Showing posts with label geography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label geography. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Day 10 in England, Part 2: Stonehenge

 

After plane tickets, the first thing that I booked for our England trip were these tickets for access to the interior of Stonehenge--right off the top of the budget, with everything else filled in around it. It's what I was most excited about, a truly once-in-my-lifetime-so-far experience, and I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you right now that it was EVERYTHING I'd hoped it would be. As in, I'd hoped that it would be the most magical experience of my life, the most awesome thing I've ever done, the most special family activity anyone could ever plan, and I'd take the absolute most coolest photos there, and I'd marvel at the size of the stones and the mystery of their purpose and their construction and I would have SO. MUCH. FUN. 

Goal achieved!

We drove straight to Stonehenge from Avebury, and arrived exactly on time. With these evening tickets, you're allowed onto the site an hour before it closes so you can explore the museum, but the site actually closes to day ticket entries two hours before it officially closes, so we had to show our booking to get past the blockade... which may have given all the cars behind us hope, as they all stopped trying to turn around before the blockade and instead got in line behind us and made the security guard have to turn each of them away personally, oops. 

One hour was NOT enough time to see the Stonehenge museum, but I was able to make myself stare at everything more quickly than I usually like to stare at everything, so I managed.

My favorite part of the museum was this set of sculptures that showed Stonehenge during its various stages of construction. It was used from the Mesolithic period, perhaps around 8000 BCE based on radiocarbon dating of giant posts that were constructed then, through the Middle Bronze Age, perhaps around 1600 BCE. For that entire time, people were changing up Stonehenge--adding stones and ditches and barrows and pits, moving stones to different locations, carving the stones, burying people and things, etc. Below is a sculpture of Stonehenge at what was probably its most elaborate formation, around 2500 BCE. In the middle is a horseshoe of five giant trilithons, encircled by a ring of 30 sarsen stones topped with lintels. There's a double row of smaller bluestones standing between the two sets, and some of those bluestones have evidence that something was also on top of them--more lintels, perhaps? More sarsens, now called the Station Stones, were arranged singularly at various points, including that one lying in front of the tallest trilithon.

Important note: I didn't frame the compass rose in my photo, but north isn't at the top. The winter solstice sunset is at the top!

And here's Stonehenge as it looks today. There's a terrific aerial photo in Stonehenge: Making Sense of a Prehistoric Mystery, in which you can actually see the location of the missing stones as "parchmarks," or brown spots, in the grass. The existence of a giant standing stone changed the soil composition so the grass doesn't grow as nicely there!

I got the compass rose in this one! North points right-ish.

Here's another excellent map of Stonehenge, with links that give you a close-up view of every individual stone.

The entire area around Stonehenge was clearly significant, as well, and the museum had an excellent large-screen film that showed the various dates of construction of all the various barrows and cursi and henges in the region, many of which you can still visit, and some of which are on English Heritage property. 

Happily, the outdoor part of the museum (and the gift shop!) remained accessible after Stonehenge closed to day ticket holders, so I was able to keep myself entertained by exploring how the Neolithic peoples around Stonehenge might have lived:


Here are some of the other important sites in the area.

Finally, an hour after the museum closed to day ticketholders, 30 of us got on a bus with our guide to drive across the site to Stonehenge. Included in our group was another family with kids, various tourists from other countries and across the UK, a couple who'd brought several instruments that they wanted to film each other playing within the stones, and a large group, maybe half of the total, who wanted to stand in a circle and meditate and chant together inside the stones. 

One thing that I didn't realize until our bus arrived at the site is that you can actually get a pretty good view of Stonehenge for free. The A303 drives right past it, complete with congested traffic since everyone slows down to look, and there's another small road--Willoughby Road, I think?--that intersects the site, with a walking path to a viewing point that's just outside the fenced-in area.

Also? People were living on the side of this road! There were a couple of permanent tents, and a bunch of campers, all along the roadside, where they just live within sight of Stonehenge. This is very historically accurate, actually, as archaeological evidence points to some type of community that lived around Stonehenge at various times during its original prominence.

I was taking a photo of the Stonehenge Cursus, but you can see a few of the tents and campers on Willoughby Rd. There were a ton more to the left of the frame.

Here's my view of the overall Stonehenge site while we got our lecture on not touching or climbing on the stones:

It was incredibly hard to stay oriented, but I think we're standing southwest of the stones.

