Another pile of rocks

Sunday 19th August

Yesterday as we were travelling to Gilwern where we stayed last night, we kept seeing signs for Green Man. We had no idea what it was but only a few k from our destination we noticed a huge field absolutely covered in tents and vans - I reckon it was at least 3 times the size of the MCG. I googled Green Man when we got to the hotel and it is a 4 day music festival with at least 25,000 people attending. At least we didn't get caught up in the traffic the day it started and we were on the road this morning well before it finished.

Nothing else to report. Today we travelled to Amesbury from where we plan to visit Stonehenge in the morning. We arrived at our hotel to find that it is managed by an Aussie couple from Sydney. This is obviously a devious plan to get us ready for home.

Monday 20th August

Sometimes you get things very right. We bought our Stonehenge tickets online for a 10am entry. We headed there nice and early, driving past the pile of rocks on our way, where the traffic slowed as everybody had a good look. Parking at that time was easy and close to the visitor centre, no queues, and straight on the shuttle to the stones. There were a few tour buses already there but otherwise it was pretty quiet. But, by the time we were done at 11 there were a dozen buses and the car park was full.

As for the stones - pretty impressive, as well as the surrounding burial mounds. 4500 years old - imagine the manual labour required to get these stones there, and standing.

Fairly quiet here at 9.30am. Pretty amazing when you realise
it is all done with manual labour.

 

Odette came for a look too.

From there we headed to Salisbury to look at the cathedral - by this time the traffic was barely more than crawling along the road by the stones. Here again we finally got it right. A number of cities we have visited have a large park and ride set up and finally we decided to investigate rather than drive into the city and do the awful hunt for parking. Bonus - to park the car was free, and at the moment the bus is free. So easy!

Visited Salisbury cathedral which began construction in 1220. In the chapter house is one of four remaining copies of the Magna Carta. The print on this is so tiny - they had a translation there. The Magna Carta formed the basis for the American Bill of Rights.

Beautiful floral displays in the town of Salisbury.

Some lovely old buildings throughout the town.

Had to get a photo of a phone box. When we were driving in Scotland
in many out of the way places we would come across phone boxes
that still contained phones and hadn't been vandalised.
We presume the phones still worked - maybe a necessity
in some of those places because cell phone coverage was often iffy.

Salisbury cathedral.

This prism of glass was engraved with views of the cathedral.
Was given in memory of someone whose details I can't remember.

Part of the cloisters.

Lunch in Salisbury then back to the hotel to organise the suitcases.