Thursday 6 September - Day 16 - Best of Britain Coach Tour finishes

Not much to report today; it was pretty much a clear run back to London, with the only relevant stop a quick look at Stonehenge. I'm not going to say too much about it.  It's probably the most recognisable bit of ancient history in England, maybe anywhere.  Can't resist adding a couple of photos though - here's a burial mound (there are MANY of these in the area) and a shot of the stones themselves.

I did learn some things.  Firstly, the stones we see now aren't the only thing that has ever been there - a surrounding ditch and post-holes make it clear that there was an earlier bigger structure of some sort. The current stones were also rearranged a number of times. And, although there are lots of theories about what Stonehenge was about, the fact is that no-one really knows what it was for - the meaning was lost long ago.  For example, the Romans write about it and it was already an abandoned ruin of unknown meaning at that time.  And finally, it definitely was NOT built by or for the Druids.

Overall though, it was interesting and fairly well managed.  You aren't allowed to go near the stones any more, and they appear to be building a more usable and less intrusive Information Centre which might make future visits seem a little more 'real' - although they'd need to grow a huge forest around it to make it properly realistic.

Anyway, we got back to the Thistle and did a whole bunch of washing at the Laundrette round the corner.  We thought about going for a walk instead, but my ankle is still sore and swollen, and the short walk I did wasn't at all nice - between making sure I didn't trip on the pavement, coping with the crowds, and having to dash across streets hoping not to get run over (pedestrian lights are apparently not all that common around here) I didn't think we'd get much out of a walk.   We'll come back here again sometime and do it properly.

So, tomorrow we're off to Copenhagen - the bus is picking us up at 5:15am (ouch) for a 9:55am flight.  So, off to bed now!  Sometime later I'll do a sort of overview of the whole coach tour but I'll just say - I'm really looking forward to unpacking my suitcase on day 1 of the cruise and not having to even look at it again until the end!