We arrived shortly after eleven in the morning. After greeting our daughter and her family, who we hadn't seen in three years, we were ushered (at their insistence) to an obligatory visit to Stonehenge to see the famous rocks. It was more commercialized than I'd imagined, though I should have expected as much. After parking in a lot, we made our way down to the entrance, which was situated between a museum and a gift shop. As with the majority of tourist sites, an entrance fee is required. Prospective visitors should note, "Entrance to Stonehenge is managed through timed tickets and advance booking is recommended. Pre-booking is the only way to guarantee entry on the day and at the time of your choice."
After showing our pre-purchased tickets, we made our way through the crowd to a shuttle bus. The ride to the monument was short, as was the walk up to the ancient site itself. Visitors are prohibited from walking close to and within the structure, and must stay on a walkway surrounding the rocks. Because of the crowds, it isn't easy to get a photo of Stonehenge completely devoid of people, but the opposite side of the walkway is so far away, fellow visitors aren't always noticeable in photos on first glance.
It was getting late in the day and we were tired after the long journey, so our next stop was a master bedroom at a thatched cottage in Irchester that I'd booked through Airbnb.
The English countryside is much as I expected it to be thanks to a steady diet of Jane Austen movies. As we traveled to Irchester, we admired rolling hills of green with an occasional sighting of sheep. And flowers, so many flowers of various colors along with poppies that grow wild. I expected the cottage to look like something out of Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility, but it looked more like a stucco townhouse with a roof made of reeds. Believe me, it was no less impressive, especially when we opened the back gate as instructed and walked into one of the many gardens we would see.
The cottage (actually two cottages merged together) was built in the 1500s and had, over the years, served as a shop for sweets and bicycles, among many things. Now, it's a cozy haven for its owner and visitors. The village itself was quaint and clean and dated back to the time of the Roman occupation. Roman ruins are nearby, but we couldn't see them on this visit. Next time.
Anyone who knows me knows I love history. Being surrounded by so much history was both awesome and surreal. But among the old is the new. In fact, the neighborhood in which my daughter lives was built on a site of a village that dates back to the iron-age. The old and the new was evident throughout the places we visited, but with the exception of our family and our new grandson, who was born three days later, it was the old we wanted to see.
Our next stop was an Anglo-Saxon church built in the 900s. Be still my history-loving heart.