Thursday, August 4, 2016

Stonehenge and Downton Abbey

Our first stop out of London was Stonehenge.  It was about 2 hours away with traffic.  There is an admission fee which covers the two mile bus ride from the visitors center. We were able to skip the long line to buy tickets as I had purchased a 16 day English Heritage membership which allows for free entry to over 100 sites around England including Stonehenge. I also reserved our entry time in advance.

From the visitors center it’s about a 2 mile bus ride to the actual site.  Seeing the pictures of Stonehenge doesn’t compare to seeing it for real.  You don’t realize how large it is till you are standing next to it.  The visitor guide was also well organized.  We had downloaded the visitor guide to our smartphones and learned about the history walked around the monument.

Our next stop was Highclere Castle which was the castle used for the filming of Downton Abbey. It was about 30 minutes from Stonehenge.  If we wanted to minimize our driving we should have stopped at Highclere first but I was able to pre order our admission tickets to the castle and the only time available was in the afternoon.  All Spring and Summer these tickets were sold out on their website but I would still check their website daily to see if anything had changed. Then about a month ago their website had a banner that stated that a limited number of tickets had just become available and one of those dates worked perfectly with our schedule.  I could have bought the tickets on site when we arrived but I read how they sometimes sell out or we would have to wait till later in the day to enter.

Unlike Stonehenge,  Highclere was a disappointment when compared to watching it on Downton Abbey.  The outside was fabulous but the inside seemed worn and much smaller than as imagined on TV.  In any case I was still happy we got to tour the castle.

Afterwards we drove to our B&B which is in a small town outside of Bath.  We picked the place based on the high scores and price on Booking.com. The owner of the B&B must have had all of his friends write the reviews on the website as I wouldn’t have rated it so high.

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