After one week of tremendous classwork, it’s time for a field trip!
Over the weekend, our class took a day trip to both Stonehenge and the city of Bath, England. I was thrilled to not have to plan anything, which meant I could goof around and take pictures with my friends. I felt so lucky to be visiting Stonehenge, and so now I’m gonna shut up and talk about it!
Traveling to Stonehenge
We took a bus from the Oxford Tube, though from the looks of all the buses in the parking lot, there are plenty of shuttle services to get you to Stonehenge from all around England.
I would actually recommend taking the bus as opposed to your own car, because you actually have to drive past Stonehenge for a few miles to take the roundabout that will let you turn into the parking lot (at least if you’re coming up from the south). This not only caused mass confusion on the road, but there were crazy lines of cars waiting to pull in. I can only imagine how stressful it would be if we’d driven ourselves.
Traveling to Stonehenge: part 2
After paying admission, you’ve got to wait in line to board a smaller bus that can take you to the site itself. You can opt to take a longish walk, but we didn’t have to wait long for a bus. You’ll board a similar bus to leave the site too.
Learning what Stonehenge is (because I’m a dummy)
I’ll be honest, I didn’t know anything about Stonehenge, because before visiting, I never had any desire to. I had an open mind though, because I didn’t want to be one of those spoil sports who’s like: “It’s just a bunch of rocks!!! >:(”
On the bus ride, our teacher told us about how the stones were probably placed on top of each other by building giant dirt mounds, then rolling on the top-level stones with logs, if that makes any sense at all.
I’ll try and do an illustration later.
She said you can also see notches carved into the bottom layer of stones so that the upper-level stones could be held in place. My favorite fun fact was that the smaller of the stones of Stonehenge supposedly have beautiful blue crystals inside.
Exploring Stonehenge
Once we got there, I was first surprised and delighted to see how tall the stones are. They’re around 2 or 3 times taller than me, which is way bigger than I expected! I also just really loved being at a pagan monument, since there aren’t very many of them left in the world.
The site itself forms kind of a doughnut shape. The doughnut itself is the walking path that you can view Stonehenge from, and everyone walks along counterclockwise, marveling at the ancient structure, but mostly taking silly pictures. The inside of the doughnut is Stonehenge itself, and the outer region consists of grasslands with hundreds of sheep! It was amazing!
I loved watching all the sheep run around bleeting. It was in that moment, I truly felt like I was part of Great Britain.
Exploring around Stonehenge
Besides Stonehenge itself, there’s a replica of an old English village right next to the gift shop. You can walk around the thatched roof huts, and even go inside. I, of course, explored all the huts among the parents and children, and had a great time.
My Verdict
I was surprised with how much I enjoyed visiting Stonehenge! It was an interesting landmark to see, well organized, and I had a ton of fun taking goofy pictures with my friends. If you have the opportunity to see it with a tour or day trip, I would definitely recommend it, though you may not necessarily want to go out of your way just to see it.
It’s also very easy to travel to Stonehenge and Bath in the same day, which we did. Check back here soon to read about it!