We're northwest of the stones, I think. Later, when I'm taking photos of everyone silhouetted by the sunset, I'll be framing them either within that inner trilithon with the narrow gap, or within that sarsen stone with the intact lintel. We're only about a month out from the Summer Solstice!

Selfie mode! I'm a little southeast of Stonehenge, with the tallest standing stone that was once part of the center trilithon of the Horseshoe over my left shoulder. 

Lecture internalized, we were set free to step over the fencing and walk as we wished among the stones!

Trilithon, with a sarsen and its lintel behind it. 

I'm off-center, but this is a view from the center of Stonehenge, through the intact parts of the sarsen circle, to the Heel Stone that marks the location of sunrise on the Summer Solstice. To get the perfect view of the sunrise, you'd want to frame the Heel Stone through the center opening, not the left one as I've done.

I think she's looking at the remaining standing stone of what would have been the tallest trilithon in the inner horseshoe, with an intact trilithon beyond it.

Trilithon from the inner horseshoe, some intact sarsens from the outer circle, and a couple of intact bluestones.

I'm standing in the center, looking northeast towards the sunset. 

The openings in the trilithons that make up the inner horseshoe are quite narrow; they're much wider in the outer sarsen circle.



Looking south, with Bluestones from the inner circle, a trilithon from the Horseshoe, and a sarsen stone from the outer circle.
This stone is very special! See the line of carved graffiti, which probably dates from sometime in the 1600s? Below that are carvings of daggers that date from probably 1750-1500 BCE. There are just a very few examples of original carvings here, and it's theorized that these are meant to be viewed with similar carvings on a sarsen to its north to point towards the southern major moonrise. 

This was formerly one of the uprights of the tallest trilithon in the horseshoe, but it's fallen towards the center and broken into two pieces. It's been extensively graffitied with carvings over the centuries, and it's heavily damaged by tourists who've hammered pieces off of it.

The lintel of the trilithon that Matt is looking at actually fell in 1797, and lay on the ground until its restoration in 1958.

Southeast trilithon, with a seated Julie for scale!

These uprights are really cool, because you can see that the Neolithic people carved the uprights and lintels with mortise and tenon joints. There's even a lintel with mortises carved on both sides, presumably because they messed up the spacing on one side, so they just flipped it over and tried again on the other side!

This is the tallest standing stone at Stonehenge, at 22'7" to the top of the tenon. It would have paired with the stone next to it, now fallen, to make the tallest trilithon at the center of the horseshoe.

The sun is beginning to set behind the northwesternmost remaining part of the sarsen outer circle! The lintel and one of the uprights fell in 1900, and the lintel broke in half. It was repaired and restored in the 1950s. 
Selfie with a southeast Sarsen!

Tallest standing stone, with teenager for scale.

The sun beginning to set behind the western stones was my favorite part of our time inside Stonehenge. You see how many photos I have just of the stones, right? Now imagine about ten times that many family photos, with my patient family staged in various poses and groupings, framed interestingly silhouetted by the sunset and the stones, every time I could catch them. Send thoughts and prayers to the teenager, especially, who was required to utilize the several thousand dollars I've spent on her ballet training to leap and do other pretty dancer things while I photographed her. She can count herself lucky that our luggage constraints meant I couldn't require her to bring a pair of old pointe shoes for additional poses!

Looking northeast at the shadow of the Sarsen Circle.

The northeast section contains the longest remaining intact portion of the Sarsen Circle.


Looking east towards the two intact trilithons on the south side of the horseshoe, with the shadow of the one other intact trilithon and the tallest standing stone. Delighted Julie posed for scale!


Looking southeast towards the A303. I love this photo of Matt in the shadow of the Sarsen Circle!

We wandered the inner circle for about an hour, then finally our Day of Giant Rocks was over. Fortunately, our inn was just a few minutes away, and dinnertime was just a few minutes after that!

Here is a glass of water that is noticeable because of the American-sized portion of ICE!!! The American obsession with ice is because we've always had access to so much of it, what with our Great Lakes to the north that supported an industry of harvesting ice, packing it in sawdust, and sending it south. Countries that didn't have this kind of access never got accustomed to icy beverages, and now they think we're weird.


Actually, it was a running joke during our entire trip that England apparently places little value on hydration in general. The one time that Matt asked for a refill of his Coke in a restaurant the waiter looked so visibly disturbed that as soon as he left the rest of us were all, "OMG that was so embarrassing you can never do that again!" It turned out that the secret was just to order a hard cider instead of a soft drink. Refills of cider are socially approved!

