Mission Impossible---Bath/Stonehenge/Cambridge

This weekend we embarked on the most challenging and almost mission impossible trip and that is to travel to Bath/Stonehenge/Cambridge in 2 days! Well... the journey from Bath to Cambridge is already 6 hrs and to think that we are going to 3 places in 2 days! Incredible! We only started preparing for the trip on thursday. It was rather late to do bookings for hostel and transport. Most of the hostels are all full and the single trip train from London to Bath cost 16.50 pds. In the end, instead of doing our assignment, we spent the whole afternoon in computer lab planning our itinerary. We came up with the cheapest and the most time saving method for our trip and that is to take a train to London on Friday afternoon and then transit another train to Bath. We will spent Friday night in Bath and the next day afternoon we will join a half day tour to stonehenge. On sunday morning 6am, we will go back to London and from there to Cambridge again. Sounds like a lot of travelling eh??

We went to the train station immediately after our lessons on Friday to buy the train tickets from London to Bath. But the ticket seller told us that we can only get the tickets at London. When we arrived at London, we were shocked to realise that the train ticket has increased from 16pds to 40 plus pds in just one night. Eventually, we managed to find a bus to Bath at 15 pds. Well.. it kinda expensive for a single trip bus ride but it's the cheapest we can get and we really got no choice at that moment. On the bus, we made phone calls to the hostels for a room but all the hostels are full. We were really disappointed and were about to give up when we found one hostel with vacanies. The staff told us that he will reserve a room for us but when we reached there, he told us that the hostel is full. In the end, we have to continue our search for an accomodation for the night. It was already 11.30pm. All of us were tired after the long journey but thank God, we managed to find a room in YMCA in the end.

We woke up early the next morning to start our tour in Bath. Bath is a beautiful Georgian city with delightful crescents, terraces and architecture. It is very different from the other cities in England that we have been to in a sense that there are Roman buildings in the city. There is a big roundabout, known as the Circus, with continuous stretch of Georgian houses built along the road. According to the local, the buildings are placed in a circular formation to represent the stones that are arranged in the same manner in Stonehenge. Hence, no matter from which exit you stand at the roundabout, the views of the Georgian houses are still the same.

The famous heritage of Bath is the Pulteney Bridge. The bridge has a Palladian design and it is one of only four in the world lined by shops on both sides. It was built for William Pulteney, whose wife had inherited rural Bathwick across the river from Bath. Terraces are cut in the river banks and across the river creating small rapids and parabolic water flow.
We went to Prior Park which is located at the outskirt of Bath. Set in a sweeping valley, we are able to get magnificient views of the city of Bath. It is a really nice and scenic park with a sense of peacefulness. The main highlight of the park is the Palladian bridge. The bridge is one of the only four left in the world and therefore it is under the preservation by the National Trust. The Palladian design is based on the original design by Andrea Palladio, an Italian architect of the Renaissance, for the Rialto Bridge in Venice.

It was already 12.40pm after our visit in the park and we have to get back to the city centre by 1.30pm to join the Stonehenge tour. Well... the city is approximately 40 min walk from the park. So we ended up running all the way back to the city. It seems like running is unavoidable in all our trips like running to the train station to catch the train to Edinburgh and running to catch the bus to Holy Island. But eventually we manage to reach the city on time.

It was a 1hr plus journey to the Stonehenge and we ate lunch on the bus. Lunch was bread and jam that we have packed during our breakfast in the hostel. Kinda pathetic but we have to think of ways to minimise our spendings for every trips. The weather was perfect, bright and sunny just the right day to go to Stonehenge.

By the time we came back to Bath, it was already 5pm. We wanted to go to the Roman Bath but it was already closed. To our delight, someone came out from the back door and we managed to sneak into the museum. The Roman Bath used to be the bath spa for the Romans during their reign in England. The Great Bath is the highlight of the museum. The bath is 1.6 metres deep which is ideal for bathing and has steps leading down on all sides. Statues of Roman soldiers are placed around the Great Bath.

The next morning, we boarded the bus at 6am back to London. The bus fare was incredibly cheap at only 1pd! (How I wish I can get this kinda fare for all my trips) It was a 3hrs journey and the 3 of us slept soundly throughout the bus ride. After sleeping only after 12 am and waking up at 5am this morning, all of us were dead tired. We then took the train at King's Cross to Cambridge and reached there at ard 1pm.

Cambridge, compared to Oxford, is definitely much more quiet. Although both of them are university towns, Oxford is a more cosmopolitan city. There are not many people along the streets in Cambridge whereas in Oxford, it is bustling with people in the city centre during the weekend. On the whole, I would consider Cambridge to have a more conducive environment for studying. Yusen was total mesmerized by the place and was even thinking of doing his masters in Cambridge!

We went to Queens College where the world famous Mathematical Bridge is located. The Mathematical Bridge is part of Cambridge mythology. It has been said that Newton designed it, and that it was so elegantly constructed it needed only mathematical principles, rather than screws or nails, to hold it together. The legend also has it that inquisitive students took it apart to see how it worked and were unable to put it back together. It was, in fact, built by James Essex the Younger in 1749. College records show that coach screws were used to fasten the joints of the original bridge.

Most of the colleges are located along the river. And as we walked along the river, we could see people punting. Well.. punting is the traditional English way of boating. There will be a guy standing at the rear of the boat and trying to move the boat forward by using a long pole to push against the ground of the river. It is a lovely sight, seeing the grand looking colleges, people strolling along the river and punting. We also met some Singaporeans studying in Cambridge and Imperial. Well... we could that they are Singaporeans immediately when they started speaking, all the 'la's and 'lor's, simply the trademarks of Singapore.

The biggest college in Cambridge should the King's college. It has a magnificient chapel just beside the college and a big patch of grass in front of the college. Well... there is a 'Do not step onto the grass' sign and we simply went in to take a better picture of the college. In the end, someone came over and scolded Yusen for walking on the grass. Luckily, Zhen Siong and I came out first.

It was getting late and along our way back to the train station, ZS found 30pds on the ground. At first, we were just thinking of having bread for dinner. In the end, we went to a chinese restaraunt to have a sumptuous meal in London. By the time we reached Newcastle, it was already 2am monday morning and all of us are dead tired.

Mission impossible accomplished! Experience level up!