The next morning (April 16), we packed up at left for the train station to take us back to England and down south to Salisbury. Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple, we had quite a few train transfers and waiting at stations, but we made the most of it! We finally arrived at the Salisbury train station around 3 o'clock at took a taxi to the Stourhead Gardens where we were staying in a cottage that had been converted into a small hotel.
The gardens are HUGE!!! We, unfortunately, didn't have time to explore them all (they cover 2,650 acres, I think you would need at least a week if you wanted to walk around the entire place). But one of the big reasons that we went to Stourhead was to capture this beautiful shot.
Yes, this is the rotunda, where Elizabeth Bennet (Keira Knightly) turned down the wonderful Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen). It's better if you image pouring rain and dramatic music in the background.
It even had the fantastic bridge that she runs across, but sadly, I couldn't recreate that moment because there was a gate across the bridge. But we could explore the rest of the gardens at our leisure. (I think my favorite part of this trip was my mom continually saying "I can't believe I'm here")
There was also a Pantheon, which was closed Thursday afternoon, but the exterior was cool looking!
On the other side of the lake, across from the entrance was a small grotto that was built over 150 years ago!
We probably spent over two hours exploring the garden and taking pictures that afternoon, but soon our tummies were rumbling!
We headed back to the room to put away cameras and put on warmer clothes and took a detour trip to the church across the way from the cottage to take a look around. Apparently, they keep it open during the day, but lock it up during the night and someone had stolen the roof off the church!!! I'm not sure how they were able to accomplish something like that, but the church was asking for donations for building a new roof. We then headed to the pub that was on the premises for dinner. We both ended up getting Salmon and potatoes and they were to DIE for! I'm not exactly sure what made them so tasty, but it was probably the best meal we had on the entire trip.
After dinner, the gardens were closed, so it was time to head to bed. (Mum wanted to get up early to take pictures at sunrise, I on the other hand was going to continue to sleep peacefully.) After having breakfast at the same pub where we had dinner, we headed to the house that was also on the lot.
It's a pretty big house with a stable yard off to the side and entrance to the garden from the rear. I don't remember much information about the house, but I do know that it's not the original house. It was demolished in 1717 and then rebuilt sometime between 1721-1725.
My favorite room was the library of course! I don't remember how many volumes were in the library, but I do know it was over 1,000! I also know that there are volunteers who spend years restoring many of the books in the library.
The other cool thing in the House was this cabinet, called the Pope's Cabinet. Purchased by the owner of the house who thought that this cabinet once belonged to Pope Sixtus V. There are 150 drawers in this cabinet and one of them has never been opened! In fact, each time they take it apart to clean it, they have to video record it so that they know how to put it back together! (There was a video downstairs that showed them taking out some of the drawers, mum recorded it) Also, fun fact, there is no record of the transaction that anyone can find and the owner never told anyone how much he paid for it, so no one really knows how much the cabinet was purchased for.
Some pretty flowers out in the garden of the house.
After exploring the house, it was time for some lunch! We headed back to the guest center of the gardens where we couldn't make up our mind where to eat, the cafe or the farm shop. While we were trying to decide where to eat, a man from the farm shop offered us an apple slice and a sip of apple cider. (For those of you who don't know, cider in England is ALWAYS hard, meaning it has alcohol in it!) Sufficient to say, I had my first drink of alcohol that day!
It was a good thing my mum was there that day to supervise my alcohol consumption. (Don't worry, we had a good laugh about it for the rest of the day:D). And thankfully I downed it first before my mum could drink any, so I was able to stop her from drinking it.
Even after that unpleasant experience, we decided to go to the farm shop for lunch where we had an awesome selection of cheese, fruit, veggies and homemade baked goodies to tide us over!
After a mostly alcohol free lunch, we called a taxi to take us back to the train station and we headed back to Bath! (I say back to Bath because we had a transfer and had to wait at the train station for about an hour).
We arrived in Bath around 3 o'clock and were able to drop our luggage off at the hotel (after mum was flirted at by the guy behind the desk) and went off exploring!
The Bath Cathedral was only a hop, skip and a jump from where we were staying.
The Royal Crescent is a big sight seeing spot in Bath. It was built between 1767 and 1775 by John Wood and is one of the best examples of Georgian architecture found in the UK. It's also a filming location for period dramas such as Persuasion!
On our way back from the RC, we passed by the Jane Austen center where we looked at souvenirs and scheduled an afternoon tea for the next day and then went in search of dinner. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to watch some telly and relax since we had had such a busy week. We ended up watching a movie with Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore called Fever Pitch.
The next morning (April 18) we had breakfast at the hotel, packed our bags and headed down to the Jane Austen center where we had afternoon tea!
Let me tell you, I felt extremely British at that moment!
Afterwards we picked up some souvenirs (a tea set for one for me, bookmarkers for mum, and some Elizabeth and Darcy Christmas ornaments for the pair of us).
It was finally time to bring our trip to an end. We headed back to my flat in London to spend the Sabbath recovering from our journey!
We made it back to London at about 5 o'clock and took my flatmates, MC and TP out to dinner at Byron before TP headed to Amsterdam. After a wonderful dinner of the four of us getting to know each other, we headed home. Mum and I stopped by Tesco on the way back to the flat to pick up some groceries for our meals the next day! After getting back, we (mum, MC and I) piled in our room to catch up because we hadn't seen each other in 3 weeks!
The next morning, mum and I headed to church and then we spent the rest of the afternoon preparing dinner and reading.
Then Monday morning rolled around and it was time to take mum to the airport and bid adieu! We had had an awesome week of adventures!
