Wednesday Part 3 - Stonehenge

We weren’t sure what to expect from Stonehenge since its a site everyone knows about and yet not everyone has actually seen. But even the basic facts most people don't have right. You can’t even really see it until you begin to walk along the path. The tall vertical stones seem much bigger than they are. We had an audio tour for Stonehenge as well and started it as soon as Stonehenge was in view. Normally you can only walk along one side on a path but there was a roped off section on the grass that continued almost all the way around. Monday was Summer Solstice and there was a massive ceremony on site. It was really interesting to hear the theories on the sites construction and use. Apparently the people that built it were hunter gatherers which meant they had to work all day to hunt enough to survive. Therefore the site must have had huge significance to them in order to lose important hunting time to make it. Our visit to Stonehenge was only 45 minutes so we quickly had to get back on the bus and head back to London.

Our guide Trevor had lots of little tidbits and stories to share along the road including crop circles and Winston Churchill. He had several quotes about Churchill’s less than polite demeanor in Parliament including two separate exchanges with the same female barrister:

Barrister: “If you were my husband sir, I would put poison in your tea!”
Churchill: “If you were my wife, Madam, I would drink it.”

Barrister: “Sir! You are drunk!”
Churchill: “And you Madam, are ugly! But in the morning I will be sober!”

We both slept on the way home and woke up near London. We were dropped back off at Victoria Station and got directions to the bus station. But, English vernacular got in the way as we meant red bus and we were directed to the coach station. Buses are the buses that get your around town, the iconic red doubledeckers. Coaches on the other hand, are the larger buses that you would take a tour on. Victoria Station is on a large block and each side is a different form of transportation: bus, coach, rail and underground. We ended up circling the block trying to find our bus stop to take the 220 back to Wandsworth. But we ran into trouble on the way back as we weren’t quite sure of our stop in Wandsworth. We got off at the same stop we had the other day but it was a little bit farther down since it was a different bus and on the other side of the street. But we walked awhile until we found a station that had a local area map and headed towards our best guess until we saw some landmarks.

John was up at their second house in Snape but Maggie was up and helped up with some supper. We dragged ourselves off to bed and have no early plans so we hope to sleep in tomorrow!