The English Countryside

So I realize that I updated recently, but today we did so much that I think I may forget it all unless I get it down in writing! We started out with Lawry and Mark picking the three of us up from the Diorama at 9:30am and then set out for the English countryside west of London. We drove through several small villages on our way to Roche Court, the home of Lady Bessborough, which is just east of Salisbury. She started a sculpture gallery in the gardens and grounds of her beautiful home, and was hosting about 100 people at the gallery opening for two new exhibitions today. We wandered around the grounds and artist residence (living space for guest artists) before introductions of the artists, hostess, and speaker were made, and then were treated to a very British lunch. There was quiche and greens, cheeses, and pickled whole walnuts. Like, outer shell and all. Sounds (and looks) gross, but they were actually pretty tasty. After tea and dessert, we headed out to explore the country side. We drove through Salisbury, Marlborough and probably half a dozen other tiny villages. The scenery was gorgeous, and the towns so quaint and peaceful. After stopping shortly at Figsbury Ring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figsbury_Ring), we eventually made our way to Stonehenge around 3:30pm. This morning, over 30,000 visitors had come to watch the sunrise for the summer solstice and the site had just reopened at 3:00. We walked around for a bit, but it was rainy so didn't stay long.

We got back on the rode, and made it to Avebury http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-avebury/ which is a smaller version of Stonehenge, and stopped for afternoon tea (I had a scone, Mom!), and to walk around the small village of about 200 people. The town was full to the brim of hippie, dred-locked, guitar-playing earth worshipers (and I mean that in a nice way, they were delightful!) that were camped out at this monument for the summer solstice. It was an interesting, fun day to visit!! We then hit up several more small villages, and drove around looking for the prehistoric white horse carvings present on many of the hills in Wiltshire http://www.wiltshirewhitehorses.org.uk/. We got to see two before it was time to head back to London. Traffic was awful, and we made it back close to 9pm. We stopped at this haunted pub on the Thames in Hammersmith, where we had some of the best food and service we have had this entire trip. It was in a beautiful, quiet part of London, and we definitely would like to go back. Ya'll can read about the ghost here: http://www.pubs.com/pub_details.cfm?ID=155. Anyways, Mark and Lawry just dropped us off about half and hour ago at 11pm, so we have had a long day, much of it with 5 of us crammed into a very small (manual) European car, that doesn't necessarily provide the most comfortable trip through windy country roads. We had such a great time though, and are grateful for Mark and Lawry taking such great care of us while we are here. And they have invited us to visit Kew Gardens with them on Friday, which should be fun as well. We have plans with the flatmates tomorrow, though, so I am off to bed for now!