“In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, an ancient race of people… the Druids. No one knows who they were or what they were doing… “ — Nigel Tufnel, This Is Spinal Tap
I’m slowly getting around to posting the photos I took during my sister’s elaborate visit to England. We took over 600 pictures during her trip; weeding out the share-worthy shots is an overwhelming task!
Today’s installment were taken on December 27, 2004. Tim and I still had the rental car and thought we should make use of it by getting out of London and seeing the countryside.
We had planned on doing the Avebury-Stonhenge-Bath circuit. Stephanie was very keen on seeing Stonehenge, despite rumors that it wasn’t all that and a bag of crisps. According to Rick Steves’ Great Britain (2002 edition!), there’s a little town near Stonehenge called Avebury that features a larger stone circle that is both more inviting and less touristy than the ‘henge. Nearby is the old Roman spa town, Bath. Sounds like a full day!
Turns out, Avebury is a tricky little village to locate. Well, tricky that is, if you don’t have a proper map. Rick Steves (bless him) featured some fairly lousy maps in his guidebook. And we (bless us) had not bothered to double check our directions or purchase a non-hand-drawn-by-Rick map. Still, I’ve got to hand it to Rick Steves - had we not read his entry on the Tower of London, we wouldn’t have known to “arrive early and head straight for the crown jewels”, which we did and managed to avoid the massive queue that evolved just minutes after we made our exit from the jewel house. But that’s another story!
It took us hours to make it to Avebury. We arrived late, and I headed straight for the bathroom. We didn’t have time for much more than a few snapshots. The mile-long walk around the circle would have been nice, but the sun was setting and we hadn’t yet seen Stonehenge!
Bladders empty, and a half-bag of jelly bellies consumed, Tim put the pedal to the metal and we sped off towards Stonehenge. The ride involved a mysterious maze of village roundabouts, and one minor traffic jam. But suddenly, Stonehenge appeared, plopped on a hill off the highway (I say that as if the highway were there first!).
Although a huge fence surrounds the monolith, I was still in awe of the ancient structure. It was gigantic! And it’s just so… old. Bronze age, baby! Well worth the visit.
We never did make it to Bath - after Stonehenge we were ready to journey back to London and find a cold beer. Which we did, at the always reliable Northgate pub.
You’ve read this far, now check out the photos!
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