{"id":3660,"date":"2023-05-20T19:21:38","date_gmt":"2023-05-20T18:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/?p=3660"},"modified":"2023-05-20T19:21:38","modified_gmt":"2023-05-20T18:21:38","slug":"stonehenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/?p=3660","title":{"rendered":"Stonehenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I figured it deserves its own post, seeing as how it’s the reason I came to Salisbury<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bus trip left from the train station, which is right by where I’m staying, so that was very convenient. I’d picked the bus tour option because it means I didn’t have to pick a time slot to go and see the stones, I could just rock on up whenever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(A much more diverse crowd, age-wise, than the Bournemouth bus trip; I might have been the youngest person on that bus at times<\/em>) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bus takes you to the visitor centre, or more accurately the visitor centre coach park, and you slightly confusingly bypass one queue for the shuttle bus to the stones in favour of walking to the actual visitor centre to join an entirely different queue for the shuttle bus to the stones. I took the shuttle, but in hindsight kind of wish I’d walked, because seeing the thing as you walk over the hill would probably be a pretty awesome sight. If I go back, and I might, I’ll do that; I walked back, and it was quite pleasant.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It’s out there somewhere, behind all the people <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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It was simultaneously bigger and smaller than I was imagining; Taller, and the stones are somehow more massive, but also way more compact in its footprint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m not really sure how one is supposed to ‘do’ Stonehenge, but what I<\/strong> did was to read the plaques, look at it and at the surrounding countryside, and do a very slow circuit of the thing, taking photos from time to time if I saw something that looked interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The crow was careful to stay on the correct side of the boundary rope, unlike at least one asshat I saw<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This is because crows are very keen on historical preservation of things you can perch on<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I tried to get a low angle shot of this line marking the solstice sunrises, but owing to mystical energies people felt compelled to stop right on that line & just stand there.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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As I said, I decided to walk back. It was a nice day, and it looked like a nice stroll through some fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Also, there was an ice-cream van <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Somewhere back there are the stones.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The visitor centre had a bunch of interpretation exhibits, models of how the site had developed and been reworked, that sort of thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second part of the tour bus trip was Old Sarum\/Sarum Castle, one of those “absolutely everyone who ever lived in this area saw this hill and built stuff on it” spots with a history going back thousands of years. Most of what’s still visible as a construction is comparatively recent, so less than a thousand years old, but some the earthworks are much older.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Looking at Salisbury Cathedral from inside the outer ring of defenses <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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As seen from the outside <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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As seen from the inside <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Inauthentic bridge to the inner bit, with authentic English Heritage Gift Shop<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I just liked the image; Giant tent with cathedral spire in background <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was a good day, and I’m glad I went.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I figured it deserves its own post, seeing as how it’s the reason I came to Salisbury The bus trip left from the train station, which is right by where I’m staying, so that was very convenient. I’d picked the bus tour option because it means I didn’t have to pick a time slot to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[37],"tags":[50,57,56],"class_list":["post-3660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk-nomadic","tag-salisbury","tag-sarum","tag-stonehenge"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/IMG_20230520_113718-1-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3O6N9-X2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}