Stonehenge Visitors

[Anarkistsdream]

I have always wanted to go to Stonehenge, especially now that they have discovered the town where the think the people were living when they created Stonehenge.

If you HAVE gone, was it all hype, or was it really wonderful?

[Koba]

I drive past it all the time, and have stopped there before. I think it's worth going to see, just because being able to construct it was quite impressive. Am I right in thinking the stones are Welsh? But it's a shame you cant get too close to it now.

[heavycola]

it's amazing! The stones in the inner ring are from Wales - no one knows why they needed those particualr kinds of stones... or how they got them the 120 miles to salisbury plain. And no you can't get right in but you get pretty close... it's an awesome place. Well worth a visit.

[Spuzzell]

Sure, I've been, and I also drive past it several times a year.

It's worth seeing, just go early or late.. when it's sunny and surrounded by schoolkids the impact is much reduced.

When the sun is rising or setting and there's not many people there, it's really ominous and spectacular.

[2dimes]

I've been and I'll post a huge long boring story about it later so you can skim the highlights.

I definately advise making the trip combined with other things there's so many cool things in the country. There's even a roman colosium and bath ruins in a small town that are the second oldest structure next to Stonehenge. We stumbled on it totally by accident and it was one of the coolest things I've seen, (missnomer I'm interested in old structures ie. pyramids, stonehenge, those crazy giant churches in the south of England and the roman ruins that are not talked about.)


England besides the food is really great and if you pick the right things the food is ok too. If you like curries and kababs or fish and chips those items are as good as anywhere I've been. I would like to check out Bath but the two times I've been to England I didn't get the chance.

[Backglass]

There's even a roman colosium and bath ruins in a small town that are the second oldest structure next to Stonehenge.

That would be the town of "Bath".

Been to both...loved it.

[2dimes]

There's even a roman colosium and bath ruins in a small town that are the second oldest structure next to Stonehenge.

That would be the town of "Bath".

Been to both...loved it.

That would be incorect.

[2dimes]

Perhaps you missed this part.

I would like to check out Bath but the two times I've been to England I didn't get the chance.

[Backglass]

Perhaps you missed this part.

I would like to check out Bath but the two times I've been to England I didn't get the chance.

I did...I stand corrected. Bath was wonderful, though...

[2dimes]

No worries, we totally found this other thing by accedent. We were on the big highway coming south from Derby toward london area and I spotted a brown tourist sign saying this way to "Roman Theatre". I was like "We're scoping that!"

I just made the wife dig out her scrap book of the trip. I can't find anything on google so far. I have tickets labeled "ROMAN THEATRE OF VERULAMIUM".

It might not even be cool unless you're a fanatic like me with this kind of thing but I was pretty excited.

[2dimes]

Ok I've found some sites. This is not well publicised, when we went we only paid to go in the theatre and went in the bath house that's free.

I guess I kind of miss labeled it calling it a colosium. Thing is I don't see that kind of thing enough so yeah I shouldn't call it a collosium because it would probably only have held 1200 people or something when it was in use.

http://www.romantheatre.co.uk/

http://stalbansmuseums.org.uk/

The artist's rendition is just that a picture some guy drew but it's based on the foundation that's still there and what would presumably have been on top.

So Stonehenge is significantly better than this but this is worth a look if you're in England and can go there.

[Backglass]

Yup. When the wife wanted to visit London, I said "I only want two things. I want to see Stonehenge...and have my picture taken crossing Abbey Road". Such a typical tourist huh?! We lived on ale and pub fare that week.

FYI, I learned that there are certain times of the year when you can sign up and arrange to actually walk amongst the stones. You might have to lie and say your an archeologist though.

[2dimes]

Yeah on our first trip my wife wanted to visit her friends that she lived with when she spent a year in South Hampton.

Her, "What do you want to see in England."

Me, "Stonehenge, I can't think of anything that's interesting there."

We get there and everything was interesting.

"What do you mean we have to go home? I'm still looking at things."

[heavycola]

Verulamium is St Albans... I was born a few miles from there. Nice place. Beautiful abbey... Dreadful parking though.

