Dover and Boarding the Cruise

Our last breakfast at our hotel in London - they had a really lovely breakfast buffet

Goodbye endless halls

They were having a bicycle race this day, so the street in front of our hotel was closed to cars. They had someone there directing pedestrians when it was safe to cross the street, and it was a little crazy because we all were wheeling our luggage with us and had to cross super fast before any more bikers came

We had a bus transfer that took us to Dover, where we would be boarding our cruise.

Getting a view of the white cliffs out of the rainy window:

Yay! We made it on to our ship, which was the Disney Magic, which was the same ship we had sailed on for our big family trip in 2016, although it had undergone some changes since then

We decorated our stateroom doors with some magnets we had made:

Mike, Evie, Sam, and my room had a mostly Harry Potter theme, with a little bit of random space ones at the top

Marolynn, Carrie, and Nora's room was decorated with Disney cats

Marolynn, Carrie and Nora braved the crazy weather on the deck to get some good views of the White Cliffs of Dover

We went with Sam and Evie to the Kids Club openhouse

Iron Sam!

We went to go watch an "Inside Out" themed family game show which was fun

More windy walks on the deck!

London Day 3: Bath and Stonehenge

On our third day in London, we had booked a day trip to Bath and Stonehenge through a tour company called The English Bus. We met up with our group in front of one of the larger hotels, and off we went! 

Driving through the countryside: Our guide/driver's name was Johnny, and he was really funny, but also very informative. He kept us well entertained through our tour. They use mini-buses for their tours, and the group size is 16 people, so that was nice to have a smaller group.

We made a stop at Avebury, which is Europe's largest neolithic stone circle monument. It comprises a large outer circle, which encloses two smaller circles inside. One thing that is really fun about this site is you are able to walk right up to and around the stones.

Many of the stones were huge! It's hard to imagine how hard they must have been to move

Evie and Sam dabbing by some stones

The panoramic shot

Across the street was a really cute little pub called the Red Lion

Johnny had a package of Tunnock's tea cakes for us to try as a snack while we were driving

A chalk horse on the hill

We were able to take a special scenic route that went by Lacock Abbey, which is where the potions class scenes of the Harry Potter movies were filmed

When we arrived in Bath, one of the first things the kids noticed was this owl statue! It was one of many owl statues displayed around the city that were part of "Minerva's Owls of Bath 2018". Each owl was painted by a different artist, and at the end of the summer they will be auctioned off for charity. They have done similar events in the past, with pig statues one year, and lion statues another year.

We thought this information box looked a lot like the TARDIS...

Bath Abbey is beautiful

One of the most interesting decorations we noticed on the outside of the church was the ladders of angels.  

"The story behind this is that the Bishop of Bath, Oliver King, is said to have had a dream of angels ascending and descending into heaven which inspired the design and which also inspired him to build a new Abbey church – the last great medieval cathedral to have been built in England."

Beautiful stained glass windows

Hanging from the ceiling were lots and lots of butterflies

The explanation of the butterfly installation:

I really liked these angels with different musical instruments

We didn't have time to look through the gift shop much, but here are some interesting books we saw while walking through to the exit...

Another owl

Waiting in line to get into the Roman Bath museum

The Baths Museum was really neat

They had projections in some of the rooms to bring to life how they would have been used in Roman times

There were some people there dressed up like characters from Roman times

A diagram showing how the raised floors worked

We did a little walking around the town and enjoyed the Georgian architecture

We visited the Circus, which is a historic street of large townhouses forming a circle with three entrances

We also visited the Royal Crescent, which is a row of 30 terraced town houses arranged in a giant crescent shape, and is one of the best examples of Georgian architecture in the UK.

After our lovely visit to Bath, we got back into our mini bus and drove out to Stonehenge. We had a discussion on the bus about theories about how Stonehenge was constructed, and what it's purpose was, and how there aren't any concrete answers.

Sam got the honor of being given the keys to be able to lock the bus after we all got out

Stonehenge was fascinating to see

Yes, it was quite windy! We had an audio guide that explained things as we walked around the stone circle

This arrow marks the line of the sunrise and the sunset at the solstices

We got a little rain while we were out there, but we got a rainbow out of it

Some reconstructions of what neolithic houses were like

Getting back on our bus for the ride back to London

We got some sandwiches from the store for dinner

The kids had fun playing some games in the room with Grandma

For our after-dinner treat we got some Jelly Babies to try, since we were curious what they were like thanks to Doctor Who, haha