Stonehenge tour pkg or do-it-yourself?
 

We're a group of 4 (will be staying in London), trying to decide whether to visit Stonehenge and Salisbury via train and Guide Friday tour bus .. or take a tour as was mentioned in a previous post (we're looking at the 5000 years in a day tour through stonehenge.com)? Thanks for your help.

We have done some day tours out of London and found them to be an easy way to see some of the sites. I checked stonehenge.org and the "Stones & Bones" tour from Central London looks good.

By the time you pay for train tickets, etc., you might as well take a tour and not have to worry about directions, schedules, etc. We enjoyed the Astral Travels "Inner Circle" tour that included Avebury, other neolithic sites, crop circles (which you'd never find by yourself) as well as inner access to Stonehenge after hours at sunset.<BR><BR>If you decide to do it on your own, there's a regular public bus to Stonehenge from Salisbury near the train station.

I've posted previously about this tour so I'm not sure if you're referring to my post. Anyhoo, I took the 5000 years tour and I really enjoyed it. We had a great guide and I think we spent an adequate amount of time at each location. Avebury was a nice complement to Stonehenge. Lunch of sausage and mash at the inn in Salisbury was one of the best meals on my vacation.

Have you considered hiring a car?<BR>If there are 4 of you, you would save a fortune.

The only trouble with the public bus from Salisbury is that the timing is such that (at least when we took it a couple of years ago), you have to decide whether to spend 20 minutes at Stonehenge, or an hour and 20 minutes. The former is too short, and the latter (at least in cold weather) is a bit too long! Is the Guide Friday tour bus a separate tour operation out of Salisbury? Salisbury itself is interesting, so it's good to have an arrangement that lets you spend some time there, but Avebury is also neat to see, so if you have a chance to do both, that makes for a pleasant day.<BR><BR>If you do decide to rent a car, I would suggest that you might want to take the tube out to Heathrow to do it, or at least see if you can return it there. The one time that we rented a car in central London, it was only moderately hard getting out of town in the morning, but a complete nightmare getting back in during rush hour(s)!

If you decide to take the bus and need to kill some time at Stonehenge, you can spend some time perusing the gift shop. I remember taking shelter there after seeing Stonehenge on my trip.

if you take a car then can you pay a tour guide to take you into the circle once you get there?

On the recommendation of a client, I took a pkg tour to Stonehenge and Bath. He didn't think it was worth the trip all that way JUST for Stonehenge. And he was right! I thought it was great to have someone tell me all the history of things I passed along the way (instead of researching myself) and so convenient to have someone else do the driving (who knew how to get there)!

No, ted, there are no tour guides standing around waiting to be hired to give you a tour of Stonehenge, but I hear there's a recorded guide you can get at the ticket office. You cannot go into the circle without making arrangements in advance with English Heritage for after-hours access , either directly or through a tour agency such as Astral Travels.

Topping for Sandy