Stone Un-hinged
After the moving and amazing experiences of my morning at Salisbury Cathedral, I was primed for a wonderful afternoon at Stonehenge. I have studied and admired the prehistoric standing stones for almost as long as I’ve dreamed of Loch Ness. My plan was to use the hop-on hop-off tour company I’d used in other English cities to get me out there and back because their price included transportation and entry fees for less than the public bus fare and the entry fee combined. I had had particular success with such things in Sacramento and Edinburgh and so did not question the plan at all. That was a mistake.
In the other cities I’d visited, the tour had been chalk full of history and educational information, making the trips rich in information as well as beauty. Much to my surprise, the tour guide for our Stonehenge tour was NOT this way, but instead spent most of the trip talking about the lay lines and magical properties of the site. At one point she went so far as to pull out divining rods and have various members of the tour group walk around holding them out to see if they would cross. I try and be supportive of other people’s belief systems, but this was just a bit nutty to me. She did do a good job though of giving some of the folk lore that surrounds the site, which was enjoyable.
That said, the site was gorgeous and my pictures of the stones came out beautifully. The rain (it was definitely pouring by this time) made the sky grey and the soaked the stones to a dark color which contrasted against the sky and green grass beautifully. I was cold by the time I got back on the bus to return to the train, but once the tour guide left us to our selves I found the entire trip to be thoroughly satisfying.
