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.

Hello Again!

...and we're back!

It's been exactly four weeks since I last posted, and to be honest, I didn't see myself coming back to blogging this soon, but for some reason, today, for the first time in months, I felt compelled to post a story on Instagram and inspired to write a little post here.

Part of me has missed blogging over the last month - I do feel a bit of nostalgia for the period of time in 2021, where I couldn't wait to sit down in front of my laptop every weekend with a mug of tea or coffee and create something that really sparked joy in me, whether that was a recap of somewhere I'd visited locally, or something else about the topic of travel in general. Funnily enough, that was a very difficult, dull and uncertain period in my life, and a time when I didn't travel much at all, but was also the time when I was most passionate and full of ideas and inspiration for this travel blog.

On the other hand, it has felt freeing to give myself a break from blogging. I've realised that writing blog posts somehow, and without me noticing, turned from a weekly joy and escape into something that felt almost like an obligation at times, which is bizarre, because it's absolutely not an obligation in any way!

I've been thinking about how I want to move forward with this blog, and I think the answer has come to me over the last week or so. I want to enjoy writing here and for it to feel like a fun hobby again, and in order to achieve that, I definitely need to move away from trying to post to a regular schedule and instead only choose to post when I'm actually inspired to do so.

The other key change I want to make going forward is to write shorter posts - think the written equivalent of TikToks/Instagram reels, as opposed to YouTube videos! While I still want to write the occasional longer post (the lengthier ones I wrote recently about the places I've lived and the places I'd like to live are actually by far the two posts I've enjoyed writing the most this year), I generally want to keep my posts much more concise from now on. 

I was quite attached to the idea of fully recapping each big trip I've been on day by day in order to really give a proper sense of what it's like to visit these exciting places, but those posts are actually the ones I find least motivating to write. Going forward, I'm going to find new, more concise and hopefully engaging ways to recap my longer adventures.

And in the near future, I'm looking forward to bringing back my Country Guides series - I've got a few more guides to make and need to update some of the existing ones - and I also want to try some other shorter post ideas, including quizzes!

A Little Travel Adventure

Before I sign off, I want to highlight a new local place in Wiltshire that I visited with my parents this morning: Sustain Farm Shop and Café. It only opened recently, so it was our first time visiting, and we were impressed. Not only did it offer very generous portions of coffee and cake, but it also has a little farmyard with some gorgeous and friendly animals! It was a lovely experience to say hello to them. And if you've got kids, there are climbing frames and even a bouncy castle to keep them occupied.

I've said this before, but it's worth repeating: sometimes even a morning out in your local area can give you a little bit of the same escapism that going further afield for a longer period of time does.

I'm an ordinary person with an ordinary job, and I can't replicate the sheer volume of travelling that some of the better-known travel bloggers can. But I can present something realistic and achievable on this blog: the act of fitting travel adventures into your life as much as possible, whether that's through weekends exploring your local area, or the occasional bucket list trip to an exotic, far-flung destination. That's really become the ethos of my blog and I plan to continue in that vein for hopefully many years to come.

I'll see you back here soon for more travel adventures - big and small!

Bye for now!

Westonbirt Arboretum

Time to write about another local trip!

Last weekend, I went off for an outing to Westonbirt Arboretum with my parents, who have a membership there. It was the first time I'd been there since I was a child and I didn't really remember it, so it basically felt like visiting somewhere new.

It's a very big arboretum with a lot to see, but on this visit, we went to the Old Arboretum, as well as the Treetop Walkway.

One of the most fun features of the arboretum is the Gruffalo trail, where you can find six animal characters from the famous children's book. 

Some of the more nature-based highlights for me included the giant Californian trees and the Chilean araucarias.

The Treetop Walkway was also fun to do, and a different and interesting way to see the trees.

And as always, it was great to end the outing with a tasty coffee and cake in the café!

Although I'd say I prefer Batsford Arboretum, as I find it more picturesque and love its Japanese theme, I still had a very nice time visiting Westonbirt. Spending time in nature is always a good idea, and it's a great place to do just that!

Life Update and Spring Travelling

Quite a lot has changed since my last life update nearly three months ago!

Most importantly, Claudio and I have decided that we see a future for ourselves living and working in the London area, and we're now going ahead with getting a UK partner visa sorted. There's a lot to do in order to get all the necessary documents together, but if everything goes to plan, we'll be able to properly start our life together within the coming months, and ideally be living in our own place by the end of the year.

The other exciting news is that we've officially booked our wedding for December! We're going to be getting married at a beautiful location on the beach in Chile, which is just a dream come true. Of course, there's lots to organise for both the wedding and the honeymoon afterwards, but we're very excited about it all!

