Why yes I made it over to Europe after a couple of very uneventful flights (whew)! I arrived in London on Wednesday morning where I met my aunt and uncle. We somehow maneuvered my luggage onto the bus and up three flights of stairs to their flat in Kingston upon Thames. After a quick shower and repacking, we headed to the Surbiton train station to catch a train to take us to Salisbury, which we used as our home base this weekend. We arrived in Salisbury late afternoon, checked into our hotel, and got right to the sightseeing! We walked around Salisbury for a while and say the cathedral which is amazing! We were even able to hear a bit of evening prayer sung by the choristers, which was incredible! Salisbury is a great city; big enough that there's plenty to do, but small enough that you can walk from one end of the city center to the other in 20 minutes or less. The weather was overcast and chilly, but didn't rain! After dinner, we went to bed early (9 pm whoo go crazy!), as I was jet-lagged and we had a full day of us in the morning.
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| View of Salisbury Cathedral |
Thursday morning we got up and hopped on a bus to visit Stonehenge! I was quite excited to see Stonehenge as I have heard so much about it and there is so much mysticism about it. The first view of Stonehenge is very anticlimactic. It sits right beside a highway through the countryside, so it almost sneaks up on you. But once you walk up to the site, it really is incredible! It is amazing to think that these stones are not only 5000 years old, but that they were brought here from another site by river and dragged over 2 miles to this spot! The fact that I was standing on a site where people have come for over 5000 years amazed me. We lucked out with the weather since it was supposed to rain all day, but didn't rain once, even though it was overcast! I definitely stuck out as an American seeing as I was the only one dressed in a jacket, and a bright blue Northface at that! After seeing Stonehenge, we took the bus to Old Sarum about 30 minutes away. Old Sarum is a giant earthwork that was built in 500 B.C. and has been used by people ever since! The most famous person to use Old Sarum is William the Conqueror, who called the lords to pay homage to him there in 1085. It was really cool to once again think that so many people, both famous and not, had set foot on that site and had put their own touch on history.
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| Stonehenge what what!! |
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| Old Sarum |
After we got back from Stonehenge and Old Sarum, we walked around Salisbury some more. We went back to the Cathedral to see the Chapter House, where one of the original 4 versions of the Magna Carta is held! That was also amazing and we were able to talk with one of the woman who works there who gave us some insider tips. We also talked about her trip to Chicago back in the 70's when she expected it to be like Starsky and Hutch with cars whipping around corners haha. Bath was the next city on our stop, which is actually where my uncle went to university for his master's degree. The city is built almost entirely with bath stone, an almost buttery looking stone. We walked around the city saw the Roman baths, the Circus, and the Royal Crescent, which are all famous sights in the city. Of course throughout all of these visits, we stopped at the local pubs for a pint for a quick break during the day. The last stop in our trip was to Avebury, another site similar to Stonehenge. Avebury is a town which grew up around these stones. The stones also have a mystical feel to them and there was actually a prayer service/worship service/festival that was going on while we were there.
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| Roman baths |
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| Avebury stones |
So all in all it was a fabulous trip... and only more is yet to come in and around London!
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