Stonehenge is a UNESCO World Heritage Site situated in Wiltshire County in England. It is neat Salisbury, a Cathedral City. Tourists add the Stonehenge trip to their bucket list to the UK. Every year more than 800,000 tourists visit this English Heritage site.
From London, it takes 2 ½ hours to reach Stonehenge by train, but if you are limited on time then approach tour operators. They always plan a tour that includes Stonehenge with Cotswolds, Windsor, and Bath.
For maximizing your Stonehenge visit check StonehengeVisit.co.uk to book your skip-the-line entrance ticket.
Stonehenge is a popular pre-historic monument dating back to 4500 years ago. In 1918, Stonehenge was gifted to the nation. The stones needed some props and were taken care of. Today, the English Heritage takes care of Stonehenge for the nation’s benefit.
Stones were propped up in 2500 BC, and the monument complex dates back to 8500 to 7000 BC. The majority of England was woodland and forest. It is assumed that the Stonehenge region was an open landscape, so was chosen to construct the monument.
The first point you arrive at is the visitor’s center, which is situated 1.5 miles away from Stone Circle [Airman’s Corner]. The visitor’s center includes a café, gift shop, exhibition, and outdoor gallery where recreated Neolithic houses are visible. The exhibition is great and you can spend time learning more about the Heritage site and its surrounding region. You can enter the Neolithic houses recreated outside the center to see how people survived 4500 years ago.
Stone samples used in the construction of the Stone Circle are also displayed. The sheer size of the stone pushes you to imagine how these massive pieces were dragged across from Wales. From the visitor’s center, tourists need to hop on the free shuttle buses to reach Stone Circle. It is a ten-minute ride and 40 minute walk to Stone Circle.
The surrounding landscape gives the sense of how the space looked in the Bronze age. The landscape has barrows or burial mounds. Visitors visit in summer to watch the summer solstice. The sun rises behind the heel stone as its rays shine inside the Stonehenge core.
The stones used to create Stonehenge include smaller bluestones and larger sarsens. The sarsens are used in the inner horseshoes, while bluestones are arranged in the outer circle to form a double curve. When you stand on the sides of Stone Circle, a huge upright stone is seen, which is called a heel stone. During the summer solstice, heel stone is significant because the rising sun rays fall on it.
During the solstice, Stonehenge is extremely busy. Summer months are challenging because it is a holiday for UK schools and weekends are extremely crowded. Winter is cold, dark, and quiet, so walking around Stone Circle may need you to wear warm clothes.
During summer, the roads become gridlocked and in winter the outdoors goes dark before 4 pm. So, it is recommended to start as early as possible in the morning. The visiting hours are 9:30 to 3:00 pm in winter and 9:30 to 5:00 pm in spring, summer, & autumn.
