The West Country

I have to admit, I'm pretty tired this evening so you will all have to rely on the pictures more than the words, but maybe that's better.

This past weekend started in Bath. The town is known for it's natural hot springs that the Romans discovered and turned into communal and religious pools.

 We got to have a tour of the town which started in front of this church. If you look closely, you can see that there are ladders on either side of the entrance with angels climbing up towards heaven.

 The town became the place for the rich to spend months at a time living away from London. Large complexes like this were built to encourage socializing and gossip. The building is actually in a crescent shape, it was really neat. 

We went inside the Baths themselves too. The water looks all murky because they don't filter the water to keep it as similar to how the Romans would have used them as possible.

Saturday morning we headed up into Dartmore. 

We first went on a walk along a back road with houses that looked organic like this one.

After our walk we headed out to the mores. They were beautiful. The epitome of English countryside.

Sunday we headed out to the town of Padstow. A quaint seaside village.

There were benches everywhere, all dedicated to someone's memory, for sitting and enjoying the views.

Claire and I walked along the water barefoot.

 I think I would be happy living in that development across the bay.

The English are very environmentally conscious.

 From Padstow we drove to Tintagel Castle, birthplace of King Arthur. Very little of the castle is left but it must have been amazing. It's set right on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic.

 The views were breathtaking.

We finished up our day by watching the sunset over the water.

This pretty much describes how I felt in that moment.

We headed back to London Monday morning in order to be back in time for a production of Hamlet but first we stopped in a little town called Bradford upon Avon. It was very picturesque but unfortunately at the time we were there, most of the stores were closed and it was very cold outside so we didn't stay long.

The weekend was wonderful. If anybody ever visits England, they must see the countryside. To me, it represents the country better than London does.