Day 15 and 16 - Off the Ship and Into the Bath

We arrived in Southampton England early on the 15th morning of our vacation.  The energetic ones, my parents, elected to wake up way before dawn and escape the ship for an early ride into London for a return flight home.  Tina and I decided to sleep in and spend a few days exploring the southern English country side.  Good sons might have gotten up early to bid their parents goodbye.  I preferred to have sweet dreams and best wishes for them on their flight home! :)

We still had to get off the ship by 8 in the morning and figured we'd take a cab the 3 miles to the car rental facility from which we'd rented a car.  Feeling confident about the universal acceptance of credit cards, we didn't bother getting British Pounds.  As it ended up none of the cabs would accept credit card and we couldn't get back onto the ship to exchange US Dollars for Pounds.  Throw in the fact that the bank at the port didn't open until 10 and we were in a bit of a pickle.  Guess who walked 3 miles to the rental car facility leaving Tina at the port with all of our luggage.

That was OK too ... except I hadn't been precise in my car reservation as to when we'd be getting there.  They didn't expect us until mid-afternoon.  So I ended up sitting around for an hour after walking for an hour and when I finally got back to Tina she was more than worried about what was taking so long.  As it would end up her worries were only beginning.  Driving on the right hand side of the road with a ton of round abouts scared the living day lights out of her ... even though she had an excellent driver who adapted quickly to driving on the wrong side of the road and going round and round and round on circular roads that seem to lead nowhere.  :)

Regardless of all of the above, we finally made it to Stone Henge by somewhere around noon.  This is one of those places that seems to be on everybodies "to visit" list, and justifiably so.  As with a lot of monuments around the world they've had to restrict access to getting right next to the monument, but it's still an amazing place to visit.

The Mysterious Stone Henge

The Happy Tourists

A View From the Other Side

The Nearby Indian Burial Mounds

After a couple of hours we drove the rest of the way to Bath England to spend the night.  Bath is a beautiful city originally established by the Romans and renowned for it's warm spring baths.  We stayed in a beautiful bed and breakfast on the outskirts of town which allowed us to walk into the city and avoid driving, even though someone was excellent at driving on the wrong side of the road by that time but somebody was scared to death of riding with said excellent driver!

The City Of Bath

The B&B Tasburgh House

Downtown Bath England

We spent the next morning exploring more of downtown bath and the Bath Abbey. 

Stain Glass in the Bath Abbey

Graves Inside the Abbey

But before leaving town I had to take a couple of pictures of my favorite sort.  On that particular day I got a beautiful picture of the best looking American and a gorgeous little local girl in Bath England.

The Gorgeous American

The Beautiful Local Girl