Stones

One is advised to book your trip to Stonehenge in advance, reserving a time. We did that the night before, online. Enjoyed another full English breakfast, this time in the George, then rolled north past Woodhenge and west through Larkhill. Looked in vain at the latter place for the exploded detention camp depicted in V for Vendetta, seeing only intact buildings of a school.

Pulled into the car park at the world heritage site, stepped to the ticket booth for validation, and queued for one of the every-five-minutes shuttle buses. The brief ride took us through a narrow wood, and over the crest of a hill we beheld the uncanny prehistoric monument, the result of tenacity and fortitude. A guidebook and many signs helped interpret what we were seeing, providing context for the region, time, and people involved. We crept clockwise around the circular walkway, gaining every possible viewing angle of the stones and the surrounding ditches, barrows, and countryside. A modern road, the A303, passes close by to the south and experiences constant slowdowns from drivers getting a glimpse.

More remarkable than the centuries it took to build this site is that the stones are held together with mortice and tenon, like gigantic Legos. The builders used no draft animals besides themselves. Many generations required a forward-looking plan and clever engineering skill to make this structure work and endure. A lovely couple from Chicago recorded our presence, proving we had arrived.

The museum provided more details for the whole situation. Fell in with a small group listening to a uniformed staffer called Carol, who expounded on the site’s growth over various stages and its calendrical alignment. An axis runs through the middle, tying winter solstice sunset with summer solstice sunrise. Carol added another, more mystical viewpoint: ley lines and terrestrial energy vortexes swirl around the circle. Producing a jade pendulum from her pocket, she demonstrated precisely where an earth meridian sliced though the building. Back in the 80s, I had studied dowsing as an element of geomancy, the “spiritual” side of geography. True or not, when I held Carol’s pendulum above a specific point, it spun in a clockwise direction, but not as vigorously as it did for her. Also on display are reconstructions of typical Neolithic houses and touchable stones from the site.

We returned to Amesbury, rested, then steered to Salisbury. In a charity shop, I found a handsome used wool jacket and Lina a wedding-worthy hat. The cathedral there contains Britain’s tallest spire, and we peered at one of only a few original copies of Magna Carta.

A wrong turn on our way back took us past ultra-charming Middle and Upper Woodford on the (other) River Avon.

It was a good night to swallow a pint and finish our leftovers. Brits take their football (soccer) seriously, and their cheers and cries of anguish echoed throughout the George until late. We didn’t mind.

Next: Glastonbury