Stonehenge ~ Ok, But Avebury Is Better

Ok. I'm going to give you a bit of my background so that when I go against the popular view and give Stonehenge a mere 3 stars, you will sort of understand why. Bare with me on this.

Ever since I was a small child, I had been enamoured of England in general, and knew that one day I absolutely had to visit Stonehenge. I can't tell you why that is. I was just drawn to it, like a magnet. It isn't that I believe in any pagan stuff, I don't believe in any God, per se. Oh I did go through a bit of a fad in my teens with Wicca, but that's just kinda normal, isn't it? The teens are for exploring and deciding, aren't they?

I was never really sure if I believed in a spirit world, or another plane of existence if you will, until my daughter Azure was born. She convinced me in rather dramatic ways. When she was about 4, we moved into a house in Gardena, CA. From the very first night, she woke up just screaming the most blood curdling shrieks I'd ever heard. She described to me scenes of bloody massacre that were just bordering on incredible. After the second night of this, I began quizzing theneighbors. Mind you, the child hadn't talked to anyone up to this point. We had no idea. The kid's visions were exact to what had occurred in that house. The father apparently had gone off his nut and slaughtered his entire family... In what was now Azure's bedroom. On the third day, we moved out. I was a believer. In what, I'm not sure. But there was absolutely something beyond this plane of existence.

So. I am not askeptic. Azure is 25 now, and throughout her entire life she has been sensitive to hot spots and occasionally would do things like say I'll have some ice cream too please before I'd made a move or said a word about having been thinking about grabbing a bowl. She quite often would say things like why is dad home early? only to hear the car pull up about 10 minutes later. eerie, that.

So I believed there was something about Stonehenge. Something hot, if you will, which drew folks to it. Now, I may not be as sensitive to things as my daughter is, but I have over the years developed a slight ability to feel these hot spots myself. Kind of like a slight tingle. I felt it a bit at Ales Stennar in the south of Sweden. I felt it stronger at Avebury. I did not feel anything at all when we finally arrived at Stonehenge after over 40 years of wishing to go there. Nothing. Nada.

I've given Lars crap about his It's just rocks attitude at other circles, but this time I agree with him. I'm sorry. But there it is.

A little background on the place is in order for those living in a cave, I suppose. Stonehenge is pretty much England's major baby as far as tourism goes. It is an ancient sight of enormous stones formed in a ring that dates back over 5,000 years, with the heel stone dating at about 3100BC. Henges in general are places of pagan worship. Many think Stonehenge to be the most significant find of all the henges in the UK, and some say it was built by the Druids. The Druids did not build it, but they may have possibly worshipped there later on... though I highly doubt it. Druids tended to prefer deep forests, not out in the open rocks. But at any rate, they close the place off to tourists on the Summer Solstice and allow thousands of worshipers to descend on the place. I'd like to see that, actually. Damn it. I was about 3 weeks early.

So yeah. What ya have here is a bunch of gigantic ancient rocks in a circle. Is it worth the 2-hour trip out of London to see? Well yeah, it kinda is. Admission is only £5.90 for adults, and you can get a family ticket for a mere £14.80 for 2 adults and 3 children. It isn't a hard walk at all, with a well-maintained path, which is fairly even. The rocks themselves are roped off so you cannot go inside the actual circle as a regular visitor. There are various tours available though which will take you there after-hours and those allow you inside the circle.

As you enter, you are given a little black hand-held dealy with a keypad. You enter the code for your language and then the number of the marker you happen to be at while walking around the thing and it tells you a bit of the history of everything as you walk around.

Now, this is visible from the road so you haven't got to actually pay a dime to see it. You can view it quite clearly from there. But you won't get the tour apparatus that way, and it really is fairly interesting if you don't already know the whole history backward and forward. Also, you can only get into the gift shop by paying the admittance, as that is located inside the turnstiles.

The gift shop is about medium sized as far as these things go. They have everything from really cheap key chains and writing pens marked with the Stonehenge logo up to quite expensive jewellery... and lots in between. I came away with one of the pens (£1.99), a T-Shirt which reads Stonehenge Rocks under a really cool picture of it (about £12 I believe that was), and a baseball cap for £5.99.

Also, there are a couple of little places to get ice cream, sodas, and pastries. I recommend you get the pastry called The Stonehenge Special. That thing was really the best part of the whole visit. Very yummy, that!

So. Like I said, 3 stars for Stonehenge. I do recommend you visit if you are in the area, if for nothing else than the been there, done that points... but the real find in this area is Avebury. It kicks some serious Stonehenge butt. If you have time to only visit one or the other... make it Avebury.