Visiting Stonehenge and Avebury.

Many cruisers want to see Stonehenge while they are in England and my favourite blogger has written a guide to both "piles of old stones" as JB calls them. The guide is based on London, but most of it applies however you get there.

https://www.thewanderblogger.com/stonehenge-avebury-day-trip-from-london/

Hi, Bob,

I describe Stonehenge as a pile of old rocks - the blogger described it as an underwhelming collection of gigantic stones in a field.

Seems we have similar thoughts :D

But visitors seem to have it on their bucket-lists, and who are we to deter them.

In all seriousness, those who visit without researching its significance will be equally underwhelmed.

The blogger rates Avebury more highly, but it's impossible to include it without a tour or a car. And I'll agree that there are plenty of other sights which can be twinned with either. Or with both.

JB :)

Avebury every time - walk amongst the stones without too many people there. Then - BIG PLUS - sit outside the pub with a pint and contemplate the stones. What's not to like?

Avebury. No question.

Not far from home too, so we have visited many times.

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Hi, Bob,

 

a pile of old rocks

 

an underwhelming collection of gigantic stones in a field:)

She clearly has a more literary turn of phrase than you :)

Hi, Bob,

 

I describe Stonehenge as a pile of old rocks - the blogger described it as an underwhelming collection of gigantic stones in a field.

Seems we have similar thoughts :D

But visitors seem to have it on their bucket-lists, and who are we to deter them.

In all seriousness, those who visit without researching its significance will be equally underwhelmed.

JB :)

Haha! That's so true! I saw it when I was a kid and you could more or less just walk up to it from what I remember. It wasn't anything like it is now. We planned to stop there on our way from the West coast back into London on a Sunday afternoon. As we got closer, into the heavier traffic, we were rethinking things. Then we got to the parking lot and saw the visitor's center. We saw the prices and decided to pass. It would have taken a couple hours doing it that way and just decided it wasn't worth it (turned out to be a great decision as getting into London took longer and we made it to the car rental place 20 minutes before they closed). Anyway, traffic is very slow going past it and I got this shot as we drove by, good enough for us...

Please, Sir (raises hand with trepidation), but I actually like Stonehenge! Good job really as I'm there a lot. I like it least around midday in the height of summer when it's horribly crowded and the light is harsh, but give me a fine December afternoon as the sun's setting, and I melt. I was at an inner circle access visit last week, watching some group communing with the stones. I really don't 'get' or feel the spiritual side of it; chakras and ley lines generally pass me by. But I look at the stones, the construction, the grooves where they've been bashed and bashed, the graffiti ancient and newer, and I just marvel at their ingenuity, and their burial customs and beliefs. For me, it's fascinating.

Anyway, traffic is very slow going past it and I got this shot as we drove by, good enough for us...

 

Any time we pass we always think that the droids were very considerate to build it so close to the main road! ;p:evilsmile::halo:

Any time we pass we always think that the droids were very considerate to build it so close to the main road! ;p:evilsmile::halo:

I just love a good typo :D

May the force be with you, Max :cool:

JB :)

Any time we pass we always think that the droids were very considerate to build it so close to the main road! ;p:evilsmile::halo:

Probably the same ones who built Windsor Castle under the flight path to Heathrow.

I just love a good typo :D

 

May the force be with you, Max :cool:

 

JB :)

It was intentional! I know the druids never planned anything, except the odd sacrifice.

Oh yeah, the Stonehenge traffic jam. I just assume that they can't do the road widening that's desperately needed because too many artifacts would get churned up and broken in the process. We spent a couple of days in the area while we were going from LHR to Wales and I did enjoy it- get into the right mindset and it's cool how old the whole region seems so ancient down to the way the hills themselves have been worn down by the feet of thousands of years of farmers and traders. And Stonehenge is part of the sense of great age. Salisbury is a charming cathedral town worth a day on its own (pity about the nerve gas incident with the former Russian spy- I hope tourism is recovering in the region) wonderful church building with reasonable crowds, and a small enclosure where I got to hang out with one of the few surviving copies of the Magna Carta all by myself for maybe ten minutes, and if you have a car, there are all kinds of other cool things from different eras from Old Sarum to Stourhead Gardens.

Oh yeah, the Stonehenge traffic jam. I just assume that they can't do the road widening that's desperately needed because too many artifacts would get churned up and broken in the process. .

They've not improved the road or junctions because they're planning to put the main road in a tunnel past Stonehenge.

A few hundred yards south of Stonehenge.

Or mebbe a mile or two away.

Or mebbe something in-between.

Mebbe just a half-mile tunnel.

Or mebbe two miles.

Or mebbe something in-between.

Or mebbe just a cutting.

They've been planning it for about 40 years, so I feel sure that the traffic problem will be resolved within the next 40 years. :rolleyes:

JB :)

Does it spoil the story at all if you know that most of what you see was put there in the first half of the 20th century? They used cranes to lift the lintel stones and many of the uprights are set in concrete. This is what it looked like in the 1890s before they "restored" it.

Or now.

To be honest, I think we would still be pretty impressed.

Sadly, Avebury was mostly re-created in the 1930s after the locals had appropriated many of the stones for building.