Day 8 & 9: British Museum, Salisbury Cathedral, Stonehenge, and Bath

Tuesday started off by leaving in the morning and heading to the British Museum. Pretty cool place, and I am still amazed that all of these amazing museums in London are all free. I guess that's the benefit of higher taxes. We got to see the Rosetta Stone, as well a lot of statues that the British "borrowed" from Greece. Cool stuff. Enjoy:






On to the good stuff. Today (Wednesday) we left on the early bus heading out to Salisbury Cathedral, which was completed in 1258 and is about a 2 hour bus ride from London. The cathedral has the highest spiral in all of the UK, but honestly at this point all the cathedrals, while cool, look the same. Next.






Oldest working clock in the world, from 1386.



This was actually the most interesting part of the cathedral. The weight of the center spire is so much that the inside columns actually started to bow in around the 1700s and they had to come in and add those black marble columns for extra reinforcing.










After the Cathedral, we made the quick drive over to Stonehenge. Overall, it was only ok. It is mighty impressive to imagine how people from 5000 years ago were able to move those massive blocks into place, but really its something that you look at for ten minutes and then you are ready to go.






Oh look a tank on the road.



Next we headed to Bath. One of my favorite cities of the trip so far. The main attraction is the Roman Baths, built over a natural hot spring.




Coincidentally, Bath University just also happened to have their graduation today.




The natural spring.







Overflow from the springs.







That was it for today. Probably won't be too much going on Thursday, but Friday morning I head to Paris. Should be exciting.

Day 7: Berne and Geneva

Sunday was a little more relaxed than the rest of the weekend. I got up with another guy to catch the early train to Berne to do a little exploring before heading the rest of the way back to Geneva. Berne is a very nice little city, I wish I would have had more time to see it.



I guess this is some famous clock? Tons of Japanese tourists were taking pictures of it. Speaking of Asian tourists, they were EVERYWHERE. Literally 3 out of 4 people at the Top Of Europe were Asian. Crazians.



The main cathedral in Berne. We came in right after service was over and they gave us some free really good coffee and some bread. That was nice.





We finally made it to Geneva later that night and met up with the rest of the group. There really wasn't much to see in Geneva so I only took a few more pictures. Enjoy.





And that concludes the weekend and Week 1 of my study abroad. We spend the rest of this week in London before heading up to Edinburgh next week.

Day 6: Top Of Europe Part II

After a beautiful trip up, we finally made it. WOW. Absolutely stunning views. Some of the most spectacular landscape I've seen in my life. Just enjoy below.







Yes, that little black speck in the snow at the top of the mountain is a person. Insane.



Here, you can see a helicopter, and two huge crevasses which I can only assume go straight down to the depths of hell. I think I had nightmares about falling in.




The glacier. Pretty pretty cool.



The view down from the platform. Kind of freaky. Looked like several hundred feet up.












Here's the Ice Palace which is inside the mountain/complex. War Eagle!

Day 6: Top of Europe Part 1

This day was probably my most fun time of the trip so far. Myself and four others got on an early Saturday morning train that took us up to Jungfraujoch, which is Europe's highest railway. Here's a nice picture. Jungfrau is the mountain in the middle of the highest three peaks:



While the view once we got to the top was absolutely spectacular, the view from the train ride up was almost just as good.



A quick stop in a small town:



One amazing waterfall:



A few more pics from the way up:












This is getting towards the end of the railroad. At this point we're going through the mountain to get all the way up.

Day 5: Journey to Interlaken

A group of about ten of us left London early Friday morning and caught an Easyjet flight from Gatwick to Geneva. From there we boarded a train for the 3 hour train ride to Interlaken.




Interlaken means 'between lakes' I think, but basically Interlaken is a small town between two huge lakes. Its known for having a great outdoors scene, and in that area it did not disappoint. On friday I rented a bike and went for a ride out of the town to a smaller lake which seemed to be a popular swimming hole. The water was pretty cold but it felt good after I had been sweating it out all week in London.


My favorite part of Switzerland, the numerous water fountains sprinkled throughout the cities. This one looks kind of dirty, but it was on the side of a road right under a mountain.

Day 4: Tower of London and HMS Belfast

Sorry but this is going to be a little quick because honestly, not much happened this day compared to the weekend. Thursday we started off by heading to the Tower of London. I didn't get too many pictures because for the most part they weren't allowed inside any of the main exhibitions. I really enjoyed it though, they had a cool exhibition showing the armor worn by all of the English kings from the 1500s and up. Some really impressive craftsmanship. In addition, we also got to check out the Crown Jewels. Again, sorry for the lack of pictures, but just imagine some of the biggest diamonds you've ever seen and there you go.






The HMS Belfast was a WWII era heavy cruiser. That's about it.