New Friendships & Old Mysteries

On Tuesday I went on a little adventure to the charming town of Salisbury and to the world's most famous stone circle, Stonehenge.
I had heard that it can be a bit difficult getting to Stonehenge without a car or being on some kind of tour. Because I am still very fearful of driving on the "wrong side" of the road (AND to make it more difficult - I don't even have a car!), I decided to take the tour option. I went with an organization called London Walks and if you haven't heard about them yet - well, they are the best walking tours I've ever been on! Inexpensive, entertaining, informative, and with a HUGE variety of topics to cover! They also do these Explorer Days - which is what I went on. My guide Richard (in the red hat) was an excellent guide, very animated and full of information!

About Salisbury:

This small town, originally a Roman town called Sarum, is easy to walk about and is most known for two things: the Market and Salisbury Cathedral.

The market, which mostly features food and collectors items happens only on Tuesdays and Saturdays, so I was able to enjoy the crowds and sights of it all!

I had never gone on an all-day tour, let alone gone all by myself, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. The great news is that I didn't end up all alone because I met a new friend! Her name is Alisha and she's from Chicago. She was traveling alone as well, so we connected and enjoyed lunch together at Polly's Tearoom (See white building in photo above!)
Salisbury Cathedral is famous for having England's tallest spire (404 feet!) and the largest close (green lawn-ish area around the cathedral, enclosed with a wall or gate).

This water fountain is actually the holy water... a very interesting modern design and the water works like a mirror, reflecting the magnificent design of the vaulted ceiling!

The cathedral was beautiful inside, as most are! I am always amazed at the architectural design and what is fantastic about this place is that it was built in only 38 years! That may sound like a long time to us now, but back in the 1200's that was SPEEDY! Generally cathdrals of this size took more like 70-100 years to build.

Of course, there is always restorative work to be done on buildings as old as this, and when I saw these men hanging from the front of the cathedral's west end, I began to understand just how large the building is! When looking at the church from afar, the statues look smaller than "life-size" but in reality, they are BIGGER!

The Mystery of Stonhenge:

How did the builders on Stonhenge manage to move these HUGE stones all the way from Ireland and Wales hundreds of years ago - during a time when proper tools had not even been invented yet? Theories exist as to how and why they did so, and one estimation suggests that it took over 300 men one year to move one stone a total of 18 miles!! Amazing!

And to think that the stones you are seeing in these photos is only 2/3 to 1/2 of the actual stone itself! The rest is buried in the ground in order to keep the stones upright!

So what was the purpose of Stonhenge? Scientists believe that it was a kind of celestial calendar - a way of tracking time. Not day to day dates, or even months of the year exaclty. More like seasons - the equinox, summer solistice... that type of calendar.

Lambs in a field right next to the stones and a bird peaking around the top of one of the stones...