The triptychs are 20 feet high! You can stand four men up them!
One of the most enjoyable things we like to do when we travel is find those cool, little known places to explore. Well, Stonehenge isn't really obscure by any means. And it does hold a special meaning for us, and oddly enough it's because of Spinal Tap. Like the OG one. If you know, you now.
After dropping off our suitcases at the B&B, we headed off to explore the town, with our first stop in at St. Thomas's Church. As in Thomas Becket, who went on to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. St. Thomas's started a small wooden chapel built around 1219 by Bishop Poore as a place of worship for those working on the site of the new cathedral. This was soon replaced by a stone building, which by 1238 was dedicated to St Thomas of Canterbury. Above the arch is a large 15th-century doom painting, "one of the best surviving", which depicts Jesus and the twelve apostles above portrayals of heaven and hell. It was covered in white wash for centuries, and restored several times. A local man, probably 85, stopped us and asked if we spoke English. He then went on for about 10 minutes about some of the history of the church and the organ. After he left, another older woman, also local, said "Don't believe anything he says". That is hilarious.
On to Salisbury Cathedral, a leading masterpiece of Early English Gothic architecture built almost entirely within a remarkably brief 38-year span from 1220 to 1258. That's crazy. It is famous for its exceptional architectural unity, the tallest church spire in the United Kingdom (reaching 404 feet), and for housing one of the four surviving original copies of the 1215 Magna Carta.
The church itself has many sections, some demonstrate the history of the church, some to memorialize local war heroes, all of it beautiful. There is a special display protected from lights in a special room where the leaders of the church used to conduct their business to view the Magna Carta. Its ONE PAGE. Teeny tiny print. I had no idea.
After touring the Cathedral and the grounds, we made our way through the town, and found a spot to eat (hmmmm I wonder what) at The Haunch of Venison. Ok even this place is crazy. One of the oldest hotels in Salisbury with the first record of hosting anyone from 1320 when it housed craftsmen working on the Cathedral spire, and apparently the most haunted. The enormous oak beams, which can be seen throughout, pre-date the building by several hundred years and are thought to come from early sailing vessels. The paneled bar counter has a pewter top which is one of a six remaining in the entire country. It is reported that the bar downstairs was used by Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower during the planning of D-Day landings back in 1944. And it was here that we split the world's largest serving of fish & chips. There are HUGE fries UNDER the fish.
The next day we caught a shuttle to Stonehenge. The visitor's center has some amazing displays covering the history of the area and how these massive standing stones were moved here during the late Neolithic and Bronze Ages. And these aren't even the oldest ones in the UK! Here's a video on other old structures in the British isles, including those brochs in Scotland.
The walk around the structure was fine, at least we had great weather, and no, you can't even get that close except during the summer solstice when the sunrise aligns with the Heel Stone (the stone outside the circle, there's an arrow in the ground showing the alignment of the sun), where apparently it's hippie central. There are Neo-Druids and Pagans, musicians and 'revelers', and New-Age Hippies, dressed in colorful, eclectic outfits, wearing flower crowns or antlers. Antlers? The funniest thing we saw during our visit was posters trying to get people to do funny poses (think holding the monument in your hand) just so they can get on the same poster next year.
Our next stop on or Vikings to Kings journey took us to Windsor, primarily to get us close to the airport, but hey, if Prince William is around we could have a pint. I found out that the Castle was closed when we were there - it's Tuesdays and Wednesdays I believe. Oh well, we still fit in a brewery, and several pubs. I mean, when in Windsor. We were searching for scotch eggs all day and only found one place that had them, but the sausage was blood sausage, so we passed. Another quaint and walkable town we enjoyed very much. Guess what we had for dinner?
Overall, this was a fun trip. I'm glad I got that NCL flyer. The world is an amazing place. So much history. We saw so many diverse and culturally important areas, and met the nicest people. What we didn't see were - puffins and enough of Edinburgh. We'll be back.
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