So, as you might imagine, we're very busy at the moment, and I haven't had so much time for this blog. But we've still managed to go on several travel adventures of varying sizes over the last few months, which I'll be sharing here today...

The Corinium Museum

After getting back from Rome, we wanted another fix of Roman history, so headed to the Corinium Museum in Cirencester. Cirencester was actually the second largest city in Roman Britain, so there are plenty of incredible artefacts from the era that have been discovered there, including beautiful mosaics and statues of Roman gods. It's amazing to think that the area we're living in at the moment was once part of the same empire that gave us places like the Colosseum and the Forum! 

Overall, visiting the museum was really interesting, and gave me a real sense of travelling to a different country - despite the fact that the artefacts all come from my local area!

An Easter Walk

After our Easter lunch, we decided to burn off some calories with a long walk over to the next village and back again in a circular route. For some reason, despite having lived in the same village most of my life, I'd never done this particular route before, and now wish I had! We passed through lots of peaceful countryside, and even made friends with a lovely horse!

STEAM - Museum of the Great Western Railway

We travelled to another period of history, when visiting STEAM museum in Swindon. I loved going to this museum as a child, but probably hadn't been since I was in primary school, so it was great to go back again after so many years, and also introduce it to Claudio.

The museum covers the history of the Great Western Railway, and is really fun and interactive - I remember that it really stood out to me when I was younger, because there weren't many museums around at the time that were so entertaining.

It starts with some sections about the different jobs that people did on the railways, and after that, you have the chance to see some actual steam trains - a couple of which you can go inside, and one of which you can walk underneath to see all of its components. You even have the chance to drive a train simulator and have a go at working in the signal box!

But my favourite parts are towards the end of the museum. Firstly, there's a recreation of a 1950s railway station, complete with a working vintage chocolate vending machine! And then, there's a section all about the popularisation of seaside holidays that came about as a result of the Great Western Railway. There are plenty of vintage travel posters to look at, which was fascinating for me as a marketing professional with a passion for travel.

Of course, life in the 1950s had its drawbacks, but STEAM museum definitely makes you feel like you've returned to a more glamorous age for a little while!

Pittville Park, Cheltenham

Another exciting thing that happened recently was that I started driving again for the first time since 2016. My parents went on holiday for a week in April and put me and Claudio on the insurance for their car for the month, so that we could get around while they were away. Claudio has always been hugely passionate about cars and driving, but I was never a very confident driver, so I felt quite nervous about getting behind the wheel again. However, I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed getting back into driving - it gives you so much freedom, especially when you live in a rural area, as we do at the moment.

During the week that my parents were away, we went all over the local area, to places including Jubilee Lake, Somerford Common Wood (we didn't see any wallabies, but we did see a beautiful deer!), Lower Moor Nature Reserve, Malmesbury and Ashdown House. We had a fantastic time! But the first place we went, after dropping my parents at the train station on the Sunday, was Cheltenham.

Cheltenham has to be one of my favourite towns/cities in the UK - it has the beauty and European elegance of places like Bath and Oxford, but without the crowds of tourists. 

Although I'd been there many times, there was one particular attraction that I'd wanted to visit for years, but never made it to, given that it's a bit further out from the town centre: Pittville Park. This park is known for its lake and the grand, elegant Pump Room. We finally got there on our recent visit, and spent a lovely hour or two walking around the beautiful green space, before enjoying some food and shopping back in the town centre. A great way to start our week of freedom!

South Cerney

After our time in Cheltenham, we didn't want the day out to end just yet, so we stopped off at South Cerney in the Cotswold Water Park for a little walk. This is such a pretty Cotswold village, which is somewhat off the radar compared to other, similar villages, making it very tranquil. We were lucky enough to spot two deer there!

Our Cotswold Road Trip!

During the week, I booked a day off from work, allowing us to take a longer trip. We decided to use this day to go up through the Cotswolds to Moreton-in-Marsh, where we visited Batsford Arboretum followed by Sezincote. These are two places that I discovered during the pandemic travel restrictions, and are actually two of my favourite places in the entire Cotswold area, though they are not that well known - perhaps because they are not your typical Cotswold destinations. Batsford Arboretum is heavily inspired by Japan, and boasts the UK's national collection of cherry blossom trees, along with a Japanese rest house and many other Japanese garden features. And literally just across the road, you'll find Sezincote House and Gardens, which takes inspiration from India, with a beautiful palace reminiscent of the Taj Mahal, and picturesque gardens filled with exotic plants and even a Hindu temple. So going to both places feels like taking a fabulous journey through Asia in just one day, without even having to leave the UK!