We also had a little lesson in British food that we honestly probably should have already known. Some of us ordered pizza, and it came out looking like this and tasted absolutely delicious.

I demolished this pizza. It was so good! The little container of ranch was another funny American touch. They really wanted me to feel at home!

This, however, is my poor teenager's order of "nachos."


She has tortilla chips, a little bit of queso, a sweet(!) meat sauce, then little containers of sour cream, a kind of guacamole, and a tomato sauce that a nod to salsa. And five peppers sans heat. Her dismay was probably very similar to what European tourists to America feel when they eat at, say, an Olive Garden. 

The serving board was beautiful, though!

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Sunday, July 30, 2023

Day 10 in England, Part 1: All the Giant Rocks

 

When I told you that this was actual footage of me planning our trip to England--


--well... well, I didn't lie. I have so many photos of this, my Day of Giant Rocks, that I literally have to make two blog posts. To be honest, I don't even know if Blogger would let me upload as many photos as I have of this day into a single post. I can't even imagine how long it would take for my country internet to process it. 

So let's just confine this first post to everything that we saw before we saw Stonehenge, shall we? Here's the first part of our day!

  • Bishop's Waltham Palace
  • West Kennet Avenue
  • Avebury Stone Circle
  • Silbury Hill

But first, breakfast!


The Robin Hood Inn was our first and most delicious full English breakfast of the trip. On later mornings, Matt would continually try to delete items from his full English when he ordered, meeting with varying levels of success, but I was super into it. I mean, the beans may be a bit of a stretch, but who am I to turn down a little more breakfast protein?

Even though this was officially Big Rocks Day, culminating in our special tour inside Stonehenge, about which I was already absolutely out of my mind with excitement, there just happened to be a lovely ruins right in our path to Avebury, so of COURSE we had to stop at the Bishop's Waltham Palace first. 


Until the English Civil War, this was a residence of the bishops of Winchester, although it looks like a lot of other royal people and fancy guests stayed there, too. 


You can tell it used to be super nice! This is also only a tiny part of what it used to be, because after it was destroyed everyone around scavenged the stones for their own buildings. 


I will never understand how these huge fragments of walls just... stay standing? It's probably magic, because it's palpably magical to wander around them. 


As we were finishing up our wandering, a few small-ish children and their moms were arriving for what was clearly a playdate. The kids barreled around the ruins, completely immersed in some imaginary game, while their moms followed at a leisurely pace and chatted. Even my teenagers were struck by the impossible enchantment of a childhood spent playing at the feet of these beautiful, massive structures. It reminds me of what I think it must be like to raise children by the ocean, or at the edge of a redwood forest, or in the center of New York City--what would a childhood be like, centered somewhere that most other people dream about visiting? Does it add a boost of wonder to one's life, or do you take it for granted? Does your adult life feel extra dull, when your childhood was spent at the foot of an ancient castle?

Anyway, it's pretty!

Okay, NOW let's go to Avebury!

We got as far as the southern end of the West Kennet Avenue standing stones before I flung myself out of the car, which Matt conveniently (legally?) parked at the side of the road.

In the below photo, I am... yes, fine, I am hugging a giant rock. I cannot overstate to you how absolutely beside myself with glee I was. 


We walked north between the stones, following the Avenue to the Avebury Stone Circle:


These stones mark where standing stones should be. 


We had much of the walk all to ourselves, which made it a little startling to reach the north end of the Avenue, cross the busy road, climb up a little hill, and find that on the other side of the hill, the southeast part of the Avebury Stone Circle was this well populated!

Also, there were sheep! Welcome to the largest standing stone circle in Britain!


I don't remember why, but at some point I clearly gave Matt my camera, and so he records this next embarrassing segment. We've just recrossed that dangerous road, and on the other side is another field with even more of the giant stone circle. So... yeah, here I am literally running to the giant standing stones:

I do remember this, because I remember thinking that the ground was weirdly springy, and it didn't feel like I was putting any effort into running. I know that sounds unhinged, but later, Matt sent the teenager over to collect me, and she ran over, too, and I swear that as soon as she reached me she was all, "What's up with the ground? I feel like I could run forever!"

Anyway, here I am, having arrived at the stones after bolting away from my family without a word:


Matt was like, "What is she DOING?!", so he zoomed in. 

Um... I'm just standing stock-still, doing this:


A few minutes later, at least I've moved to another stone?


Yeah, that was when he sent the teenager over to supervise me. 

