OXFORD 5: Stonehenge! Avebury!

 

Sa May 14

Stonehenge

The mystery is revealed: today we and the Beloved Daughter took a field trip out to see Stonehenge, which none of us had ever seen. We had planned the trip for Saturday because Allie would be free that day; we lucked out in that Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day, a great day for Stonehenge viewing. It's about an hour's drive outside of Oxford. We also ended up going to Avebury on the way back, which is the location of a very different kind of stone circle. (The Google map inset is showing 1 hr 55 min for the combined driving time all the way to Avebury.)

We swung by Allison's place at 9:30am to pick her up, and then hit the road. . I can tell Doug is more comfortable now with both the left-side-of-the-road thing and the stick shift driving thing, but driving here still seems like a challenge to me. Roads are often very narrow; roundabouts are very common and sometimes confusing, and remembering the correct side of the road to be on still requires constant vigilance. On the plus side, drivers in general seem to be reasonable and well-behaved. It's extremely helpful that our Vauxhall car works with Android Auto, so Doug's Android phone can pipe navigation info to the car's screen, including helpful side info like where to find a petrol station. Doug said figuring out the cruise control on the car was also a big plus. It was quite pleasant today, driving through the green English countryside, and learning new English road vocabulary along the way, e.g. soft verges and laybys.

As you might imagine, Stonehenge gets tons of visitors, but the crowds are managed well. There's a beautiful, large visitor center; from there you get on shuttle buses to take a brief ride to the actual stones. You can also walk there from the visitor center, it's about 1.5 miles. At the site itself, a walkway circles the stones at a distance, but then comes up closer to the stones at the end. You can't go right up to the stones—there's too much risk of damage and wear to them. 

I found it very impressive to see the stones in person. You feel the size and massiveness of the stones more, and it's also interesting to be able to walk around them and see different vantage points. 

The line to get on the shuttle bus

Models of stages of Stonehenge construction

Avebury

After a quick lunch at the Stonehenge Visitor Center cafe (where we had, among other things, a "rock cake"), we headed on to Avebury. Avebury has the world's largest stone circle, but it is not as famous as Stonehenge because it's not as striking or impressive. The stones are more random looking and don't serve the astrological calendar function that the Stonehenge ones do. Also the circle is so much larger than Stonehenge's that you can't really see the whole circle at once (except maybe from the air). Because of these factors, it's a much more casual setting. A road and parts of the town actually go through the circle, and lots of people use the grounds for picnicking.

Original circle is now divided by a road and pathways into
four quadrants. Click to enlarge to see the stones. You can clearly
see the surrounding circular henge (ditch and bank) here.

Next Post

Tomorrow's our last full day in Oxford... Among other things, if the weather holds up we may try for a bit of punting...!