[2dimes]

Ok like I said before I went there, the only thing I could think I would want to bother to see was Stonehenge. I'll split the post so you can skip this one and go right to the next one if you just want to read about the stonhenge part if you wish.



We flew to London Hethrow to rent a car and drive to the ferry then to Salon de Provance for my wife's childhood friend's wedding to a great guy from there. She had some internet itenerary that said 8 hours drive. That was using the toll roads, I said "I'm not paying a toll." I proceeded to take the regular highways for free.

I decided since we're driving anyway and it doesn't look too far out of the way on the map we should check out Rennes la Chatau.(don't do that unless you love driving like nothing else.) 33 hours driving time over 2 days just to get down to Provance via Rennes. (reading this to said wife she corrected the amount of days, don't mind me I was thinking "it must have been 4 or somthing how could you fit 33 hours in 2 but yeah it was probably only 2)

There is a mystery surounding Rennes la Chatau, it's a tiny town in the middle of the country with a small church. There was a priest that basically got banished there and then spent unbelievable amounts of money. Fixed the church built a water system for the town, built a tour library, built a mansion he never lived in himself. He would entertain wealthy people including some diva from Paris. No one knows where the money came from so there's tons of theories. I personally think some of the rich people he was friends with chipped in but that's another five threads worth of discussion.

Unlike Paris and the north areas of France, they don't have that hate on for the Honglaysss. In the south of France the food and people are amazing. It's one of my favorite places in the world. Even the jerks are friendly.

So after the wedding and fantastic feast, we start heading back to England driving pretty much straight through stopping for food the potty and a couple of naps road side. (I was hard core this was august 2000)

One stop enroute was a castle in a town called Gizors and another in a town we didn't even get the name of. These castles are in various states of disrepair but at the time there was no fee to see them either. You just wander in and look around. So I was climbing the walls sitting on the ledge of the windows etc. This is my idea of fun.

We get on the ferry head back to Dover drive down the coast to South hampton. Have a nice visit. Decide we should look at the giant churches.

Those things are wild, sure the blocks probably only wiegh less than a hundred pounds but they're stacked pretty high and are interlaced to hold each other up. I found them amazing, I might even go back and look again if I get a chance. We went to four or five of them so I was pretty impressed.

Now we're heading north to visit my wife's other friend that moved to Derby with the guy she had married, after she met him while she lived in Southhampton.

So we're kind of broke now, pretty tired and somewhat over stimulated by all the cool things we've seen up to now. I'm more excited then my wife because I'm so into all these structures.

[2dimes]

So here we are it's finally time to go to Stonehenge. I'm tired etc. we're broke I'm overwhelmed. We start talking about going to see the thing.

I'm thinking well I don't want to spend a bunch of money. I've seen a bunch of cool castles and churches. What's this really going to be? A bunch of really big rocks that no one can decide what they were put there for.

My wife says "Oh no! You're going, I'm not listening to you whine because we were right there and then didn't go see it." She was totally right for a change.

Well we decide lets park go to the fence with the other bums that don't want to pay to get in and take a look.

Ok that looks pretty neat. Lets go check the prices. Hmm there's an audio tour thing and it's just a little more than the regular admision.

So we paid to go in. It was so worth it to us. It's just this wierd thing you have to see for your self. No one can explain it or even agree on what it is. So it's this great personal experience.

My wife even loved it and the audio tour thing was great, you walked up to a sign and put in the letter and number off the sign and it explained what you were looking at what they know about it and some things it does like, "december 23 at 11:45 am the sun shines through the holes of this piece and the one you see behind it." Then there was options for theories and folklore. I highly recomend the whole thing.

[Genghis Khant]

You can only get into Stonehenge and walk around the stones on the solstices. It's something to do with the Druids' rights for religious expression.

I know that there's a big hippie gathering there every summer solstice where people are allowed in and the police then throw everyone out one hour after sunrise the next morning. The crusties & travellers usually move on to Aylesbury then, where there is another, even bigger, stone circle.

[Sammy gags]

I have always been fascinated by Stonehenge....& thats saying a lot

[2dimes]

They're more interesting to visit than the Pyramids of Giza and that's saying alot.