Stonehedge
 

We will be in London for several days in late April and would like to go to Stonehedge. What would be the best way to get there and how long does it take? Also, where can I go on the web to find out about theater shows?
Thanks

I never liked the spelling police so I only point out spelling errors when it matters. In case you will be googling info, it's important to spell your words correctly. It's Stonehenge.

Another reason I'm posting is in order to flag this thread, as I would like info on London theatre as well.

For London theatre, see:

http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/ (clicking on the "TKTS Ticket Booths" tab at the top of the screen will bring up a page that lists the shows that are available at the half-price ticket booths that day; this is not a guarantee that any particular show will be available the day you go, but it's a useful guide to what's generally available)

http://www.londontheatre.co.uk/ (the show listings include links to the newspaper reviews)

http://www.theatremonkey.com/ (includes a helpful description of "Seats to buy or avoid" for every West End theatre)

Thanks Bree. I will check these sites.

Train from London Waterloo to Salisbury (every 30 minutes, trip 1:22/1:28).

Right outside the door of the Salisbury train station, take a local bus to get there. I think the bus ride is about 15-20 minutes.

Salisbury is a nice city to walk around, with an amazing cathedral. In fact, I think Salisbury is more worth visiting than Stonehenge. You can also visit Bath, but you'll probably want to make it an overnight trip.

While I enjoyed Stonehenge, I have to agree with rkkwan. We had a great experience at Salisbury Cathedral. I dont' know if they still do this, but when we were there in 1982 there were retired members of the community who gave tours of the church. We somehow managed to hit it at a time (seems to me it was late afternoon/early evening) when we were the only ones there. We had a wonderful tour complete with lots of stories. That was a wonderful trip to England and Ireland. But that tour of Salisbury Cathedral has to be one of my best memories.

Like most of the folks on this forum, my wife and I (late 40's) are not 'tour people'. We did, however, take a wonderful tour of Stonehenge with Astral tours out of London (http://www.astraltravels.co.uk/). The tours are in a mini-bus. I think there were only 10 people on tour. We drove from London to Bath, had a couple of hours in Bath, visited two other cute towns, and spent about 1 1/2 hours at Stonehenge. You really don't need much more time at that site. You walk around the site, listening to the handset. I'm very glad that we went, and very glad that we took the tour that we did. We really enjoyed Bath.

Hi,

Salisbury Cathedral is far more magical than Stonehenge (IMHO). Do the Tower tour. Here's a link to my site with some info on thr Cathedral.

http://lostmyguidebook.com/england/s...bury-cathedral

For theatre tickets, also check the theatre section of www.lastminute.com as they often have 50% deals.

My wife and I went to Stonehenge in 2003 on a one day tour which also included Bath. It was one of the highlights of our visit to England. We went with the Big Bus Company. They have many other tours as well as the buses that you can hop on and off in London. We did that for a day too. It was good. I have no problem recommending the Big Bus tour to you though. The tour guides are so knowledgeable and helpful. It was great. Have a wonderful time.

While people rightly focus on the attractions of Stonehenge, the little-known Devonian age Stonehedge (in Devon, of course), is often ignored.

There one can find a perfectly fossilized privet hedge nearly 400 million years old. The ruined cottage which it surrounds is thought to be somewhat younger.

Consider seeing Stonehenge with London Walks. You meet the guide at the train station and he arranges train & bus, sees that you are having no problems and does a walking tour of Salisbury as well as Stonehenge.

Keith

easy on your own. Train to Salisbury then hop frequent buses, both local and ones by tour operators, but cheap to go the several miles to Stonehenge from the train station. Leave time for Salisbury as it's a wonderful town with a great cathedral.
As for transit the cheapest day return ticket on the National Rail web site that gives fares for all the UK is 24.5 pounds or nearly $50
If you're going to be in London several days you may want to do another day trip or take trains from the airport - thus the London Plus rail pass may be of use to you - a 2 day out of 8 day period - any two days you want of unlimited travel on nearly all train lines within about a 100 mile radius of London, including Salisbury and places like Oxford, Cambridge, etc. would cost $70 - it's not good on the Heathrow Express but is on train to Gatwick, including Gatwick Express - also comes in 4 day versions and 7 days (details from Raileurope who markets it them in US - they are not sold in UK - as usual i recommend calling BETS (800-441-2387; www.budgeteuropetravel.com), a RailEurope agent but who doesn't charge some of their handling fees and who, in my experience, have expert staffers well schooled in UK rail.
Taking Eurostar to Paris? LondonPlus pass qualifies for passholder fare on Eurostar - $75 - a great fare as can be used on any day and can be changed once in Europe up until time of departure without penalty. On a weekend passholder fare could well be $75 cheaper than other fares - meriting purchase of a LondonPlus pass in itself.

