Exploring Glastonbury

After 4 hours on the bus Friday morning en route to Cornwall (beginning at 6am!) we stopped in Glastonbury to look around. I found the Glastonbury Lake Village Museum, a small and hidden museum (I was the only person there...) but with really interesting displays about the history and finds from the Glastonbury Lake Village, an Iron Age village built on swampy land in the middle of what was then a lake a few km from Glastonbury. Due to the wet conditions, lots of organic material (like wood) was preserved that would have been lost if the preservation conditions had been different- so it offers unique insights into how these people lived.

Then, I spent the rest of my time at the amazing Glastonbury Abbey.

This abbey became a ruin due to the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII, after which its stones were reused to construct other buildings for several successive centuries. Today you can wander around the gorgeous ruins and also the really good interpretive centre, which explains the history of the abbey and the people who lived there.

Glastonbury Abbey interpretive centre

I also stopped by a bakery to buy a 'rock cake', a traditional English baked good. It tasted pretty much like a scone sprinkled with crystallized sugar to me; but whatever it's called, it was tasty!

[PS- scroll down for my brief intro post from yesterday about the Cornwall trip]