england countryside #22 – stonehenge

The last stop of the last day in Wiltshire…. waaahhhh!!! Stonehenge was, as I think I said before, much more touristy than I expected. It’s not like Avebury, where you can go wander at your leisure amongst the stones. There’s a touristy little ticket area with a gift shop and little food place (Avebury had a gift shop too – – a very nice one — but it was more like part of the little town itself, not like a tourist trap) and you have to pay to get in. It was not outlandish — something like 7 pounds, about $11 US dollars. And at least the money is going towards the upkeep of the site. But you did get the whole being-shuttled-around-in-the-prescribed-tourist-area thing, very unlike Avebury, or Glastonbury either for that matter.

I was also a little shocked at how the stones are right in the middle of two busy roads. Well, not in the middle, you don’t have traffic whooshing right by you, but you can see two roads close by, going around each side of the site. Being England, there is also lots and lots of pasture and greenness and sheep grazing right there too, so it was not THAT unsettling– just a little unexpected. I did read that the National Trust is actually trying to get one road blocked (or is it a tunnel they are contemplating?) and the other re-routed, as well as moving the parking area several miles away and having a bus take people to the site. That would really help, if it happens. And the final kind of sad thing is that you can’t go up to the stones anymore. Apparently there was too much vandalism, and now you have to view them from afar. Not that afar, you can get pretty close to them, but not wander amongst them and touch them like Avebury. Well, you can if you go at certain times – I think during the Solstice, for example, they open it up- but for the average ordinary visit you have to stick to the path.

If it was America, I’m certain there would be McMansions all over the fields, as well as fast food and WalMart and you could probably hardly see the stones for the development. So really, it was not bad. It was just not what I was expecting.

All that being said, it was well worth the trip. There’s a walkway around the stones, and the rope keeping you from going right up to them is so unobtrusive that I don’t even see it in most of my pictures. (Again, SO not America. That little rope would have been completely ignored here.) And even though there were a lot of people there, it was very easy to get off by yourself and not feel at all like you were in a crowd. In fact, looking at most of my pictures, I’d almost think Kim and I were the only ones there. We took the audio tour thing too, and that was very worthwhile. I think actually it was included in the ticket- we paid extra for a tour guide booklet, but the headphones were part of the fee. So it took quite some time to go around the whole site, since we listed to the audio tour.

The little number is to tell you where to stop and listen to the audio tour. You can see quite a few people here, all crowded around in a touristy manner.

Yet you could escape the crowds. That little sign says “no admittance” — you couldn’t go closer here. Although you got really good views of it, as you walked around.

You can see the busy road through the stones here, complete with traffic jam –

Every angle was so different — it was really amazing to see it by walking all the way around.

The omnipresent sheep- and the road on one side.

Really impressive from afar, too –

This is the heelstone, looking creepily like a face. And you can see the road going by on the other side behind it.

Ms. Psychic Kim is very happy to be here!

And this is an artist’s rendition of how it probably looked at one time. It really is a fascinating place- what was it?? How did they set up these enormous stones? And why?? What we see now is just a teeny bit of what’s left. It dates from possibly 2500 BC, but there are postholes that were discovered under the parking area that date to 8000 BC. Apparently it had astrological functions, but who knows what else it was. I’m very glad we got to see it, touristy or not.

We left Stonehenge around 3, and set off back for our canal boat. It should have only been a 2 1/2 hour drive, but we got in TERRIBLE traffic on the M1. More than once, as I recall. In our usual manner, we’d had a Roadside Services Starbucks (or Costa Coffee, don’t remember which now) pastry breakfast and then just a snack from the Stonehenge food place for lunch, thinking we’d be eating dinner fairly early, so of course we were starving long before we got back to Sawley. And of course we couldn’t get our BFF the GPS to pick up the marina address, yet again.  We tried to set it for the Harrington Arms pub since it’s right at the marina, but the only one it found said Derbyshire. Which didn’t appear to be the one in Sawley or the one in Long Eaton, but was apparently only four miles away from Long Eaton. So we just headed there and figured we’d get them to give us directions back to the marina if it wasn’t the right one. And maybe it would be the right one– who knows??? The little towns are REALLY confusing, they all appear to have a gazillion names. Naturally even with the GPS we had problems finding the Derbyshire pub, and when we finally did get there we were starved and beyond exhausted. But we found it! And even though it was not the one near the marina, one of the bartenders gave us the most wonderful directions EVER. It sounded really complicated as she was telling us how to get there (surely not because we’d had beer by then and were ready to keel over from exhaustion) but her directions took us right there. No problems. Hopefully she’ll get some fantastic karma for that.

And there ends the Wiltshire travels. This was Friday night, and we had one more day, in which we’d go to Nottingham (only a few miles away, happily) and at last meet MargUK!

So that’s one more entry, waaahhh!! But on a cheery note, Kim came up last weekend and I FINALLY got to see her pictures- we’ve hardly seen each other since the trip, other than meeting for coffee a couple of times when I was in Asheville — so now I have copies of her pictures, and I’ll post a few of them too as a wrap-up. It was fun seeing her view, and odd seeing ME in them.

And on a surgery-recovery note, I am doing just fine. I had at one time planned to go back to work today, but decided to wait till Monday. I still tire out fast, and there’s no point in going back too soon. That’s just two extra days. Nobody was surprised- they were probably surprised I hadn’t just taken this whole week to begin with. I’m not sure what I was thinking. I’ve been getting out every day, and walking on the Greenway a bit. A mile and a half, tops, instead of my usual 3 1/2, but it’s made me feel quite a lot better to walk. So, no complaints. And I think I will actually manage to finish the England Chronicles now, with a few extra days.