Mysterious Stonehenge

I did manage to drive all the way to Stonehenge, which is really the whole reason I wanted to rent a car in the first place.

It is strange to drive up to it, because it is really in the middle of nowhere. You go past a roundabout and then all of a sudden there is a left turn for Stonehenge. Once you turn the corner then there are tons of people and it becomes quite chaotic. Big bus tours and lots of cars in the lot. But the tourist turnover is fairly high, since you pretty much walk around the rock and thats it. M said it was really impressive to see on the drive in, but of course, I was white knuckling the steering wheel and trying not to run off the road, so I didn't notice.

They charge you 2 pounds to park your car, but then they give it back when you buy a ticket. I thought that was weird until I saw all the people who just walked around the fence to get a peek in. Real admission is 5 pounds each, which is okay considering they give you a free audio tour to listen to.

I have to say, while I love those audio tours in general, the ones in England are a tad bit too wordy. I often find myself getting bored waiting for the people to finish talking. The Stonehenge audio tour was like that - I felt they were trying to over-dramatize the whole thing to keep people engaged and walking slowly around without piling on at certain places. I guess the traffic control did work to an extent.

I must say, even with all the hype and the tourists, Stonehenge is pretty impressive. While it is ancient and there are all these mysteries about its origin in use, it seems pretty obvious to me that it was constructed as a big calendar. Why the calendar had to be so large, who knows. But with the sun's position at the solstices it seems to be that must have been its purpose. There are also evidently a lot of kings and other noteworthy types buried in the mounds surrounding the place, as well as a lot of sheep now grazing over them.