The Ultimate Guide to Stonehenge | Wiltshire, England | wandermoore
Stonehenge.
The world's most famous prehistoric monument.
Entering these ancient stones left me speechless, for once in my life.
Stonehenge is located in Wiltshire, England which is a two hour drive from downtown London or a 2.5 hour train ride. We booked a tour through Trip Advisor with Evan & Evans Tours. I can not recommend this company enough!! Professional, safe, informative and so much FUN!!
Charlotte was our tour guide and Lisa was our driver for the day. Charlotte is the sweetest thing with the most soothing British accent. If you can somehow request them, I highly recommend it.
We booked this specific tour. I had no interest in Oxford or Windsor, I literally just wanted them to leave us at Stonehenge all day and swing back through to pick us up on the way back to London.
Spoiler alert - they would't leave us at Stonehenge.
Side note: Oxford is ridiculously amazing! I feel bad for originally not wanting to go. More on that in another blog post. Windsor was interesting to see. We were there on the Queen's birthday so there was a lot going on at the time. The tour guide will give you the option to stay for their tour or to enter Windsor Castle. We stayed with the tour guide but wish we had entered the castle instead. If you choose to enter the Castle, you will have to purchase your own ticket.
Charlotte and Lisa picked us up at 5:30am in Victoria. After a quick check in, we were on our way to Stonehenge. We stopped on the way for breakfast at Starbucks.
Once we arrived to the parking lot of Stonehenge we were transported to another bus that took us to the pathway that leads you to the stones.
I was torn between booking this private tour or a regular tour based on the fact that I didn't want people in my photos. I knew being in the inner circle with other people would result in unintentional photo bombers and everything would be ruined.
Photographer problems.
Matt made sure we were on the front of the bus so we would be the first ones off which would allow me to be able to get photos without people. He takes the best care of me!!
Here I am, all by myself in the inner circle of these ancient stones.
Seriously, top 5 best moments of my entire life.
Our private group of 50ish people was split up into two groups so that it wasn't so crowded inside the circle. Once inside, Charlotte began telling us the history of Stonehenge. To be honest, I have no idea what she said, I think I mentally blacked out. Haha!
If you don't book the sunrise/sunset private tour, the photo below shows how close you will be able to get with the general admission ticket. Staying on the pathway does guarantee that you won't have people in your photo but you won't get any photos from the inner circle. This pathway circles around the stones so that you can see them from all sides.
Each stone is 13 feet high, 7 feet wide and weighing around 25 tons. Archeologists believe that Stonehenge was constructed between 3000 BC and 2000 BC. Nobody is really sure when it was constructed or why it was constructed. How crazy is that? The stones predate written records!!
The stones that make up the outer circle are sarsen sandstone. The stones inside the inner circle are called bluestones. The bluestones are not naturally found in southern England. Just adding to the mystery that is Stonehenge.
You can find a great article about the bluestones here.
This is Gertrude. She is a Great Bustard bird, there are only 100 Great Bustards in the world and 40 of them live in England. She likes to hang out around the stones in April and May. Just like Stonehenge, Gertrude is a mystery. Nobody knows why she comes to Stonehenge and nobody knows why she is so comfortable around people.
Read more about Gertrude here.
Another shot of Gertrude, showing off with her beautiful feathers.
This.
This is what I see in my head when I think of Stonehenge.
I am so thankful that I was able to experience this with such a small group of people. Surreal.
As I mentioned before, nobody truly knows why Stonehenge was built. There are many theories including: a cemetery, a place for healing, aliens, etc.
Why do you think Stonehenge was built?
To view the entire gallery or to purchase prints, check out the full gallery HERE!!
