The Other Henge

We’ve been traveling Europe seeing and checking off the sites: pyramids - check, Ephysus - check, Stonehenge - ummmm. The guidebook said avoid at all costs. A boring bunch of rocks roped off beyond reach with a noisy highway beside. “But I’ve always wanted to see...”, “No!”, She said, “there’s better at Avebury”. And She was right. But who the heck has ever heard of Avebury? I want to brag..”and here’s me at...” but no.

She was right (She usually is, just ask her), Avebury lived up to its recognition as a world heritage sight. There’s a tiny village beside it to quench the thirst of those capable enough to navigate the swirling maze of roads between the “M” (major highway) and our stone Mecca. So our first stop was the pub. We wanted to work up to the visit and sitting at a picnic table quaffing Guiness with the Stones in view seemed to be the best way to start. And one pint became two so by the time we’d decided to it was time to get more intimate with the Stones they’d become epic in their mysticism and beauty. “These are great rocksh!” “Whoa! Look at those fields!” and so forth.

The Stones truly are wonderful. They’re big and heavy and put in place a few thousand years ago by someone with minimal technology. The experts agree they came from a long distance away but disagree on how they got there. “Glaciers”, say some “Druids dragged ‘em”, say others but we’ll never know for sure. What is certain is they’re very good for tourism so maybe they were dragged there by the locals in the still of night. What came first, the Stone or the Pub (that age-old question).

From there we braved the maze to Bath. ‘We’ is She and me with my sister who’s visiting from Canada and her hubby. We found Bath and only had to stop for directions once. That’s pretty good really even though we had google maps printed off, a guide book and map book. But I’ll have to tell you about the only hot spring in the UK next time because it’s time to go to work.