Stonehenge and Bournemouth, England

During one of the weekends that I had free on my visit to the UK, I decided that since I had a rental car and it was one of the few times it would make a lot of sense, and so with myself and a friend, we targeted Stonehenge as the travel destination.

Hours: Spring (1 Apr to 31 May) 09.30 - 18.00, Summer (1 Jun to 31 Aug) 09.00 - 19.00,
Autumn (1 Sept to 15 Oct) 09.30 - 18.00, Winter (16 Oct to 15 Mar) 09.30 - 16.00 (16Mar to 31Mar) 09.30 to 18.00
Boxing Day and New Year's Day 10.00 - 16.00
Admission: Adult - £7.80, Child (5 - 15) - £4.70, Child (Under 5) - Free, Concession (student, over 60) - £7, Family Ticket (2 adults + up to 3 children) - £20.30, English Heritage and National Trust Members - Free

Without a car it can be a little challenging to get there, you would need to catch one of the various tour buses from a nearby village or from London directly.  These tend to be crowded and you lack the convenience of being able to take your time along the way and to arrive when you please.  Some information about alternative transportation methods can be found in my references section at the bottom of this entry.

Located in Wiltshire, England and surrounded by beautiful farmland Stonehenge is still a place where you can almost feel history.  There are a considerable number of theories about how Stonehenge was built, for what purpose and I honestly don't want to get into too much scholarly debate about that in a blog which is mostly about the beauty of travel.  So let me just say this, of all of the destinations I have visited so far, this one really felt important for some reason I couldn't define.  It is after all just a collection of rocks in a field.

 Ok they are really quite huge rocks...

I get the feeling you are not going to let me away with so little information, so fine... one of the more interesting stories is that Arthurian legend (you know Arthur and Merlin, swords in rocks, etc) version of how Stonehenge was formed, basically the English heard about these amazing healing rocks which had been placed in Ireland by some giants, and they were quite famous for their healing powers.

Being a right English bastard the king at the time Aurelius Ambrosius wanted to create a monument to a bunch of soldiers who had died for him, so naturally the English go to Ireland and kill an awful lot of Irishmen only to discover that these giant rocks are actually a bit of a pain to move!

I laugh at the foolish Englishmen attempting to move such enormous things, so of course Merlin being the slippery wizard that he is devises a method to transport the rocks, and then convinces the giants to help him put it all together where it stands today.

This rock also comes with a fairly entertaining story, this is the Friar's Stone, or Heel Stone.

Basically if you are standing in the middle of Stonehenge and look at this stone, AND it is summer solstice, the sun rises over this stone.... but that is not the interesting part... how did it get there?

Well rumour has it that originally the Devil bought all the stones from an old Irish woman, while he was transporting them all to England and one of the stones dropped into the Avon river.

An elderly friar laughed and said "Nobody will ever know how these stones got here!"

The Devil being in no way a man for shenanigans yelled "That's what you think!" and hurled one of the stones at the Friar which caught him in the heel and has remained there ever since.

 And so with my visit to Stonehenge concluded and some daylight left still, it was decided to take a bonus adventure to the seaside! So we set off for Bournemouth with absolutely know idea what such a place would be like, only that it would have a beach and it was NOT Brighton.

Looking every bit the seaside town, Bournemouth was a really pleasant surprise location, to the left of this street was a most excellent pub serving steak style meals, and traditional pub offerings such as Bangers and Mash! (this is one of my favourite meals of all time, there is no accounting for taste)

The pier is also a ferry terminal I believe, so you could theoretically travel from here to Brighton or other such places, but we had arrived quite late and only really had time for a quite brief stroll along the beach after dinner, and a quick few photos of the sun set.

The beach at Bournemouth I suspect during summer would be really quite nice, and was significantly less pebbley than I had been led to believe all English beaches were.  Worth noting as well for anyone familiar with really old English comedy, Bournemouth is part of Dorset! If you haven't ever seen the film "Five Go Mad in Dorset" by Comic Strip, you owe it to yourself to find it!

Next time: Toyohashi, Japan! And then Paris, France!

References:
The Stonehenge Wikipedia Entry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge
Stonehenge Visitors Information Site - http://www.stonehenge.co.uk
Bournemouth Wikipedia Entry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bournemouth
Five Go Mad In Dorset - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_go_mad_in_dorset



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