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Published: October 10th 2011
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I like to think of myself as experienced in the art of travel. For ten years now I have been picking up the same backpack and mascot alien, booking a random train ticket and finding somewhere new. Somewhere new almost always involves a stay in a youth hostel, and a stay in a youth hostel almost always involves meeting a random stranger, striking up conversation across bunks and drinking far too much with your new found friends later on that evening. In those first bedside conversations, there always comes that uncomfortable moment when I realise that these Americans, Canadians, Australians or many other nationalities far from my own home have actually seen more of Tourist UK than I have. It is, quite frankly, embarrassing. Very few of them have seen Wolverhampton, of course (apart from Joe from Canada, those nameless girls from Shifnal and Dan, from, er, Wolverhampton), but they have all seen the biggies; London, Edinburgh, The Lake District. Our little tour of the country, on the whim of a random musical playlist, has seen us make up in part for my ignorance of the wonders of my homeland, and our latest little route sees us take in the one that every foreign tourist who has made it out of London has seen it as their duty to visit: The broken stones of Stonehenge.
I could have used ‘Stonehenge’ by Spinal Tap for this particular leg of the journey, and their epic, classic song of druids and rock may well have been a better description of the day than Paul Weller’s ode to being lost in the big crowd and never quite achieving what you first set out to do. Indeed, ‘Stonehenge’ was first plucked out when randomly choosing the music and gave inspiration for the place, but I decided to let Weller onto the list to give it an air of mystery, and to give us a chance to go further than a quick trip to the famous stones.
I see Stonehenge as a spiritual place, and that is why I have always been put off going there. What could be less spiritual than viewing one of the great wonders of the world from behind a big gate, in the middle of a crowd of photograph hunters while the traffic from the nearby main road cuts off any chance of ancient reflection? It is ridiculous that I am complaining about tourism ruining my tourist activities, but there it is. Progress makes everything too easy. How much more satisfying would it have been to have needed to park 5 miles away and take a hike across bare countryside to find an equally impressive monument but without the trappings of the modern world? Very, I suspect. But that will never happen, so I decided the best course of action would be to minimise the crowds and have a plan B ready on the off chance that it turns out to be a disappointment.
First of all, we are going in winter. The experts actually believe that the winter was more important to the people of Stonehenge than the summer. Backing up this theory is the fact that the sunrise at the winter solstice lines up perfectly with the stones. It could well be that the importance of the summer solstice was largely invented by fair-weather druids and hippies who were looking for something to do before Glastonbury starts. Whatever the reason, the crowds tend to head there in the summer, leaving the winter slightly less people heavy. And why not experience the sunrise while we are at it? Maybe not the solstice, because that will attract crowds of its own, but maybe late November or early December? As for plan B, Avebury is about 20 miles away. It is another stone circle, although this one is much bigger in area than Stonehenge, incorporates a whole village and is much less visited. There is still a road leading around it, but all the signs are that this is the less popular cousin of Stonehenge and sounds all the more interesting for that reason alone.
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