Honeymoon - Final Day!

On the final day of our honeymoon, we took one more bus tour with the same company as the previous day. This time we visited these places:

• Windsor Castle
• Bath
• Stongehenge

First up, Windsor. I seriously wish we had more time here to really check out all of the rooms we had access to, but it was so crowded with people and we didn't have much time cause of the bus tour, that we didn't get to see much. In fact, the Queen was actually in residence on the day of our visit - we learned this because her flag was flying on top of the buildings - this means that she's actually THERE! Also, apparently Windsor is also her favorite residence of all the ones she has. It's also the one that had the famous fire back in 1992.

Here I am in front from the castle.

Even the lampposts have crowns!

Here's the mound at Windsor. This thing was AWESOME! It even had a waterfall meandering down it!

This section was closed off to the public. Apparently those apartments are where the Queen actually lives. The other of the castle is where people can go into.

Again, we have no pictures of the inside because they weren't allowed.
Below is St. George's Cathedral. This is where Henry VII and his favorite wife, Jane Seymour, are buried.

Right outside of the cathedral was where we watched the Changing of the Guard. These dudes seriously walked super fast down the road and they weren't stopping for NO ONE! Look at this little kid who has no idea the guards are RIGHT BEHIND HIM!

This is a look back at the road that the guards walked down to.

And here they are marching down through the gate. This entire ceremony thing was entirely too long and boring. I guess I'm glad I witnessed it but trust me, it was BORING.

Outside the castle we have the quintessential statue of Queen Victoria - had to have another pic!

Ramin outside the clock tower of the castle.

We drove for about 2 hours from Windsor to get to Bath. Bath is named for exactly what it means! This is where the Romans built their baths from the hot springs that bubbled up from the ground. This is probably the most historical place - agewise - that we visited. It had some REALLY old stuff in it!

Here is the view of the main pool.

 

The Romans were so ingenious! This is an ancient drainage drain....literally over 1000 years old!

After visiting the Baths, we visited the Bath Abbey. This was one of the only Abbey/Cathedrals that we could take pictures in! This will sort of give you an idea of what Westminster and Notre Dame looked like - only they were like 10 times bigger than this place.

 

 

This is the Avon River in Bath - a separate Avon River from the one in Stratford.

Ramin loved the bridge!

This is the view of the backside of the Abbey

 And we drove another hour or so to Stonehenge. It's literally in the middle of nowhere :) I could go all into the history of it, but I figure, you can read it on your own :P

We were lucky enough to have someone take a picture of us together.

And now our honeymoon is over. We drove back to London this night and slept one more night in our hotel. We headed to the airport via the subway one last time.

Overall, I AM SO GLAD we went to England. I've wanted to go there my entire life and it was everything I expected and more. Plus, we literally had perfect weather every day - how unusual is that for England?

Successful honeymoon indeed!

Honeymoon - Day 6

Day 6 was our first day trip bus tour! We had to meet at the bus station pretty early and it was an awesome bus we rode on. I still can't believe that those huge buses can actually drive on the streets of London! We made our way out of the city and into the countryside - today's tour consisted of visits to:

• Warwick Castle
• Stratford Upon Avon
• Drive through the Cotswolds
• Oxford

First up, Warwick Castle - pretty much one of my favorite places. Madame Tussaud's owns this place and they sort of set it up like a cool theme park. I really liked it!
Here is what it looked like from the outside

Here I am at the entrance

Inside the castle they had wax figures - of course. This is Henry VIII and his 6 wives. I just love the whole Tudor history. Anne Boleyn is the one sitting with the guitar thing.

This is another shot of a portion of the inside. These places are just so grand, it's just so hard to capture how it truly feels via a picture.

This is the view of The Mound - pretty much all castles have a lookout/mound type of thing. The climb up the mound was pretty awesome!

Here's the view from the top!

This place had an awesome Birds of Prey show and you could go and visit the birds in their little house things. We were literally 10 feet from them! I LOVE LOVE LOVE birds and so does Ramin, so we took lots of pictures.

Bald Eagle of course

I still can't remember the name of this one, but it is some type of Eagle. He flies later on when the show gets going.

This is a teenaged vulture. so cute!

A smaller type of eagle

 

Another type of vulture

Here's that second eagle getting fiesty with the handler

This eagle was having a cow about something...I think he was mad that the handler was paying too much attention to the other bird.

Before the show, we strolled on over to the Peacock Garden....they had peacock topiaries and of course, real peacocks! They were EVERYWHERE! This one here just let me check him while he sun bathed.

These two went on a walk with me

Still walkin

Here's that one guy flying during the show! AWESOME!

After Warwick, we rode the bus for a little while longer and stopped over in Stratford Upon Avon, birthplace of Shakespeare. Ramin and I really didn't care to see this place all that much but it was a cute little storybook town.

This is Shakespeare's house - it's a lot bigger on the inside than it looks.

Obligatory statue

 

The River Avon of course....we learned that there are 9 Avon rivers in England - all of which are totally separate from each other. Avon actually means River in some other language I think...so it's like River River :P

This was a cute little corner candy shop. They had Wonka bars in the window and it looked JUST LIKE the candy store in the 1970s Charlie and Chocolate Factory movie - one of my favorites!

I loved this jester statue!

Next we took a drive through the Cotswolds...if you don't know what they are...look it up. It's the quintessential English houses that you think of when you think of English countryside - with thatched roofs and all. We didn't get any good pics because we didn't stop anywhere...we just drove through.

Our final destination was Oxford - the actual university. I believe it's the oldest university in the world. It was also the inspiration for much of the Harry Potter movies...the actual banquet hall was filed at Oxford. We didn't get to go inside anywhere cause it's an actual working university...but the atmosphere was cool!

 

 

 

Ode to Jenn - Ramin was smart to take this pic since Philosophy is dear to my heart!

 

And that was it! I have one more day of honeymoon to post! It all went by so quickly!