Oh my! We planned a few days in the cruise port of Southampton to get our footing and see Stonehenge but it offered SO much more. This area hardly makes it in the guidebooks. We had a fantastic guided city walk around the ancient walled city with history back to about year zero. Walked on, in, and under the nearly 1000 year old wall which last saw action in 1941 with anti-aircraft batteries installed atop some of the ancient wall towers. We imagined ourselves as merchants trading wine for wool along the sea wall, scratching our names in a brick wall as US soldiers did before boarding a ship for Normandy in 1944, and negotiating with King John, that’s the one mythical Robin Hood loves to steal from, to establish the first limitations on the power of the monarchy, the Magna Carta.
Stonehenge is amazing and unique for the elevated horizontal stones called lintels, but we were very surprised to find out that there are hundreds of stone circles around both Britain and Ireland.
Four copies of the original 1215 Magna Carta exist, including the one at the Salisbury Cathedral, which also houses the worlds oldest, still operating, clock, built in 1386. A remarkable piece of engineering, it was a joy to explore each piece, including the automatic bell chiming.
The icing on top of this first stop on our European tour was meeting up with longtime friend, roommate and shipmate George who was able to detour from visiting his mum not too far away.
Honorable mention goes to visiting our first COSTCO outside the US. It’s pretty much the same but the food court has some differences. Menu pictured below.
We are off to a remarkable start!
I want to try the Aberdeen Angus Cottage pie from Costco
Me toooo! Sadly, it was sold out.
Indeed a fabulous start! Loved the write-up! Keep them coming! 😁💕