The second of our prehistoric stone circle stops after the walk around Avebury was to world famous heritage site Stonehenge. This was one of those places that’s only around an hour from where we live yet as far as we could remember neither my wife nor I had ever visited it before; we’ve passed it any number of times but never stopped so decided since we had the time it would be a great opportunity to knock this place of historical interest off our list of travel achievements.
We had to smile as we bought our tickets. Firstly, the woman at the booth stopped me and told me that she loved my t-shirt; then, as we took the tickets and stepped away from the line, another English Heritage employee did a double take and told me loudly that he loved my t-shirt too. For the record, the t-shirt I was wearing was this one: Cthulhu’s Church.
The ticket allows entrance to the visitor’s centre which contains several large displays and accounts of the history of the area and digs as well as a wraparound screen simulating the rise and fall of the sun around the stone circle during the year. We were quite pleased that there was hardly anyone around while we were there as it felt quite peaceful standing and watching the stars and shadows move around us. Beside the centre is a recreation of a settlement of the time.
It’s possible to walk to Stonehenge’s stone circle from the centre but a bus that leaves every few minutes is also available and was ready to go while we were there so we took advantage of it. A short walk from where the bus stops then leads to a path that encircles the neolithic monument allowing you to get fairly close to the stones at points. A fairly low sun because of the time of year and a lot of hazy cloud acting as a great soft box in the background produced some challenging light conditions for photographs but as you can see I took a few regardless.
Wildlife, in the form of birds, played some part in the enjoyment of the visit to Stonehenge. Some of the staff were hand feeding crows and at one point we spotted a kestrel amongst the stones. While it sat it was left alone but as it flew across the circle it was challenged by the resident crows who clearly see the area as theirs.
