However, my partner Claudio recently mentioned that he really wanted to go to Stonehenge - unlike Avebury, it is famous all over the world as one of the great historic landmarks of Europe. Moreover, we're going to be out of the country for most of December and plan to move away from Wiltshire in early 2025, so it made sense to go as soon as possible. The journey from our house is about 70 minutes, which may seem long by British standards, but is not long at all by Chilean standards, so Claudio was quite happy to drive down there!
The one big drawback of visiting Stonehenge is the cost; if you book online in advance, it costs a little over £25 per adult, and it's even more if you pay at the counter on the day. Very expensive, particularly in today's cost of living crisis! There is, however, the option of parking a little way out from the site and walking along a public footpath to a free viewpoint, which allows you to see the stones from one side only. We did consider this option, but eventually decided to cough up for the tickets, in order to see the stones from all angles and to visit the museum. We viewed the purchase of the tickets as a kind of bucket list experience, as we don't plan to go back for many years - probably not until we have kids who are old enough to find it interesting, which I certainly didn't when I went at the age of 9!
The drive down was actually quite interesting - we went through Avebury and then through some other pretty towns and villages like Devizes, with lots of traditional thatched cottages.
After arriving and having our tickets checked, we went to have a look at the recreation of houses from the prehistoric period that's located just outside the visitor centre entrance. There's even one that you can go inside!
And then we got on the shuttle bus over to the famous stone circle itself.
Weirdly, it was actually a lot bigger than I remember it being (usually I remember things from my childhood as being bigger than they really are), and while I remember only being able to see it from a distance, there's now actually one side of it that you can see fairly close up - though maybe that was always the case, and I just didn't remember it!
This time around, I also felt more of a sense of power and mystery coming from the stones; it's incredible to think that they were put there 5000 years ago, and that some of the stones came from as far away as Wales. It's a shame that we'll never get to see it as it was in its heyday when it was fully formed, but it still looks pretty good for its age!
Having now seen both Avebury and Stonehenge in recent years, I'd still choose Avebury for a day out, as it's a much more relaxing place (and it's free!), but the formation of Stonehenge is very special and unique and certainly worth seeing at least once in a lifetime.
Back at the visitor centre, we had a go at pulling an extremely heavy rock, before visiting the museum. Inside the museum, there's a big circular room made out of screens with images of Stonehenge as it was in the past, making you feel like you're inside the circle. That was pretty cool! It was also interesting to see a timeline showing how old Stonehenge is in comparison to other historic places we've visited or hope to visit in the future.
We then headed south towards the city of Salisbury, stopping off at Old Sarum, which was once both an Iron Age hill fort and a Norman castle. I believe I'd seen it on TV once and been really impressed by it, which was why I wanted to go, but we quickly realised it's one of those places that looks much more impressive from a bird's eye view than it does on the ground.
Old Sarum is made up of two circular mounds - a smaller one on top of a bigger one - and while the bigger one is free to walk around (though there's a charge for parking), you have to pay £8 per person in order to walk around the smaller one, which has the remains of the Norman castle. Based on our view from the ticket office, there wasn't really that much to see there, and we'd already paid a lot for our Stonehenge tickets, so we decided to pass and just walk around the bigger mound. Our experience there was a little underwhelming, but I'd absolutely recommend looking up the bird's eye view images of the site.
Our final stop of the day was Salisbury itself, where our first port of call was the famous cathedral, known for having the tallest spire in England. It really was a majestic building to see and we're glad to have visited it, but unfortunately there's a charge of £12 to go inside (£10 if you book online in advance), and we couldn't really justify that after paying out so much for our Stonehenge tickets. You can walk around the cloisters for free though, which is a nice experience.
The rest of the city was also a picturesque place to walk around. It's very beautiful in a kind of Medieval English way, and made me think of York, as opposed to other beautiful cities near me like Bath, Cheltenham and Oxford, which have a more continental vibe.
All in all, it was a very fun day out, and felt like a real adventure, despite the fact we didn't leave our home county! Even though we're planning to move in 2025, it is nice to have places like these so close to our doorstep, and we're going to try to appreciate them as much as possible during the rest of the time that we'll be living in this part of the world.