I agree with others about Salisbury being very pleasant, and both the City and Cathedral are well worth a visit. You can climb to the top of the 400 ft Spire(In its day, I believe the tallest manmade structure in Europe).

The problem with Stonehenge is people - tour buses full of them, most disappointed to find a pile of rocks. I have been there at summer solstice among groups of "new age travellers" and pseudo druids and the experience nearly turned me into a Dailey Mail reader (Sorry FlannerUK :-) ).

Having said that, a visit in Freezing fog, in Early December was magical - We had the place almost to ourselves, the weather dampened the sound of the traffic, and you walked through the gloom to find the stones rearing out of the mist.

Stonehenge - one of those type places that once you get there you're disappointed as crowds take away the romance a bit but the type of place they you HAVE to see - i consider it one of my most memorable Euro travel experiences even though it was a bit of a let down. Go for it!

Thanks for all the information. It is certainly appreciated. I am finding that all the people on this forum is sooooo helpful.
Thanks again
Charlotte

Get the train to Salisbury & follow the information here - http://www.wdbus.co.uk/htm/ta/sdo-stonehenge.asp -

BTW Avebury is FAR more magical than Stonehenge

There's a really important point about Stonehenge gone missing here.

There's no doubt many visitors find Stonehenge extraordinarily disappointing. One of the reasons for that is that you're kept away from the ring itself. But not all the time.

Astral tours is one alternative: but they're just a commercial company cashing in on the fact that you CAN get into the main circle before and after the crowds arrive. And you don't need to pay a middleman to arrange this for you.

Details of how to book yourself in at www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.878.

In practice, it's tricky to do this if you're based in London, unless you hire a car or spend the night in the area:
you can (just) get back to London by public transport after most evening special access sessions, but it's not always realistic to get TO Stonehenge from London for morning sessions.

Combining Stonehenge with Salisbury is always a good idea. Avebury, and the remarkable number of prehistoric sites within strolling distance is also fascinating.

I found Stonehenge to be very disappointing. Maybe a question of poor expectations management.
I found Avebury stones to be more entertaining.

So for almost a week I've been resisting. But now the silliness bubbles forth:

Stonehedge is in Connemara, not England.

:)

That spelling error was pointed out in the first reply.

Keith

We went three years ago. I found a tour (on the internet) that went to Old Sarum, Salisbury Cathedral, Stonehenge and Avebury. That was a great trip. You traveled in 10-12 person van and they picked you up and dropped you off at your hotel. I don't remember the name of the company but I am sure you can find it on the internet. It was not as widely known as the other Stonehenge tours, so don't depend on finding the name once you get there.

Avebury or stonehenge is just a matter of preference. I have been to both many times, and still think Stonehenge is far better. In regard to pre Roman UK historical sites, I also like the white horse at uffington and the ironage hill fort at Daebury, near Stockbridge.

I am genuinely dissappointed to see the powers that be still haggling over the roadworks and possible tunnel at Stonehenge. Yes a tunnel is going to be far more expensive than a normal road, but the cost in terms of overall road budgets , in my opinion, is trivial in comparison to the huge improvement it will make to the Stonehenge environment.

Although enevitably road works on the heavily used A303 will continue in the area around Stonehenge, the plans for the tunnel were shelved last summer. Also planning permission for the new visitor centre wasn't granted so things will stay the same as they are for awhile yet.
loves_to_travel, did your tour leave from London? You may have been on a minibus tour with Astral Travels. They aren't the only minibus tour company, others operate out of Bath and Oxford, but they are far the most popular.

