Thursday, March 10, 2011

Heart Beat Super Fast

trip to Salisbury


Meeting at 10:45 at Southampton station, the train leaves at 11.05 am with the whole party except me, Sofia and Alexandra. Arrived late. Their fault.
So we wait for the 11:45 train that takes us to the charming town of Salisbury. We are lucky: there is a high sun, clear skies, the cold is bitter, but I consider it a perfectly acceptable price to avoid the English rain.


At Starbucks Salisbury ahead Mari and her boyfriend, and Marta Pachì, four Spaniards we met the night before, and then two girls, friends of the English and Greek Daniel, Leghorn who works with me at the NOC. Raggiuntili immediately seek the bus according to the guide will take us to Stonehenge, the famous Stonehenge!
The driver is a nice guy, welcomes us with a welcome in any of the languages \u200b\u200bthat we want bishops: buenas dias, Kalimera, hello! For 15 pounds, student price, we'll visit Stonehenge, but also the ruins of Old Sarum, which are on the way to the archaeological site.

We climb and in a moment the double-decker bus brings us to the site of Old Sarum: the highest point of this lush green hill was found a village by the Romans, then the Normans and the Saxons built a castle for the king and a cathedral.
Around the thirteenth century, the quarrels between bishops and the Saxon monarchs and the difficult weather conditions in the area led to the abandonment of the city. So while the foot of the hill was born and prospered Salisbury, Old Sarum stones were picked one by one to the benefit of other buildings for the new city. Today there are visible the foundations of the castle and the cathedral, but nothing more. It 'still a very fascinating for its history want to enjoy full 360 degree panorama: the English countryside, an evergreen (ha ha)!



return to the bus and set off for the most famous archaeological site in England ... Here everyone will certainly have his personal idea, but undoubtedly worth it once at least from the outside, the historical importance. I was expecting a mystical place, away from civilization, perhaps on top of a hill: I would have reached fatigued by walking uphill, a little 'sweat and hard work would cost me raise my head to see the tips of tall stones that our ancestor (or ancestors of UFOs) were implanted on the ground! Quite the contrary. Stonehenge was caught between two fairly busy roads that connect cities in the county, is protected by a fence topped with barbed wire and the effect is far from something strange, but modest, in fact no dizziness.


Admission is included in the price of the bus, and also win an audio guide to head ... and in Italian! (Greeks protest but must make do in English) A dingy underpass decorated with murals depicting scenes from primitive takes you to the path that unfolds around the rocks: no approach, no change in the midst of the stones, they can only follow the path reported and bon. Okay, maybe this far better security if you think that until a few decades ago, the visitors bought a chisel to Salisbury to take home a memory of Stonehenge! It has been two days, but I do not remember a word of hundreds of facts that gave me the audio guide, maybe they could make them a bit 'better!



And my impressions of Stonehenge end here, after all. I thought it would be funny if the men who put up the tourists could see today that they queue to enter the turnstiles, and then they start to turn around the ear stones with the audio guide that crap shoot, the camera dangling around his neck ...





Resume
the bus back to Salisbury, which is not only the train station nearest to the archaeological site, but a beautiful town with one of the most spectacular cathedrals in Great Britain!
The center has been kept pretty true to the original, with the typical English houses of dark wood and white plaster here and there you can see the old defensive walls, churches and monuments, and even McDonald's and Pizza Hut, but as I said earlier, nothing compares to the cathedral.



One sees from afar, with its tall bell tower. To get there you must cross a medieval gate that we swear in the Lonely Planet, is still locked every night at ten! Unlike the Italian churches, built in the center of the country and stifled by the houses around, here come the cathedrals in the middle of meadows, a little 'square type of Miracles in Pisa. And lawns, of course. I think the green grass English is the only advantage of a climate so humid and rainy. The property is huge, magnificent, and its being surrounded by greenery makes it even more impressive: it is as if we remember at all times that every single stone was placed there for the will and the effort of men.


Even inside, you are amazed by the high ceilings and walls completely bare,
simple in outward appearance of stone and marble. It may seem exaggerated to make all this praise, but I too prefer this type of no-frills architecture for our baroque or neoclassical ....
All right, among other things, there is also the world's oldest working clock, which we propose the photo. To a question I could not find an answer, but where it will read the time??

There is a cold polar the sun disappeared behind the hills and everyone wants to go home. The train is packed, I'm dead tired and hungry, especially because I did not eat almost anything, belonging to a ball of chocolate that my digestive system will remember for a long time! Salisbury's gone, I will update you on the next Sunday the discovery of Wessex!

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