Bath Time! Study Tour to Bath, England

Wow I really cannot believe that Week 3 of time in London is almost complete, everyone tells you how your time abroad flies by and they're not wrong! On that note, last weekend (already about a week ago!) I went on the CIEE Bath, England Study Tour and had so much fun! The best thing about CIEE Study Tours is that all the complicated parts of travelling, such as figuring out where to stay/coordinating transportation are done for you. Additionally, there was the perfect mix of planned activities and free time to explore Bath and other places on your own. I'll take you through a little bit of what we did over the course of the weekend below!

Friday

Friday we departed London at approximately 7:15 in the morning (yikes!), however there was plenty of time to get some extra sleep on the bus on the way to Salisbury Catherdral and Stourhead. The first stop on the way to Bath was Salisbury Cathedral. The Cathedral itself was absolutely stunning, it also has the tallest spire in all of England, making extra-impressive to look at. The inside has many impressive religious artifacts to look. Additionally, Salisbury Cathedral houses one of the four orginial copies of the Magna Carta. Being from the United States, it was so cool to get to see the document that influenced the United States Constitution.

After lunch we headed to Stourhead. Stourhead is a sprawling estate with gardens, bridges, grottos, and an impressive house (although house doesn't seem like the right word for it!). It was so nice to be able to walk around the grounds of Stourhead and be in the English countryside, a nice break from the hustle and bustle of London. The pictures truly do it better justice than anything I could type about it, so see the gallery above! Another cool thing about Stourhead is that scenes of "Pride and Prejudice" were filmed there, so I got to stand in some of the spots Keira Knightley is in the movie! 

We arrived in Bath Friday night and it was officially Bath time (the Bath puns seriously continued allll weekend, I loved it). 

Saturday 

Saturday morning we headed out for a morning walking tour of Bath, it was nice and sunny and there weren't a ton of people out and about yet. We got to see all the famous sites! One of my favorites was Putney bridge, it was gorgeous in the sunlight and is also where parts of the movie "Les Miserables" were filmed. I was so glad CIEE organized the walking tour for us, becaue I got to see and learn so much more about Bath than I ever would have exploring on my own. 

Following the walking tour we were given some freetime to explore Bath on our own, so I headed to the Fashion Museum. There I got to see the history of fashion in England, and also some incredible modern pieces, such as Kendall Jener's hot pink Cannes film festival dress (truly dress goals!!). The Fashiom Museum is also connected to the Assembly Rooms located there, which are absolutely stunning and I had some tea and dessert in the Cafe there. 

We then met back up with the rest of the CIEE group to tour the Roman Baths. The Baths are such a cool, well preserved piece of history. Although you can no longer 'bathe' in the ancient Romanbaths, there is a chance to taste the healingwaters of the bath. It tasted, interesting to say the least, but I was glad I tried it. Bath is truly the neatest little city! 

Sunday 

On Sunday we departed Bath and headed to Stonehenge. We were super lucky with the weather yet again, and it was a gorgeous sunny day. Stonehenge was nestled amongst some fields of sheep and small, rolling hills and was truly the most idyllic scene. It is crazy to think about how many 1000s of years it has been there and how it was built without modern technology.  A lot of people said that Stonehenge is 'overrated', but I do not agree in the slightest. Definitely something worth checking out at least once! After seeing actual Stonehenge, we headed to the Stonehenge Inn for a traditional Sunday carvery lunch. It was absolutely delicious and I finally got to try Yorkshire pudding, also the unlimited latte machine didn't hurt either 

Overall, it was such a fun and well planned weekend. The Study Tours were one of the many reasons I chose a CIEE Study Abroad Program, and the weekend was truly the best!