He said:
A wonderful day for weather; we saw the sun and many puffy clouds today, unlike yesterday.... This was our first 'longer' day of walking, 10 miles, with a few ups and downs along the way. We saw our first iron age hill fort, the Cherhill monument, mtn bicyclists, cross country runners, golfers, kite flyers, and our first 19th century white horse (exposed chalk) on the side of a hill. Our B&B is on the Kennet & Avon Canal, complete with touring barges, ducks, and a tow path making the walking easy. We went to the city center of Devizes for dinner, it was churning with the burning urge of many youth's out for a Saturday night at the Pub.
She said:
A few more words about Avebury:
The whole exposed circle thing is thanks to General (I think) Kiellor (sp.?), the marmalade tycoon who spent gobs of his money excavating the circle sights and gobs more to stand upright what stones he found.
All the stones are about same width as they come from the same geologic feature, a compressed layer of sandstone.
Mediocre Fish and Chips at The Red Lion. And, no ghost (though I did feel a bit of a weird presence in the middle of the night - maybe the dead wife jumped the fence between our Lodge and the Red Lion to give me What For as I did sort of call her a wuss for not showing herself at dinner. Forgot to ask our innkeeper, Andrew, about that, so I'll go with either that explanation
Or...
I'll make one up here:
The first Lord Avebury from around the 14th century(remember, we were staying in his house), probably had many, many skeletons in his many, many closets. And one of them just got loose. Found someone susceptible (me) and spooked it up.
Innkeeper Andrew remembers his Dad taking him to the GI base nearby (closed down now) when he was a kid to watch the GIs play baseball, which they did every Sunday. Andrew loved it; it is a sweet memory for him.
Co-lodgers at The Lodge knew Palo Alto - as the home of Facebook. She, from New Zealand, he from London do a lot of traveling around the world checking out stone circles and other mystical, new age-y spiritual places. They told us about the Michael and Mary Line, an imaginary line that bisects several stone circles and churches in England and all the churches on the Line are named for either Mary Magdalene or the Archangel, Michael. They also loved Sedona, AZ (though I think they would be more at home in Santa Cruz as they had a very crunchy aspect to them, too.)
Marlborough to Avebury - 6 miles; circular walk around Avebury 3.5 miles.
Beautiful fields of Rape (cash crop grown for rapeseed oil). Probably took too many pictures of those fields, but the sun was shining and their color was so saturated and vibrant, I couldn't resist.
Bug of the Day - a fly-sized black thing with long hanging-down back legs. Bummer and creepy. They didn't care for us, though, and only interacted with us when we walked into them.
The path followed a Roman road for several miles. Very straight and very level.
Also crossed a Civil War battlefield (1643) and climbed to a hill fort where the Royalists from that battle pushed back the Parliamentarians so far that the Parliamentarians were forced, in retreat, to tumble with their horses over a hugely steep cliff. (The Royalists won that one.)
Finally saw our first White Horse carved into a chalk hillside (there are 13 in Wiltshire; they range in age from 3000 years old to 300 hundred years old, with a few only a few decades old. They are kept scrubbed clean because if they weren't grasses would start to grow in the dirt that blows onto them and there goes a good tourist attraction.)
Took the long way round to our B+B (Rosemundy Cottage). Arrived happy, tired and hungry.
Ate at The Bistro in town. R had a bottle of Bishop's Tipple (the local ale) and I struggled through another bad glass of house white wine (time for me to switch to ale.)
Small World co-inky dink - Innkeeper Tony at Rosemundy Cottage works for a company that makes something that Cisco buys and he's traveled to San Jose, CA many times.
That's it -
Cheers -
EB
Avebury to Devizes - 10 miles; to dinner and back - 1.5 miles.
May 15 Photos
We saw a white horse carved into the chalk hillside when we were in England last year. Quite impressive. We had not realized that some were 3000 years old. The Bishop's Tipple in one of your photos looks interesting. Have to see if it is available in DC.
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