"Perhaps these ancient observatories perennially impress modern people because modern people have no idea how the Sun, Moon, or stars move. We are too busy watching evening television to care what's going on in the sky. To us, a simple rock alignment based on cosmic patterns looks like an Einsteinian feat. But a truly mysterious civilization would be one that made no cultural or architectural reference to the sky at all.”
~Neil deGrasse Tyson, Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
Net travel: 137 miles and 5,000 years.
Today's hotel tip: "Parking available" and "free parking" does NOT mean there is a parking lot for the hotel, especially in a big city. In Belfast, the free parking meant you could park overnight, on the street, wherever you could find a spot. In Cardiff, several parking structures that allowed overnight parking were within a few blocks walking distance.
After the breakfast buffet we've now become accustomed to, we grabbed our bags for the final walk through downtown Cardiff to our car. This required us to walk through a shopping center with a wall mural of books that have been "Welshified." Apparently this started as a pub game--to imagine popular movies and books if they had been made by and pertained to the Welsh.
We drove east and into England. Our first stop was Corsham. Corsham stood in for 18th century Truro in Poldark and a nice lady outside a coffee shop was pleased to direct us to the the filming location.
We spent an hour in Corsham, walking the streets taking pictures and taking care of our food and bathroom needs. We've developed a schedule of buying lunch and bottled water at a local grocery or convenience store at our first stop and packing it in a small, collapsible cooler. This allows us to eat when we want and not have to search for a lunch place. Let's face it, the protein-packed traditional Irish/English breakfast sticks with you for several hours.
We've seen telephone booths in some unusual places. This one still works!
As we tried to surreptitiously take pictures of the Corsham Court (an old English country house) through the bars of the gate without attracting the attention of the man in the visitors' ticket booth, a cat decided to loudly make nice with Jeff. So much for being discrete.
Stonehenge was next. I'm glad we included this in our trip! You can't tell in the pictures taken without people for perspective, but those stones are massive.
In addition to the stone structure, passage tombs dot the landscape. Apparently, this one is popular with the local cattle. I wondered if they take turns playing king/queen of the hill.
Next up: Salisbury, known for it's magnificent cathedral that houses the best preserved of the 4 remaining copies of the Magna Carta. We arrived too late in the day for a "tower tour" but as our first intact cathedral visit (instead of a ruin) we felt mighty impressed.
Jeff said "I saw the hogwarts boys walk in." The choir boys began practicing for the upcoming service, we we finished our exploration of the cathedral to their singing.
Having seen Stonehenge, it had been suggested that we needed to also see the Avebury stone circle and the West Kennet Long Barrow (a burial tomb that is oblong, rather than a circular mound). Reported to be "cooler" because you can walk up to the stones, we felt underwhelmed. Yeah, the number of rocks is impressive, but avoiding sheep manure as you walk to them was less so. I'm also wondering about the US Customs question have you visited a farm/ranch/pasture outside the United States?" and what happens if you answer "yes."
One final note about parking, even when the hotel has a parking lot, that doesn't mean it's easy to navigate!
No comments:
Post a Comment