Heather and Greg

Staying in Salisbury was an excellent chance to visit things like Avebury and Stonehenge, so of course, we did! If you haven't heard of Avebury, look it up. It's older then Stonehenge--built about 5000 years ago, and much, much larger. A village actually sits in the center of it.


These stones seem to indicate a pathway going into Avebury. We actually came into town the wrong way and stumbled upon them, how lucky!!




Me with one of the giant rocks. None of the rocks have been worked with tools so they had amazing character.





A view of part of the circle. The entire circle has a diameter of 1100 feet. Many of the stones were torn down by various Christian churches, I believe they thought the circle had something to do with witchcraft, which is totally poppycock. If you go there you'll see it has a wonderful soft feeling about it.




Silbury Hill. It's a pyramid! Yep, a pyramid, and older then the Mayan ones, created around 2660BC. How wild is that?



Back to Salisbury for a bit. Salisbury is a medieval city and was originally a walled city. Parts of the wall remain though they seem to cut through town now, instead of going around it. I love the mix of old and new like this.



Salisbury Cathedra!! How gorgeous is this? One of the four copies of the Magna Carta is also held here. I wasn't able to get a photo of it, due to obvious reasons, but trust me, it was there.


And, of course, Stonehenge! What trip to southern England is complete without a visit there? I saw it years ago when I was 15 but you couldn't get too close. You still can't walk up to the stones, but you can get a lot closer.

Big Ben in the middle, Parliament to the right, and the London eye to the left. Insert quote from National Lampoon's European Vacation here. You can see the London Eye from almost anywhere in London, it's quite beautiful. So was Parliament, but more pictures of the building didn't make my cut for the blog.



Its a law of tourism that you have to get a picture in a red phone booth. A law I am all too happy to obey.



Buckingham Palace. The flag raised means the queen is in. Sadly, she did not invite us in for tea.



The palace guards. What a dull job these poor guys have!! Luckily they let them walk every so often. It's in formation and it's very military like, but I'm sure they appreciate the chance to wake up their legs and get blood flowing again. Can you imagine if they actually did have to act and stop someone? They'd be too stiff to do anything. Truth be told they are there for image only, there were other men with assault rifles and gigantic biceps doing the real guarding.



HARROD'S!!!!! Of course no trip to London is complete without a trip to Harrod's. Funny enough I went only to the Origin's counter, past the purses I can't afford, to the food department where we spent most of our time. I know you are surprised!









After London I went south to Salisbury. This is the hotel we stayed at--it was built 800 years ago for the mason workers for the cathedral. The vine around the courtyard is as old as the building! I think the bed's might have been as well, it was like sleeping on bags of concrete.



High tea!!!! They had the most delicious cranberry, raspberry and elderflower tea. Yum.