Europe - Trip 2

Day 2 - January 24, 2002

Todd walking the wall at Old Sarum

We really didn’t have much time. Today we wanted to see Stonehenge, Old Sarum, Salisbury, Avebury, Silbury Hill and Danbury hill fort and had an hour’s drive between them all. With memories and the solid practical and applicable experience of the petrified forest, meteor crater, Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and Vegas in our pocket we set off on this action packed day.

Todd bored with all the history he sees

Quickly we drove from Skirmett (near Henley) to Avemore, got a map and our bearings and headed immediately for Salisbury, figuring that we would do a loop back up to Stonehenge and Avebury. We did a quick detour to Danbury hill fort – the nicest thing here is that the iron-age hill fort structure and location had not been overbuilt by successive Roman, Saxon or Norman buildings. Wasn’t much to see but you did get an idea of the immensity of the place – over 250 metres wide to the outer walls/ditch. The surrounding area was a dog park with the inside of the fort being reserved for sheep grazing. Sue was waylayed by a man who went from, "Hello," to "the current debate over ethnicity and religion in schools." She didn't see the fort.

Next we hit Salisbury and Old Sarum. Sarum was the deconstructed remains of a Norman castle built for English royalty over top of an old Roman and previously Iron Age hill fort - beautiful views of the surrounding countryside and the seemingly manicured lawns that you’d expect in a ruin in England. The city of Salisbury was a quick drive through and a couple of pictures.

bigger than it looks

From here it was a race off to Stonehenge with a drive through the local British Army testing grounds – kinda weird driving along a road with tank crossing signs every coupla miles.

We hit Stonehenge and were originally unhappy with the size – we had figured that the structure would be much bigger. We only had 40 minutes until sundown but decided that we should actually pay the 8 lb each to get in. Much more impressive as you circle it (can’t walk through it anymore of course) and we got some fabulous shots of the site.

bigger than it looks

More racing later we actually got to Avebury as the sun was going down; Avebury being the site of the largest stone ring in Britain. A very quaint, and moderately ancient village had grown up inside the ring so you couldn’t really get a picture of the whole thing without a helicopter hire.

Lastly we drove another mile to Silbury hill after dark and attempted to get a picture of the hill – ended up with mostly a silhouette. Silbury is a 100 ft tall, conical, man-made hill with no apparent purpose built in pre Iron Age times. Many excavations of the hil have occurred but no-one seems to know what it was made for.

A dash back to Skirmett we met up with Tom and went to the “place up the hill”, the Fox and Hounds, a pub with a fab gourmet dining room attached. Sue had smoked salmon and Todd had the best pie (steak and kidney) that he’d ever had. Pudding was just as good with a ginger nut cheesecake and a seasonal wildberry crisp respectively. Was our chance to thank Tom for the loan of the nippy little Alfa. A short stop in the very, very tiny pub attached (seats for 9 and standing for another 5) and we headed down the hill.

The amazing thing about this area in the Chiltern Hills (other than the fact that it’s an “Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty”) is that the single-track roads here are absolutely ancient. They’ve been seasonally cleared of mud and debris for so long that the sides of the road tower sometimes 20 feet above the road bed. Windy and gorgeous they look interesting now, but even more special during the summer. Unfortunately we didn’t end up with any decent pix of ‘em.

absolutely fabulous weather...