Yes, we were in London. It was the only tour company I could find that went to all of those places. The others either went to Stonehenge and Bath or just Stonehenge. My husband did not want to go to Stonehenge at all, but when I showed him this one he was ready to go. The tour was great. We also saw the white horse from a distance as we drove.

Sounds like the exact same tour I did with Astral last July. It was great even though I was not happy with our tour guide.

Our all-day tour in one of Astral Travels' minibuses was a highlight of your 3-week trip. After a day spent visiting Avebury, West Kennett, and other neolithic sites, and cruising past new-found crop circles, we visited Stonehenge after-hours for an Inner Circle tour. An excellent outing.

One difficulty with arranging inner-circle tours directly turough English Heritage is that (logically enough) the bus from Salisbury doesn't run out there during off-hours so you must provide your own transport.

Piggy-backing on this thread...

We are checking into getting tickets for the inner circle tour (December 27 or 28th) which begins at 8 a.m. However, research shows that the first train to Salisbury doesn't leave until 6:30 a.m. Is this correct? If it is, I don't think we will get there on time. Any thoughts or alternative suggestions? Thanks.

seetheworld: If you want Dec inner access (offered mornings only), you'd need to either spend the night in Salisbury -- or -- rent a car and get a <u>very </u> early start.

seetheworld - Did you find this thread by searching &quot;Stonehedge&quot;? ;)

As good as the search function works -- <u>anything</u> is possible :)

sheesh, janisj, you are so right about the search function. I had to find my trip report that includes Stonehenge by using Google, as Fodor's search was not pulling it up! And the Edit function is simply infuriating...

Anyway, we had a 7:30am access when we visited Stonehenge, and we stayed in Salisbury the night before. We also toured Salisbury Cathedral (reserved a Tower Tour). It was very worth seeing Stonehenge up among the stones; it looked completely different from the normal tourist walkway.

Did the inner circle of Stonehenge through 'Astral Tours' and it worked out well with the visit to Avebury and other sites...
Had a great time and the tour company was really professional.

NO, rkkwan! I typed in &quot;Stonehenge&quot; in the search box and then scrolled down to find this one! :)

There will be NO way I could convince my husband to spend (and I mean $$$) another night somewhere else after paying $$$ for our flat.

I do not believe there are tours this time of year.

How far of a car trip is it from London? I don't have a map in front of me at the moment, but is Salisbury any closer to Cambridge than London?

Thanks.

No, Salisbury and Stonehenge are west of London, and Cambridge is north east of London.

It's eighty-odd miles from London to Stonehenge: call it two hours by car on a quiet day. The first train to Salisbury is indeed 0630, and the only ways of getting to Salisbury before 0730 are driving, overnighting in Salisbury, or getting the slow 0100 train to Southampton, sitting round Southampton station (if you can find anywhere to sit, which defeated me the other week) for three hours then getting the 0630 from Southampton.

Cambridge is at least twice as far away, and you really need to drive across or round London to get from there to Stonehenge. Allow five hours, or about a week if you want to risk the cross-country route that avoids London altogether.

It's a fair old trek - a couple of hours at least (and that's not counting faffing around in London's traffic)

These peeps do a tour on the days you're in God's own country:

http://www.andersontours.co.uk/tourdetails.asp?id=7

They chuck in a quick shufty at bath as well

Thank you. I am geographically challenged, lol. Even my GPS system leads me to dead-ends! :D

Thanks, audere, for the link. I will pass it on to my peeps and see what they think. :)

I applied ahead of time and did the English Heritage among-the-stones thing at dusk. I hired on Vic from www.vicstaxi.com, and he arranged a full day for us.

We took the train in to Salisbury, and he picked us up and gave us a personalized tour of West Kennet Longbarrow, Avebury Stone Circle, Woodhenge, Old Sarum (where we met vikings), Salisbury Cathedral, and then the 8pm tour at Stonehenge. He dropped us off at the train station for the trip back to London. This was in August 2005, and it cost us $150 for the whole day. He was very engaging, and gave a lot of great local information, like showing us the pub Sting rode his horse to frequently :)

GreenDragon: Unfortunately, evening inner access is not offered in Dec when seetheworld is there.

If Vic does morning tours as well - it would require an overnight stay in Salisbury