After several more horrifying photos of me embracing standing stones--I can't even believe I'm even telling you this, but I was definitely crying I was so happy--Matt suggested that we move the car from its questionable parking scenario to the legitimate parking lot for Avebury. We even had our official English Heritage Overseas Visitor Passes in hand, so legal parking wouldn't even cost us extra money!

I was all, "Cool, cool. Sounds like a great plan. I'm not leaving here, though, sooo..."

Matt deputized both teenagers to keep an eye on me, and headed back down the West Kennet Avenue by himself. I don't remember him handing me back my camera, though, but he clearly must have, because my camera roll switches from photos of me acting like I'm one second away from murdering Avebury and wearing its skin to... well, okay, these photos also look a little like I'm one second away from murdering Avebury and wearing its skin:


Eventually, it occurred to me that, thus far, I had only walked HALF of the Avebury Stone Circle. I immediately set off across an even bigger road, through the little village, into the National Trust site, and up another little hill. The teenagers both reasonably and gently tried to persuade me that we were going really far from where poor Matt had last seen us, and he was going to have absolutely no idea where we were and an impossible time finding us again. As far as I can remember, I acknowledged that that did, indeed, feel like a big problem, but nevertheless I was going to see the rest of the Stone Circle and hug it.

Goal achieved!

In the below photo, I am not IN the ditch. There was a sign that said that you shouldn't do that, and anyway, the teenager who was supervising me told me not to:


I swear to you that the ground around here was so strange! My kids haven't played chase since they were quite small, and yet walking this path around the Stone Circle, they struck up a spontaneous game of chasing each other around the stones, snatching the teenager's hat back and forth from each other. Running just felt so pleasant!




We eventually happened upon Matt completely by accident... or rather, it was completely by accident on my part, because I didn't have a thought in my head about where he was or how he'd find us; the kids were probably keeping an eye out for him, ahem.

Anyway, it was a great time for me to insist that we go into the Alexander Keiller Museum. I think the museum must be pretty new, because there wasn't a lot of information about it online? It's also pretty small, so I think I might have balked at the admission price if it hadn't been covered by our English Heritage Overseas Visitor Passes (what with the Dover Castle admission plus Battle Abbey plus the parking and museum here, we were already coming out WAY ahead with those passes!). I'm glad we went in, though, because it was AMAZING.


All these artifacts were found locally!



Red deer antler picks! Amazingly, picks like these are what the Neolithic people used to do all the digging at these sites:


I didn't think I was too unhinged in here, but I also think I might have lost some time, as even my college student finished looking through the museum WAY before I did. Matt even came back inside the museum to check that I was still there and hadn't wandered off to hug the standing stones some more. But there were THINGS TO LOOK AT! And LABELS TO READ!

Eventually, we really did need to leave Avebury so we could make it to Stonehenge on time, so we bought sandwiches and cold drinks from the little village grocery, and went to experience the trauma that Matt had already sampled in the Avebury parking lot. 

Say what you will about illegal roadside parking, but at least Matt could pull out of that spot! I swear to god the narrowness and tightness of the English roads are rivalled only by the narrowness and tightness of the English parking lots. We could not for the life of us figure out how to get our rental car out of our parking spot. I was behind the car, in the process of trying to guide Matt through the intricacies of a thousand-point turn, not feeling confident that it was even possible with cars inches from us on all four sides, when thank god the couple from the car on one side of us also came back to their car. The driver saw me struggling, American tourist-style, and because British people are THE NICEST PEOPLE, she told us to pull back into our spot and let her pull out first.

This poor woman then proceeded to have exactly the same amount of difficulty that we were having, because this parking lot was so ridiculously tight! Her companion also got out and also guided her through a thousand-point turn that took approximately one million years, while we just sat in our car like dumbasses and ate crisps (these things are so freaking good!!!) and watched. Then when she finally gave in and sold her soul to the devil for sweet freedom, Matt used the space she'd freed up to pull out right behind her and follow her out of the lot.

Thank you, Good Samaritan! We'd still be there without your help!

Obviously, after all that, I proceeded to insist that we had time to just take a quick swing by Silbury Hill. I mean it was RIGHT THERE!


You guys. The Neolithic people BUILT THIS HILL. Like, it's a proper hill! A big hill! They used those red deer antler picks like the ones in the Alexander Keiller Museum. And we have no idea why!

Ugh, I just love the Neolithic peoples so much.

Next stop: Stonehenge!

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