Left Weymouth heading north again. First stop was Old Sarum a site that had been occupied since BC. All the civilisations seemed to have taken a turn there. Romans, Normans, Saxons. There wasn't a lot left to see, mainly outlines on the grounds. You could look across the Salisbury Plains though and see the Cathedral that was built in opposition to the existing one at Sarum.
Continuing north, we had been recommended a visit to Avebury Stone Circles as an alternative to the usually packed Stonehenge. As it turned out, we drove past Stonehenge on our way, so I took a couple of photos out the window. Avebury is reportedly the largest stone circle area in Britain. Mind boggling imagining how, and why, they manoeuvred all those stones without the benefit of modern technology. Lunch at a lovely thatch rooved pub next to the stones, then on up to Witney, just out of Oxford, for the night.
Oxford the next morning. We wanted to visit the Pitt River museum and some pubs I had read about, so we didn't really explore the old university halls. Also it is the summer break, and the town is full of tourists rather students. Pitt River museum defies description really. You could lose yourself in there for days and still not see everything. It was started from one man's (archaeologist / anthropologist) collection of 20, 000 items, and has continued to grow with other people's donations. Anything from old toys to shrunken heads to feather and bead work to hunting and fishing gear to snuff boxes..... you get the idea! After that we found the Eagle and Child- where Tolkien and CS Lewis used to hang out, then The White Horse, a medieval pub dating back to early 1600s, we had a pint there and then headed off for Stratford Upon Avon - Shakespeare's home town.
S U A had a lot of lovely old buildings, plenty of photo ops, and we managed to locate his birthplace, then visited his grave in the church as well. After a pleasant couple of hours wandering around we drove to Earl Shilton, nothing remarkable there.
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