Brucato's Turkey3: Stones and Henges!

Hello!

Breakfast this morning was really lovely! I had nice and fluffy scrambled eggs with the English equivalent of bacon (looks and tastes like ham, actually) and mushrooms and toast and orange juice. Just right for a morning that looked pretty gray and bleak to us.

New Visitor Center at Stonehenge

Those are some great stones!

Also looked like it was raining, while those seldom-accurate-meteorologists predicted only 10% chance. Oh well, just have to dig out the umbrellas, and off we went.

First we headed to Stonehenge*, as we mistakenly thought they opened at 9 am. It’s 9:30 am. Didn’t really want to hang around that long, so decided not to wait, and rather head to Woodhenge, which we haven’t seen in a few years. It’s about a 10 minute drive from Stonehenge, of which we caught a glimpse on our drive.

Woodhenge - small posts are where the original wood posts were

Woodhenge in the rain!

Thinking now that we will probably wait until Thursday morning when we are part of a pre-opening tour at 8 am. That way we don’t have to pay twice and can spend all the time we want in the visitor center and museum. On the other side of Woodhenge [this was a site that once held timber posts (hence “wood”), and was built around 2600-2400 BC] we saw the Durrington Walls. This is a Neolithic village ringed with earthworks and dating to 3500-2400 BC. As so much new excavation and survey work has been done recently, it is absolutely fascinating to see all the mounds and hills and gully’s that actually were Neolithic sites. The rain really didn’t add much to help the situation, though, as we didn’t feel totally inclined to walk through sodden fields and dirt paths. We have also decided to try to find a walkers or ramblers (as they’re known in the UK) map to this area, not necessarily for this trip, but for some time in warmer weather.

Salisbury store ... loved the sneakers!

Beautiful city!

After this, we headed south toward Salisbury, with the conviction that seeing cathedrals in the rain is actually much more pleasant than seeing standing stones (sad but true). Got to Salisbury, and found good parking fairly close to the Cathedral. One nice thing about looking for it, was that the spire is SO tall, it’s easy to spot from a distance.

We did walk through a shopping area, and enjoyed looking in the windows, and finally found the walking map at Waterstone’s on the main street. Also posted thank you card to Phil and Dan and the boys.

The English Dollar Store!

Heading toward the Cathedral

I had forgotten how lovely Salisbury Cathedral is. It doesn’t have a whole lot of stained glass, like Ely Cathedral yesterday, but the proportions are stunning, and there were definitely some interesting things to see. One of my favorites was their modern baptismal font – it is really a “fountain” and runs, I would imagine, all day long.

Square near the Cathedral with sculpture

Beautiful building; huge spire!

There was something very restful about listening to the sound of water inside a church. Don’t think I’ve ever heard that before! The Cloisters are the largest in England, and the stone work was really detailed and beautiful. All in all, a very memorable visit!

Largest cloister in the UK

Love the trees in the middle!

Oldest working clock in the world!

By this time it was about noon, so we thought we would like to have lunch in Avebury, about 20 miles to the north. We’ve been to the Red Lion Pub there on several occasions, and remember it fondly. For anyone not familiar with Avebury, it is a village that is entirely surrounded by huge stones in an even larger henge circle, and includes a very long stone-lined avenue which apparently was used for processions at one time. On the back roads, it took us about an hour to get there, but we drove through some really beautiful places. Countless numbers of thatched-roof buildings, which I go crazy over. Got to the pub about 1 pm and was able to actually find a parking space! Yeah! Into the nice warm bar room, and found a nice table in one of the restaurant rooms. Robert got his first glass of bitter, which he likes; I had two bottles of sparkling water, as I was driving. We both ordered sandwiches – R’s was ham, cheddar and mozzarella on brown bread, with chutney and cole slaw. Mine was pulled pork and onions on toasted white bread, with cole slaw and apple sauce, and it was excellent.

Lovely baptismal font

Thought about walking around the village and stones, but it had started to rain again, and as it was almost 2:30 pm we decided we had had enough out-and-about for the day, and came back to Rollestone Manor. We’re thinking, depending on the weather tomorrow, to try to do Avebury again – the walking part – and possibly the city of Bath as well. Time will tell! R down for a nap at the moment, and I’m planning on joining him, before our 7 pm dinner time this evening!

Much love,

xxx

*A henge is a roughly circular earthwork consisting of an outer raised bank and an inner ditch. So, the stones at Stonehenge are not the henge; it is the surrounding bank and ditch that is now just barely visible. A better example is at Durrington Walls (immediately north of Woodhenge), where the ditch (about 1,000 feet in diameter) originally was about 18 feet deep and the bank just about 10 feet high.

White horse -- I'll explain tomorrow!

Dinner tonight was excellent, although as we had had a good lunch, we did manage this one time to forgo dessert … I know, the best part of a meal! Tonight, Robert ordered their Scottish mussels in garlic for his starter, and then followed with the main course of tiger prawns that I had for my starter yesterday. I ordered the baked goat cheese that R had had last night, and my main course was also the tiger prawns. Everything excellent, but I was/am feeling really, really tired tonight!