Sightseeing Off the Beaten Path

In case it hasn’t been readily apparent by now, we will do just about anything to avoid large crowds. That’s why we usually travel in shoulder seasons, why we eat lunch early and visit attractions at everyone else’s normal lunch time, and why we love to find attractions that aren’t on everyone’s radar. Verona, for example, had it’s fair share of tourists but nowhere near the amount as in other, seemingly more popular, cities in Italy. While planning this trip, one of our goals was to have a healthy mix of must-see places to cross off our bucket lists and lesser known places that allow us to breathe, think, and see countries/cities/towns from different perspectives.

Two great examples of these off-the-beaten-path sights we visited were Stonehenge and Bath. Now, I’m sure Stonehenge is on at least of few your bucket lists – and it was on ours, too! So, saying that it’s off the beaten path might sound strange. But, compared to the other attractions we’ve visited around Europe, there were far fewer tourists. Plus, it is located in the middle of the countryside, a couple of hours outside the bigger cities. So, it felt off-the-beaten-path for us.

Because we were driving from Oxford through the Lake District and up to Scotland, both of these were easily accessible day trips, and they were fun stops to learn a little history and breathe in that fresh countryside air. I have to say, renting a car and road-tripping through the U.K. was one of the best decisions we made. Oxford and London were so much fun, but it was nice to head into more open, scenic landscapes after a few days in the city.

We visited Stonehenge the day we left Oxford. After loading up on coffee from the oldest coffee bar in the city, we drove about 2 hours southwest to see this mysterious landmark.

Some take-aways:

• It was very engaging. The visitor center has a great exhibit with the history (that they know), artifacts, models, and so on that we walked through before walking out to the site. Then we had an audioguide that explained each point as we walked around. The history and the theories are quite fascinating, and we were really impressed with how everything was set up.
• There was a palpable sense of mystery in the air. This is the oldest site we’ve visited — dating back almost 2,000 years before the Acropolis — and they’ve only excavated half of it. Oh, and they still don’t know why it was built. Talk about intrigue!
• It was smaller than we had imagined. In our minds’ eyes, we pictured looming stones that would be as intimidating as they were mysterious. Don’t get me wrong, they were impressively big considering they were moved and placed without the assistance of modern technology. They were just a wee bit smaller than they appear in photos.

Our original plan was to see Stonehenge and Bath the same day, but we decided to slow down our pace a bit and split it up into two day trips. We’re so glad we did because it allowed us to walk around the site, take photos, and deliberate theories on why Stonehenge was created. (Seriously, though, I really just need someone to figure out WHY this exists!) After we finished exploring, we headed to the tiny town of Chepstow, which is located in Wales, for a relaxing night in a hotel that looked like a castle. *insert all the heart eyes here*

The next morning, we packed up the car again and headed to Bath. This city is famous for its hot springs, Georgian-style architecture, and — you guessed it — it’s Roman-era Baths. It was quite an impressive sight to see, and we have to send a big thanks to our good friend Teresa for recommending we stop here!

Unfortunately, it started raining as we finished up the tour of the Baths, plus we still had a 6 hour drive ahead of us to our next stop in Keswick. So, we didn’t get to explore the town as much as we otherwise would have, but the parts we did see were beautiful.

Alas, after fueling up on free hot chocolate from Pret A Manger and coffee from Starbucks, we headed toward the Lake District. It was a very long trip; thankfully, we had the “Something Rotten” soundtrack to keep us singing and laughing for a good portion of it. Plus, although we didn’t know it at the time, we were going to wake up the next morning in the most enchanting and inspiring place we’ve ever been…

Hugs from Scotland,
Juliette