Stonehenge

 We docked in Southampton today where most of our ship got off and was replaced with new people.  We were able to get off after going through immigration at 8am and were on our walk to the train station and on the first train to Salisbury as quick as possible.  Again, Rick Steves led us straight there from our berth which was the wrong one from what the front desk had told us it would be.  We had looked again at the excursion 

because we weren’t entirely sure about the procedure from the train on, but someone had posted the instructions on cruise critic and we just followed those.  We got off in Salisbury, walked to the city center with tourist info and they had the tickets available for the bus, getting in to Stonehenge and Old

  Sarum, the bus was a little  late, which got me freaked out, because we couldn’t be wrong about the times back, but we were on our way to Stonehenge by 10:30am.  We were able to walk right in and get on the visitor shuttle to the site 

because we already had tickets and we got to spend an hour just walking around the stones and getting a picture from every angle.   We were lucky that there was no more rain since leaving South Hampton and the sun actually came out while we were at Stonehenge, which made the stones glow. 

John and I kept trying to feel something about the stones like this mystical feeling that this place was sacred.  Both of us didn’t feel anything in particular, in fact,

it didn’t feel as mystical as New Grange in Ireland, but it was still awe inspiring.  I mean, you couldn’t get close to the stones and that made a difference, where we could touch them at New Grange, but we both felt like we had seen something that 

 was very important.  Stonehenge is one of those things that you know that you want to see one day, but you never know when that is going to be---well today was the day and we got there on our own and saw it at our own pace.

Our bus also took us to Old Sarum which is the site of one of William the Conqueror’s castles where Eleanor of Aquitane was kept prisoner.  It is this hillside fort with serious moats and the first cathedral.  This was an unexpected highlight for me because I had read so much about this place

and it had a wonderful view of the Avon River Valley and Salisbury in the distance.  I had said that I wanted to do Salisbury Cathedral if we had time, but of course we didn’t have time.  John found out in the brochures that it houses one 

 of the 4 existing copies of the Magna Carta and the best preserved one, so we will be back here for sure.  In fact, that was one thing that we took away from these 7 hours on 

shore in Southern England, we will plan a long trip to just hang out in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.  I think a month should be enough….