On the way back, we continued our world travels with a stop off in the Venice of the Cotswolds, Bourton-on-the-Water! Claudio had never visited this particular Cotswolds village before, and he absolutely loved it! We finished off our afternoon there with a traditional afternoon tea next to the river, which felt like a really special experience.

New Zealand!

I didn't expect to visit New Zealand this April, and I certainly didn't expect to go there and back home in one evening after work - but that's exactly what happened! 

Yes, unsurprisingly, this wasn't the actual country of New Zealand, but rather a hamlet with the same name in Wiltshire! It's only about 20 minutes away from my house, and I'd always been intrigued by it, purely because of its name, but had never actually been there. However, having access to the car gave us a perfect opportunity to take an evening drive there and get photos with the road sign!

New Zealand is basically just one road with some cottages and farms, so not exactly a tourist destination. However, we did see some gorgeous Shetland ponies and a muntjac deer there, and the scenery was very green and pretty. Maybe it's not too dissimilar from the other New Zealand after all!

Easton Grey

Another new place we recently visited was the village of Easton Grey, near Malmesbury. If you're ever visiting the Cotswolds area and want to discover a picture-perfect village without any tourists, this is the place you need to go! 

In fact, my parents actually only found out about it by accident a few months ago, when a road was closed, and they had to pass through it in order to get to where they were going. They later told us that it looked just like Castle Combe, and I can now confirm that that's true!

Though it's lacking the tearooms of more touristic Cotswolds villages, Easton Grey is just as beautiful. Claudio and I had a lovely, tranquil walk around the village, and definitely appreciated the lack of selfie sticks and coaches!

A Cotswold Water Park Walk

April 31st was our last day with car insurance, and we decided to make the most of it by driving up to the Cotswold Water Park after work. We parked at the car park by The Gateway Café and had a nice evening walk around the lake by the De Vere Hotel. It's a really beautiful place to walk, and to make things even better, we said hello to some cats!

Our Weekend in London!

To celebrate the anniversary of our civil union, Claudio and I spent a weekend in London. This was when Claudio had his first experience of West End theatre! We went to see Les Misérables, which is my absolute favourite show of all time, and I was really pleased that he enjoyed it just as much as I did!

We had a fabulous few days exploring London's sights, including Big Ben (the first time Claudio saw it properly, without scaffolding!), Tower Bridge, the National Gallery (very busy but amazing paintings), Fortnum & Mason (more of an experience than a shop), and Greenwich Park.

We actually stayed just outside of Greater London, partly to save money, as hotels in the centre are hugely expensive these days, but also to get an idea of what it would be like to live a little outside the capital and commute in. This gave us the chance to see some different parts of the city while travelling in by train or bus, and gave us some ideas of areas we could potentially live in in the future!

Chepstow

During the May heatwave, we crossed over the Severn Bridge into Wales to visit my godfather in Chepstow. Claudio loved seeing the castle, and it was a lot of fun crossing the little bridge between England and Wales!

We had lunch at Panevino Italian restaurant at an outside table right by the river, and with the sunshine, it almost felt like being on holiday somewhere in the Mediterranean. The food was delicious, and we were delighted to meet a lovely cat there!

Broadway Tower and Nuclear Bunker

One of the places in the Cotswolds that Claudio really wanted to visit was Broadway Tower. So on another sunny Saturday, we went up into Worcestershire for a nice day out.

It was great to visit the little castle, which really looks quite magical, located on one of the highest hills in the Cotswolds and surrounded by rolling countryside.

We were also lucky enough to see (and stroke!) some beautiful and very tame deer while we were there!

In addition to the castle, Claudio and I visited the nearby nuclear bunker, which was quite fascinating. It was built during the cold war and has been preserved to look as it did then. You have to climb down a steep ladder to get in, and once inside, you can see all of the different equipment that the volunteers who looked after the bunker used to use. It gives you a real insight into a very interesting period of history.

Well, I think that just about covers everything!

We've had some really great times over the last few months, and we even managed to fit in another, slightly longer trip last week that I'll be writing about next.

Sadly, Claudio will now be returning to Chile, as he has to go back there in order to complete the visa application. We're hopeful that it will be approved quickly, and we'll be able to start setting up our life together in the UK in a few months time.

So, there won't be any big travels featured on this blog for a little while, but there are lots of things I plan to write about, and I also want to pay some attention to my Instagram, Pinterest and Pexels accounts, which have been a little bit neglected recently.

See you back here very soon!