A Guided Bus Tour of Stonehenge and Bath, England

Day 5 of our sightseeing trip across southern England was spent on a guided tour of Stonehenge and Bath. We figured that instead of trying to find the cheapest trains and buses and make as few changes as possible to get ourselves there, we might as well just take a tour and have someone else do all the work for us. For first timers, it was definitely the way to go! Our tour guide was lovely, and it was awesome to actually have someone show us around and explain the history of the places we visited rather than trying to figure it all out on our own. I’d definitely recommend the Evan Evans Tour!

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GETTING TO THE BUS

We left our Watford Airbnb at 6:00am sharp to catch the 6:30 train to Paddington, then changed over to the Victoria line to get ourselves to Victoria Station. It was a quick walk over to Victoria Coach Station (two different stations, easily overlooked for newcomers), so we grabbed a quick bite at Starbucks. Don’t come for us–it was right outside the station and we didn’t have time to look for a local bakery, as much as we wanted to! Unsurprisingly, they had much better (and many more) food options than we do in the US, and my breakfast burrito was actually really yummy. After our coffee fix, we started our 5 minute walk over to the coach station to get checked in.

HEADING TO STONEHENGE

After getting checked in and given our wristbands, we all boarded the bus and started the 2 hour journey to Stonehenge. The seats were comfy, the ride was scenic (once we got out of the busy streets of London), and our tour guide gave us a good balance of commentary and silence–the bits of rest time were much needed after spending the night at the Elton John concert the night before! It was cool to see a different side of the city as we were leaving the hustle, and hear a new perspective on the buildings, people and history from our guide.

Once we got closer to Stonehenge, she gave us all interactive maps, audio devices and headphones to use at the site while explaining the entry process. A great thing about taking a guided tour is that if you choose wisely, your admission is included in the tour price. We got colored wristbands based on the tickets we purchased, and that was our only admission needed–our guide handled everything else.

EXPLORING STONEHENGE

Stonehenge itself was incredibly impressive, to say the least. There aren’t really words to describe it–it’s definitely one of those “see it to understand it” type of things. I was excited to see it, of course, but before we got there I wasn’t sure how interesting it’d be, considering it’s really just a bunch of rocks (I think that’s verbatim how the woman sitting next to us at the concert described it, too). But once you actually walk up the hill and stand there in front of these massive monoliths, forced to come up with your own explanations for how they got there and what they mean, the unbelievability of it all just sinks in. It was nice to have the audio players giving you some background information and history as you walked around the site, and watching everyone get their photo-op was pretty amusing, too.

We got about an hour and a half at Stonehenge, which was just enough time to explore the stones, use the shuttles and restrooms, and get a quick bite to eat. There’s a cute gift shop and a cafe to get snacks and lunch, and there’s also a small museum that we didn't have time for. One thing to note about taking guided tours is the time limits: they don’t always put the exact timeframe for activities on the bookings, and unless you want to leave the tour early (like we did), you’re stuck with the time slots given to your group.

THE ROMAN BATHS

Once back on the bus, we headed an hour west to Bath. It was another scenic ride, and we were dropped off right in the center of the city, next to Parade Gardens. We followed our guide down the street and were immediately met with a huge courtyard outside the Roman Baths and Bath Abbey. Again, our wristbands included admission to the Roman Baths, so once our guide spoke with the attendants, we were let in and given audio guides to listen to along the tour. The experience is self-guided, so you basically just walk through the museum and the baths at your own pace. This wasn’t something I’d have thought to do on my own, so I was really glad we chose to go on the tour and experience the nearly 2000 year old site. We walked through the baths, treatment rooms, and the museum, seeing countless artifacts and architecture that were used by the public as a site to worship Sulis Minerva.

EXPLORING BATH

After we toured the baths, we explored a bit of Bath itself, and I have to say it’s been my favorite city so far. We met back up with our tour group in the afternoon to let them know we weren’t finishing the tour, and we headed to our Airbnb which was also directly in the city square. Our stay in Bath was definitely my favorite spot by far–our apartment was three floors, overlooking Parade Gardens and had a view of the top of Bath Abbey from almost every window. You can see a little tour of the Airbnb here! It was one floor above a cute cafe (which unfortunately we didn’t get to try out), and was under 10 minutes from all the restaurants, bars, pubs, and shops you could imagine.

Later in the afternoon, we walked down past Parade Gardens to see Pulteney Bridge, which is one of very few bridges in the world that has operating shops/buildings on top of it. Then we wandered back to the city center to find a place to eat–we ended up at The Crystal Palace after a pub we wanted to try wasn’t serving food, and it was great, from the huge drinks to the filling meals. You can read more about the food we ate in Bath and in Bourton-on-the-Water here. We called it an early night and went back to hang out at the Airbnb, found a nice restaurant in the square for breakfast the next morning, and then hopped on a train to Gloucester (which I’ll talk about in my next blog post).

MY TWO PENCE:

Bath was by far my favorite city we’ve visited on this journey up to this point. It felt like we were in Italy, compared to London where I felt like we could have been in the busier parts of Boston. You know when you travel somewhere new and it’s hard to register that you’re actually across the ocean or in a totally different part of the world? Being in Bath was the first time I really felt like we were abroad. The atmosphere was so different from all the other places we’d been, and to be honest, I really didn’t want to leave. Our next destination definitely didn’t disappoint, though.

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