England: High Tea & the Tate

While writing about my trip to London, I kept thinking "this was my favorite part!...no that was my favorite!" Okay well now I really figured it out. Is there anything better in life than food and the arts? Not really.

High Tea at the Milestone Hotel was such an experience. I wanted to stay there and eat those scones with clotted cream and jam all day. I have a gluten allergy and they brought me gluten free scones, sandwiches, sweets, everything you could think of. I thought because of the allergy I would be just drinking tea, but boy was I wrong. They went above and beyond.  

Despite being pretty ill the day we went to the Tate, I still found it incredibly inspiring. My namesake room particularly piqued my interest, filled with representations of Eve before and after the fall. Really beautiful artwork. I also loved the work by John William Waterhouse - particularly The Lady of Shalot and Saint Eulalia. As a flute player, his portrayal of mythical feminine beauty really drew me in.

England: Windsor Castle, Bath & Stonehenge

We briefly visited Windsor Castle, where we got to see the changing of the guards complete with our family being split up and yelled at by the security. What fun!  

My favorite part of Windsor Castle was the gardens with all of the summer roses. They were all gorgeous and it was very reminiscent of Alice and Wonderland. 

The same day that we visited Windsor Castle we went to Bath. We saw the roman baths, and sat along the water which was very relaxing. My favorite part was this little street with the flags strewn across. We sat upstairs in a bakery on this street and had a snack before hurrying on to our next destination. 

Our last stop of the day was Stonehenge. I'm so glad that we got to see this. Apparently, next year Stonehenge is going to be even more difficult to see. There will be a scenic train running around it, and you will not be able to walk around it like we did. A few decades ago you could even go right up to the rocks, but of course that has changed. There was a really cute field of sheep next to Stonehenge that reminded me of Wallace and Gromit. I kept thinking "Do these sheep have any idea how close they are to one of the seven wonders of the world?!" Nope.   

England: Tower of London

During our first day in London we went to the Tower of London, and got to see a part of the city that is incredibly rich with history. We opted out of seeing the Crown Jewels because of the line and lack of interest, but still saw many other interesting and disturbing parts of the Tower of London. My favorite was the memorial to all of the people that had been beheaded in the square, including Anne Boleyn. 

The part of the Tower of London that I actually found the most disturbing was an open poll in one of the torture chambers where visitors got to vote on whether or not they thought that torture was acceptable, and that it was split 50/50 for yes and no. It was something like a million votes for each. The thought that one out of every two people surrounding me thought that the awful things we were looking at were totally fine made me want run out of there screaming.