mybigadventures.com

We had prebooked tickets for Stonehenge today so headed in that direction just after 11. It took a little longer to get there than expected as the main road from which you get a view understandably crawls to almost a halt, presumably as people stare out the window and try and snap a quick picture. Either way we made it in the end just before out timed ticket slot ended. There turned out to be a massive queue however for members or prebooked tickets which made the prebooking part fairly redundant. From the visitor centre you can either catch a short shuttle bus to the site or you can take a stroll through the fields to get there. We decided to go for the walk there, figuring we would catch the bus back. Stonehenge itself is quite something to behold. It is quite a lot larger than I had imagined with some of the rocks standing over 7m tall (with a further 2m below ground apparently). We had a fairly gentle walk round the path, listening to the audio guide. We stoped about halfway round sitting on a bench to eat the packed lunch we had taken with us, the weather was cloudy, but it was still very warm. We caught the bus back to the visitor centre and stopped for an ice-cream (I had choclate, Dani had mint-choc-chip), before heading on to Salisbury.

We decided to look for parking in the city centre rather than opting for the park and ride, this seemed to work out quite well as we managed to park for free close to Sainsburys in the city centre (Dani had read that Salisbury council were offering more free parking to encourage people to support the local businesses). It was much sunnier here and we headed straight for the very grand looking cathedral. There was an installation of doves inside that is part of a city wide project to brin a message of hope and peace following the nerve agent attack earlier this year. Although the cathedral itself is quite plain inside it remains quite magificent, and the installation from the ceiling looked perfectly at home. Whilst there we had a look at the best surviving copy of the Magna Carter which resides in Salisbury Cathedral, there was a short queue to see it with a guide explaining its importance and then in the same room, there was some further information about how the ink was made from oak galls which were something to do with wasps.

Heading out, we stopped by National Trust Mompesson House, which is just a stones throw from the Cathedral. Mompesson is an 18th century town house and garden that was aquired in the 1970s. The house doesn't contain the original furniture so this is made up of loans from the wider National Trust collection. We managed to get in just before closing so only had time for a quick scoot about. It was pretty splendid inside, very much like the larger country mansions just on a smaller scale. The garden was just coming into flower and offered a nice view of the cathedral spire over the local rooftops.

Headed back to the cottage a little after 5, chilli for tea!