Gracy Bee

Stonehedge

Posted on April 14th, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: Places.

Towards the end of my stay in UK, I have been trying to arrange for trips that I wanted to go whenever time allows. This time, our Uni’s English department arranged a group heritage trip to the Stone hedge and off I went, on a Saturday!!

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I like archeology since I’m young. Stone hedge as I have read in books fascinated me and hence very curious to see how it is really like in real life.

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Before Stonehedge, our English Department also arranged to go 3 other places not far from the Stonehedge. Our first stop was Malborough (sound like the cigarettes name right? :P)

At the first glance, this little town is like no different from other towns in UK. However deep history lies here. This town is in existence since 1600s. Wow, and not only that, the buildings of 1600s are still around and SITLL in use. OOh…that is impressive.

The widest street

Malborough I heard used to be a big one- stop marketplace for trading. Hence this town has the widest road in the UK. See the pix? Not only that, the town is old, very very old. Evidence?

Evidence #1: The history

 

 

Evidence #2: Another history. See the date? Omigod!

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Next we arrived in Avebury. Here, we can find a circle of standing stones. Not sure what they are actually and not even sure why they are there in the 1st place. (oopss….supposed to learn heritage leh!)

The row of standing stones

 

With Felix

 

 

Somehow I like to take pix with stone to show how ‘tall’ I am.

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For the last 2 years’ summer in UK was a bit abnormal. When I first arrived in UK, the summer’s max temp was like 25 degrees. Now, the minimum is 32 degree and can shoot up to 38 degrees! Eh…at that point, I always wonder: am I in Asia or UK.

So that day, I remembered it was a very hot day and I started to get dizzy. Short nap in bus does help a bit, but the broken down air con doesn’t help. Alas…no air con in UK can be the worst thing that can happen cos the ventilation in buildings and vehicles are different from Asian ones and so can get pretty stuffy and hot.

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Stonehedge was our 3rd stop. I was quite excited when I reached the site. Stonehedge is at other side of the road and have to go there via underpass. Finally it loomed in front of me.

Seriously, I’m quite disappointed that there are barriers now that we can’t go into the site. rather, we have to circle round the Stonehedge. We have each a pre-recorded tape to provide more information of the Stonehedge.

Maybe because of that, I can’t feel and share the same sentiments and pride as the pre-recorded introductory tape of Stonehedge. I mean, they must have spent a lot of effort based on their enthusiatic voices. But sorry, I can’t relate to myself how Stonehedge was built, and imagined myself in there. Somehow, they are like normal stones to me.

Nonetheless, it still provide a good background for photograhy.

The Stonehedge.

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After Stonehedge, we set off to another place called Salisbury. Here is another historical site. We visited the Cathedral and the town.

This Salisbury Cathedral is unique due to their weak foundation of the building. Still, the building managed to stand firmly for few hundred years. Wow!

Salisbury Cathedral

AH……..world’s oldest clock mechanism?

The world’s oldest clock mechanism

Didn’t even know such thing exist!

Woah…what is this? U mean this dropped to earth 1 billion years ago?

As we walked out of the cathedral, we came by this. A sundial.

I don’t understand how come this is at somebody’s house?The below note is for the sundial

The error …ooops

And, a final note:

See how old this building is!

This end our journey for the day. Quite a tiring day. Ok la…not too bad for £13.

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