Since I’ve been back, I’ve been telling my friends about all of the wonderful things I’ve done and seen in the past eleven days. I realized that I always choose the same memories to talk about, so I decided to blog about these highlights of my trip with a list of my top ten favorite England experiences.
10. Buildings and “cool old stuff” in general
One of my favorite things about Oxford and all of England in general was how beautiful the buildings were. It was amazing to me that so many of the buildings were so old yet still functional. Some of the buildings were built as early as the 13th century!! Bath looked basically exactly as it would have in the late 18th century, which was beautiful. I think I loved the oldness of the buildings so much because you could just see the centuries of history in their walls.
9. Scones!
The scones were delicious! One afternoon we stopped to have tea in a café. I ordered some scones with my tea, expecting them to be like scones in the U.S. (not very soft), but I was pleasantly surprised. English scones are warm and soft and wonderful! I didn’t think I would miss any British food, but I will definitely miss those delicious scones.
8. The British Museum, London
The British Museum was a history major’s dream. It was huge! There was no way that we could possibly see everything in the short two hours that we were there, but we did see some cool stuff. First, we went straight to see the Rosetta Stone, which was amazing. Then we explored more of the Egyptian artifacts, finding Cleopatra along the way. We also ventured through Greek and Roman history and a bit of Medieval England. As a history major, I was like a child in a candy shop, completely amazed by everything around me. I only wish we would’ve had more time to explore the museum.
7. The Royal Crescent, Bath
The Royal Crescent was a semi-circle of houses that were built in Bath in the late 18th century. However, they weren’t just ordinary houses, they were tall, three-story, beautiful limestone buildings that had housed the affluent British citizens of Bath since the late 1700’s. Besides its architectural grandeur, the Royal Crescent also held significance for me because many parts of Jane Austen’s novels took place in Bath and some of the characters lived at the Royal Crescent. It was really interesting to me to see a specific place that Jane Austen (my favorite fiction author) wrote about so often.
6. Punting in Cambridge
You may be wondering, what is punting? Well, a punt is a long, often rectangular-shaped boat in which a person uses a tall pole to propel the boat through the water. As someone put it, punts are “like Venetian gondolas just without the singing.” We took a punting tour down the river in Cambridge that passed by many of the Cambridge colleges. I think what made our punting experience most fun was that our guide, Justin, was very talkative and willing to joke around with us – he didn’t seem to feel too awkward by our ridiculous questions and random comments.
Written by: Hilary Phillips
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