St. Clare's sponsored yet another trip for us (I really love this college); this time, to Stonehenge and Bath. I had heard that Stonehenge was overrated but I found (though it has become quite touristy) it to be a very spiritual place. The site was built some 6k years ago over a period of stages. The Sarsen stones (the larger stones) were quarried from the Marlborough Downs 19 miles away and the Bluestones (the smaller stones) are from the mystical Preseli Mountains of Wales, over 240 miles away; scholars are still in much debate as to how this feat was accomplished. As you can see from the second picture, the henge seems to have a strange effect upon gravity.
While Jane Austin fans will, no doubt, be familiar with the town of Bath, I am afraid I was quite oblivious to its existence prior to this trip. In the heart of the city lies the stone remains of an ancient Roman Bath dedicated to Minerva (the Roman goddess of wisdom [Gr.-Athena]). The spring which feeds the bath is a tepid 88 degrees (F) and no picture I could take would capture the hierophanic effect that the steam from the bath mixed with the echoing of the Minervan Priest's sermon can have--It was spectacular! The final stop of the bath is a water bar where you can sample a glass fresh from the spring. I must tell you that it was horrific (it was warm [obviously] and it tasted like someone had boiled an egg in it), but I couldn't justify not sampling it.