Sprachkurs in Bath: Tag 17
The mystery of Stonehenge
Have you ever been to Stonehenge? No? Me neither! But I suppose you have heard a lot about it. In fact, Stonehenge is one of the most famous places in the world. I wonder why…! I mean it´s only stones! Well, the stones are at least quite old… more precisely about 4000 years old. Nowadays nobody really knows which function they had, and Stonehenge has been subject to much speculation so far. The most popular theory was proposed by Gerald Hawkins, who stated that each stone in the monument lined up with at least one other stone to point to some position of the sun or moon. To determine the length of the year would have been extremely useful, so this theory seems rather plausible.
Well, since today I can tell everybody that I have seen Stonehenge. To be honest I could hardly recognize anything because I didn´t want to pay the additional entrance fee to go closer to the stones. Instead I climbed on the fence to have a better look. Well, the supervisory stuff didn´t like my idea that much…
So I had to find another way. Pablo and I decided to go to the nearby tombs. Those graves are huge hills where one has a great view over the landscape. Fortunately I am not superstitious; otherwise I would probably believe that I am cursed now.
Afterwards we went to Salisbury, which is about 8 miles south from Stonehenge. We visited Salisbury Cathedral, which has been mentioned by Ken Follet as one of the models for the fictional Kingsbridge Cathedral in his novel “The Pillars of the Earth”. I read the book about two years ago and I was astonished how much the Salisbury Cathedral and my imagination of Kingsbridge Cathedral were alike.
Quite interesting was also the Chapter House with the best preserved of the four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta.
Only 5 days left… I have mixed feelings about it.
