Salsibury Cathedral and Stonehenge

Thursday, March 13th, 2014

Salisbury, the Cathedral and Stonehenge

Today we are heading to Stonehenge, which I had told John when I said I was coming to England, was the only touristy thing I wanted to visit. We had talked about other castles or cathedrals to see en route and we settled on Salisbury Cathedral as the most interesting and the closest to the route we were taking. The drive through the country was lovely. I love the English countryside with the hedges, fields and hills. When we got to the city of Salisbury, we couldn't find the cathedral (which only as the tallest spire in Europe!), so John stopped by the sidewalk and told me to get out and find it while he went to park! We were a bit pressed for time, as he had pre-booked a tour of Stonehenge at 1:00. I was a bit sceptical of this plan so I rolled down the window and asked a man where the cathedral was. He gave us detailed instructions on where to drive and where to turn. John said no, not by car, by walking and the guy said, “Oh it's right through there,” pointing to an alley across the street. So I walked across the street and followed the lane to the cathedral, while John drove around looking for parking. I took some photos outside and then went in and waited for John. When he came he said that we didn't have much time, but I said I'm sure if we have tickets we can go anytime that day, so we asked the church staff if we could phone Stonehenge and sure enough they said they were not busy and we could come later. Now John said he only paid for a half hour of parking. I said forget it, I'll pay any fine I just want to explore this cathedral. So we went and took a tour with elderly gentlemen who explained the history. The ceiling and the stained glass windows were very impressive. We read about how a family would work on the construction of the cathedral for generations, with son taking the trade of the father and so on.

Eventually we drove from there to Stonehenge. We could see it from the highway just before we got there and had to drive past it to get to the entrance. They have a large history and information building there. We walked the kilometre to the actual site. Everyone has seen pictures of it but it is really impressive to see in person on a beautiful sunny day. They have it roped off now so that you cannot go up and touch or walk around the actual blocks. But, that helps preserve the grass around it and helps to make it a more private viewing by keeping the people out of your photos. The Stonehenge we see today was completed about 2200 BC and restored in the 20th century. There are numerous burial mounds around the site as this location was a spiritual one for the people of the Bronze Age. After wandering around for a couple of hours we drove back to Dottie's house.

Before dinner I went for another walk around part of the path that Dottie showed me the other day, but I returned at dusk so as not to get lost. We had a great dinner and spent the evening relaxing and catching up.