Stonehenge and Salisbury

It sounds strange, but despite being from Wiltshire and having lived here most of my life, I've only actually been to Stonehenge once, when I was 9 or 10 years old. And the only reason I went that time was because my sister's French exchange was staying with us and really wanted to go! Actually, my family has always preferred to go to Avebury, as it's much nearer to where we live, it's free, and it's a lot less crowded.

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.

A Relaxing Weekend in Swansea

In order to make the most of Claudio's last full weekend here, we decided to take a little trip away. 

Initially, we'd been thinking of going up to Nottingham to see my old university, or possibly to Manchester, where neither of us have been before. But hotel and train prices are so steep at the moment, that it didn't seem worth it.

I then started looking at places a bit closer to home, like Bournemouth, where prices were better, but still not great considering a lot of hotels were badly reviewed. But looking at the different hotels, many of which had swimming pools, made us realise how much we wanted to go swimming! I hadn't been swimming since August last year, and Claudio hadn't been swimming for over a year, and we both were really missing it.

My dad suggested that we try Swansea - it's the city where my Nana was from, and we used to go on holiday there when I was little. So, I looked up Swansea on Hotels.com, and was very pleased to find a reasonably-priced hotel there - with a swimming pool!

The hotel we chose is part of a chain of hotels called Village Hotels. I'm not sure how long they've been running for, but I just started noticing them popping up on Hotels.com over the last few months. They all have a swimming pool and gym, but are quite reasonably priced (especially the one in Swansea, compared to those in England).

The Village Hotel Swansea is located in the docks of the city, which is quite a picturesque and modern area.

We were pleased to find that our room was very spacious and comfortable, and even had a bathtub.

After checking in, we went off to find some lunch at the India India all-you-can-eat buffet, which is about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. It had lots of different curries to try (including several veggie ones) and all of the delicious Indian side dishes you could wish for, as well as some tasty dessert options. We'd definitely go back!

We walked off our big lunch with a stroll along the beach and the marina. Even though the tide was out and the beach was a bit muddy, it was great to have some sea air.

Back by the docks, we had a look at the Norwegian Church, which is actually now a nursery. 

We then went back to the hotel to try the swimming pool!

In fact there was more than just a swimming pool to try out - there was also a sauna, a steam room, a jacuzzi within the pool itself (the same temperature as the pool water), and a hot tub outside of the pool (with hotter water). Although the steam room was a bit too hot for our liking, the other facilities were really nice to use, especially the hot tub.

The only downside was that the pool was open to members of the public as well as hotel guests, so it was busier than we would have liked. We went back again the following morning before breakfast, expecting it to be quieter, but it was actually even busier then.

But overall, it was really nice to swim again for the first time in ages, and to use spa facilities for the first time in years.

After our morning swim and breakfast at the hotel's Starbucks, it was time for us to see some castles!

We started off by walking into Swansea town centre to see the castle there. There's not so much left of it compared to other Welsh castles, but it's still quite dramatic to look at.

We then took the bus down to Mumbles to visit Oystermouth Castle. This is probably one of my favourite castles that I've visited in Wales! Not only is it a beautiful building, but it also has amazing views over the sea. 

You can pay to explore the entire castle, but we chose not too, as there's actually a lot you can look around for free. We spent quite a while there taking it all in.

Next, we went for a stroll along the seafront, picking up some delicious gelato at Verdi's along the way.

Past the pier, you can find Bracelet Bay beach, which is a really unspoilt beach with stunning views of the lighthouse.

We spent a really nice time there paddling in the sea and enjoying the views.

Overall, we had a great couple of days in Swansea, and felt like it was a nice contrast to previous trips we've taken. We realised that during a lot of our recent trips, we've walked for miles each day seeing different sights and often queuing at overcrowded attractions. While we love sightseeing, we definitely do not love crowds, and although we've still got a couple of very touristy places on our bucket list, we'd like to generally stick to more peaceful areas for our holidays in the future. We're not the sort of people to spend a whole week on a sunlounger without going anywhere, but we did appreciate the slower pace of this trip. We still walked lots on both days, but we didn't have to queue even once, and we felt quite restored after the trip, rather than exhausted!

Changing the subject to what's coming next on this blog, the truth is that I don't have any travels planned for the time being. We've got some BIG plans for December and January, but we want to save up a bit before then. Hopefully, once Claudio's got his visa, we'll do some little trips together, but for now, I'm going to focus on creating different kinds of posts rather than just write-ups of trips we've done. That's actually quite exciting, because I haven't really had the opportunity to try different things on this blog for a while, and I've got lots of ideas! My next post will be about a topic I find very interesting, and hopefully it'll be here on this blog in a week or two...