London Trip 14 - To Salisbury Plain

Mr, B. and I got up early and took the tube to Victoria Station and then walked to Victoria Coach Station where tour and travel buses awaited their passengers.

Lots of people taking buses to all around for tours and travel around England, and France.

In the station not just people but also pigeons roamed around not particularly concerned with the people all around them.

We got to our bus:

And we headed out for a long trip to Salisbury Plain.

The tour included the cost of the ride and admission for when we arrived.

A couple hour drive and we reached our destination, got our wristbands, stood in line for the shuttle and then walked along a path until we saw:

Stonehenge!

The pictures don't do it justice and it's far more impressive in present and is bigger than you thought it would be before you see it in person:

The stone blocks are impressively imposing and it's rather amazing how neolithic peoples built this monument. 

This is the Heel Stone, one of the unworked outer stones.  it weighs 40 tons:

The stones at Stonehenge are both Sarsen Stones that are local, and bluestones that were brought in from hundreds of miles away in Wales.

The path takes you all around the outside of the standing inner circle so you can see the monument from every angle.

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An artist was inspired to do a painting of Stonehenge:

He was doing a rather impressive job.

A raven decided to land on one of the sarsen stones, and stayed on it the entire time we were there, surveying all that was beneath it.

Around Stonehenge are multiple burial mounds that dot the landscape.

Easy to pick out once you know what you are looking for in the topography. The site seems to have been a popular one for neolithic burials as the mounds are all around outside of Stonehenge.

In addition to Stonehenge itself, there's a visitors center that goes over the history of the area/

As part of the center there is a reconstruction of a neolithic village which is interesting to walk through and see the construction techniques.

 

There's also a display showing how the stones would have been moved into position:

 

Inside the visitor center there's a nice display that goes over the history of the  monument itself.

And what it looked like in its heyday of 2200 BC:

And compared to today:

We then said goodbye to Stonehenge and began the 2 hour drive back to London.

While it didn't make the cut to be declared one of the  New 7 Wonders of the World, it likely should have done. Stonehenge is well, well, worth the trip out to see it and it is highly recommended to see for yourself.