Stonehenge, located less than two hours away from London, is one of the most visited sights in the UK. Even if you haven’t been to the UK, you probably have heard about it – a circle of prehistoric stones built in the Bronze age with an unknown purpose. Stonehenge, in fact, is a mystery for most of us. Being a curious person, my hubby decided that we should see the famous Stonehenge ourselves.
How we ended up in Stonehenge
In spring, we planned an extensive three weeks trip visiting the UK, Ireland, and Iceland. Months in advance, we booked a whole day tour that covered Stonehenge, Oxford, and Windsor castle. A bus full of tourists left London around 5 am since we needed to reach Stonehenge at 7 am.
Why so early you would ask? The general opening hour for all mortals is at 9:30 and the admission price for adults is around 20£. Unless you’re a VIP and decide to pay extra cash to see a circle of rocks from the inside. Then the tour starts around 7 am.
How everything was organized
Firstly, we saw Stonehenge from the distance while we were still riding on a highway. Once we arrived closer to the sight, we left our bus in a spacious parking lot. Since we were quite a big group, our colorfully dressed mid-aged guide divided us into two smaller ones, roughly 15 people in each. My husband and I were exiled in the second group.
While the first group entered straight into the magic circle of stones, we got our audio guides and walked around Stonehenge while listening to different theories about its possible purpose and other interesting facts. This is what all mortals do when they visit Stonehenge with a general admission ticket. You need to walk on a marked path along with a bunch of other fellow tourists at least a couple hundred meters away from Stonehenge itself.
According to our experienced audio guide, Stonehenge is a prehistorical monument built thousands of years ago by our ancestors to track the path of the sun. Another prominent theory states that it was built as a temple to mark a conquest of an enemy lands. It may also be a prehistorical burial site. And these are just main theories that have at least some connection with reality. Some people argue that extraterrestrials helped to build it. How kind of them!
Inside Stonehenge
From my writing style, you already might have understood that I was quite skeptical about paying extra money to hang around inside the circle of stones whose real purpose no one can explain. But this VIP experience wasn’t a total waste of time and money.
Before entering Stonehenge, our guide informed us about one and the only one main rule – DO NOT TOUCH the stones. No matter how much they would attract you with their charm, don’t do that. Otherwise, one of the two security officers will escort you out. And these guys seemed pretty serious about not letting tourists touch the famous stones with their greasy fingers.
If, from a distance, Stonehenge seems like some different size stones arranged in a circle, once you enter, it feels quite different. You could tell once there could be a building with real walls. Unfortunately, now it’s too difficult to imagine it precisely. Especially for those inexperienced in archeology or in general lacking power of imagination. Someone like me. But I could feel something that reminded an echo when you enter a huge hall. The sound structure, if I can call it that way, felt different there.
Stonehenge is made of two types of stones – the larger sarsens and the smaller bluestones. The dimensions of sarsens are pretty impressive: 4 meters high, 2 meters wide and each of them weighing about 25 tons. The bluestones are much smaller and don’t look blue, in case you’re wondering. Due to the thousands of years passed and environmental impact, its color changed, and to see its real blue tint, one should dig around one of these stones. More interesting, is the fact that deposits of bluestones can’t be found anywhere close to Stonehenge. It is believed that they were brought to this site from Wales (250 km away!) by a glacier or humans.
On some of the sarsens, we could see faded grooves or some marks. Difficult to explain what exactly they were. The fact is that they were old and our guide called them ancient graffiti. Since crows don’t give a f*** about preserving prehistorical monuments, they ballsily nested and shited on some of the giant stones. It’s so unfair that someone can’t even touch them, and some can literally poop on them.
Our guide also highlighted a different magnetic field in one spot in the circle. He even had a pair of dowsing rods to prove this and earn some extra tips. In a stretch of several meters rods actually crossed each other in his hands. I’m super skeptical about all these things. To show that it’s not one of his tricks to entertain tourists, he gave these sticks to everyone who wanted to try. People lined up to hold rods in their hands. And every time a man held the rods, they crossed each other. Unfortunately, not every woman could get the same result. Conclusion: Stonehenge is a sexist.
Stonehenge in a nutshell
If you would ask my husband if he liked visiting Stonehenge, he would definitely answer a resounding yes! If you would ask me, I still couldn’t give you an unambiguous answer. This place wasn’t on my bucket list but I’m glad I still could cross it out from an alternative „lamer bucket list“. And I’m still not sure if the price was worth the experience. Or maybe I simply don’t like mysteries and unsolved puzzles. Doesn’t seem that Stonehenge will give us clear answers any time soon, or even not at all. But if you’re into old stones (joking!), archeology, ancient history, you probably should make a stop there while traveling in the UK.
