Today would be a relatively short trip across to Salisbury, but we thought we'd have a look at Stourhead, whose gardens and vistas we'd seen over the years in garden books, etc.
We didn't count on Saturday traffic and roadworks, and so the drive was a little longer than we wanted, and warmer too.
Stourhead is National Trust, and we discovered it to be very extensive and hilly with quite steep pathways, and we decided that we didn't have the energy for a prolonged tour of the gardens, and instead took some photo's across a gully to the 'temple' and views of still flowering rhodo's and beautiful japanese maples. We had brought our lunch, but had left some of it in the car, and so settled for what we had with us, e.g. cheese and biscuits and some juice. The estate, like most others of its kind is huge and even the trip out of the gardens and grounds takes a while before you get back to main roads, etc.We had good directions this time to get to the hotel near Salisbury, and caught glimpses of the cathedral on the way.
We'd been asking for ground floor rooms, partly to not have to lug the cases up stairs (very few Premier Inn hotels have lifts!), and also because Lee had been having problems with her knees, and the stairs weren't helping.
But, this room, although as good as all the others we've had, had shrubs up to and over the windows and so any breeze there might have been had no chance of cooling the room. (They don't do cooling either in most places, and also still have duvets/doonas, but hey, they are very good value).
Sunday, 5th June
Today we are off to Stonehenge, and thankfully it is much cooler, although we'd have liked some sunshine to get shadow shots, etc., of the stones.
BIG TIP - for this and other popular sites, GO EARLY!!
We headed up there straight after breakfast and got to the carpark around 9.10am, and there were already quite a few cars, and some buses. There were also those people who were not prepared to pay money to see the stones, and Gordon heard one English man say " I'm not paying good money to see stones stood in field!", and so he and quite a few others simply walk up and peer through the mesh fence!
It isn't the same!
Once on site, it is hard to describe how you feel, finally standing in front of one of those things you'd always heard about, and there it is, and they are HUGE! (If you arrange it , ahead of time, you can get a special guided tour in and around the stones, with only a few other people. That would be great to do, but we were unaware of it before we got to Salisbury).
There is a designated path around which you can walk, in either direction, and you can linger as long as you need to, and with each step, something else takes your eye with the arrangement of the stones. We decided to ring Mel at this point and tell her where we were, and so have a photo of Lee talking to her whilst standing in front of the stones.
Apparently the larger stones are from elsewhere in Wiltshire, and some of the smaller ones are from South West Wales! You cannot comprehend the effort it musty have taken to do it all, and then there are the reasons why.
We were out there for an hour, but by then the hordes were arriving, including busloads of very loud teenaged schoolchildren, and so we headed back, and got the book about the site and a few souvenirs.
Just a wonderful experience, and so glad to have been able to do it.
We ended up leaving via the wrong road, but went on to Codford St. Mary, which is mentioned in Gordon's maternal grandfather, Fred Johnstone's 1st World War diary. He was stationed there during his time in the UK, and we thought we'd like to see it for ourselves.
next - Codford St. Mary
That was so cool when you called! Isn't it amazing that you can call someone from all the way across the world and they can still sound like they're calling from the next suburb!
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