Circles, circles, circles!

Lots of circles in Great Britain. On our train ride to Winchester, Kim studies this type of circle:

Roundabouts! They are scary if you aren’t used to your driver seat on the right side of the car. Your hands get a little tense in that 10 to 2 configuration!

But once you get used to driving on the left hand side of the road (FYI: “slow lane” is the left lane – passing lane is the right lane) . . .

it becomes easier and easier to remember to travel clockwise when you get to the roundabout. There are just so many roundabouts! As you get closer to a town it can be roundabout-after-roundabout!

But roundabouts mean there are very few red lights. That is cool – it is only when you are not sure which exit to take that you might have roundabout issues. Luckily they are well-marked!

Boy oh boy we have heard about traffic back-ups in Britain and we experienced some on our way to Cornwall. Notice the “Queues” sign!

What is very funny is that the biggest back up was because of this . . .

You can see Stonehenge beautifully from the road! And everyone slows down to take a gander.

Please know that I am trying to take photos of KF on this trip but she is not accommodating! Here you can see her lovely hair (she keeps getting compliments) and her loosened fingers on the wheel as she looks at the amazing Stonehenge.

We went get a closer look at Stonehenge, starting at the very well done visitor center (with excellent shortbread, we might add).

You can see how Stonehenge developed over time into a holy site for early Britons.

They have found bones here so it was a burial site. But the hypothesis is that stone circles like this were places of worship. The smaller blue stones have come from as far away as Wales – how in the world did folks transport them over 4000 years ago?

And the stones still perfectly align with the spring and summer solstices, with the sun appearing perfectly in alignment with the stones even today. How in the world did folks figure that out over 4000 years ago?

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/history/building/#

Mysteries, mysteries, mysteries!

You ride a bus out to the site and experience the stone circle yourself.

Lots of people, lots of languages, lots of selfies at Stonehenge.

And check out the road we were just on, gazing up at Stonehenge!

You can only walk among the stones on a special tour which happens for a small group of people at 6:30 AM. That must be amazing!

But fast forward a few days later for the Pate sisters on the Penwith Peninsula in Cornwall – where there are so many Neolithic and Bronze age sites! Just a few miles from our cottage in Mousehole is the stone circle of The Merry Maidens.

You just pop over a stile (KF hair sighting!) and you are among the stones!

The circle is beautiful . . . and so is the countryside around it.

The Cornish story about these stone is that they are a circle of lovely girls who were frozen in place for dancing on the Sabbath.

But they are certainly of the same time period as Stonehenge, another ceremonial site for folks 4000 years ago. Circles, circles, circles . . .