones, but at least the way the barriers are set up let me take pictures from an angle that made it look like there were no other people around. We got there early, so there was plenty of time and space to enjoy the area. The barrows made me think of the barrow downs from Lord of the Rings. It is yet another reason this trip was as significant for experiencing sites of literary history as for scientific history.
Bath
For lunch, we stopped at Bath. The whole city has similar honey limestone to that we saw in the Cotswolds. I thought the misconfigured angel descending Jacob’s ladder on Bath Abbey was nightmare fuel. So of course, I immediately sent the picture to Tom.
Instead of going to see the Roman baths, I decided to make a carefully-timed stop at the Jane Austen Centre. It was underwhelming compared with the other small, house museums I had seen. The gift shop had some nice things, but the main attractions were a few portraits of Austen and a photo shoot with a Mr. Darcy manikin. (It was the Colin Firth diving-in-the-lake scene, so I guess they know their audience.) Luckily, I was able to make it back to the bus in time, but my lunch was a hastily purchased bag of chocolate-covered almonds.
Greystones Farm
The diary farm location we originally intended to visit was unavailable for a tour, so we were invited to Greystones Farm. It is a nature preserve, Neolithic site, and farm. We got to see some cows contentedly walk into the smart robotic milking machine. We learned about how the quality of the milk was automatically analyzed and the health of the cow monitored. It was also nice just to take a stroll down the path and breathe the fresh air.
Key Moment of the Day: Stonehenge. There is such an atmosphere of mystery and history there. I can understand why people see a spiritual significance in the place.