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