Didn't know where to put this, so this will do as well as anywhere else. It's not an important topic, but lots of members will find the content a bit on the odd side, coming from me (one of the "skeptics-in-residence" on RF).
A bunch of years ago, I drove a motorhome (a Fiat, actually) around England, Scotland and Wales for a month. (Aside: as a Canadian first-timer, driving a standard transmission, sitting on the wrong side of the vehicle with the stick at my left, the rear-view mirror showing the bathroom rather than the road behind, and driving on the wrong side of the road -- well, when I hit my first round-about, I knew I was about to die soon.
)
Any-hoo, something that I very much looked forward to (among many) on that trip was visiting Stonehenge. I'm sure that would be true for most visitors who don't actually come from the British Isles. And I confess, I enjoyed it very much. Britain handles these things so much better than Americans. If Stonehenge were in the US, there'd be a theme park around it and you'd never actually see the standing stones themselves, but with all the Druid Rides and so forth, nobody would mind. But Stonehenge was, when I visited, situated so that you could not even see the car (or motorhome) you parked just across the road, and people were kept away from the monument itself by nothing more than a string about a foot off the ground that doesn't even show up when you take photos.
Now, I confess, there is a feeling of "other-worldliness" to Stonehenge, and even though I'm the skeptic I am, I was not immune. But that is not the point of this lengthening story.
My real point is this: a day or so later, I also visited Avebury Circle, another, much larger (area-wise) neolithic site. Now, there aren't even that many stones left at Avebury, and none are anything at all as large as those at Stonehenge. And yet, I still remember to this day that it "felt" much, much more other-worldly to me. I found, to be honest, that as I wandered through some of the ditch circle, as if I were being haunted.
Again, I point out that I do not believe in things like haunting and so on. But I am still impressed to this day (30 and more years later) that I was so much more emotionally impressed by Avebury than Stonehenge.
Weird, eh?
A bunch of years ago, I drove a motorhome (a Fiat, actually) around England, Scotland and Wales for a month. (Aside: as a Canadian first-timer, driving a standard transmission, sitting on the wrong side of the vehicle with the stick at my left, the rear-view mirror showing the bathroom rather than the road behind, and driving on the wrong side of the road -- well, when I hit my first round-about, I knew I was about to die soon.
)Any-hoo, something that I very much looked forward to (among many) on that trip was visiting Stonehenge. I'm sure that would be true for most visitors who don't actually come from the British Isles. And I confess, I enjoyed it very much. Britain handles these things so much better than Americans. If Stonehenge were in the US, there'd be a theme park around it and you'd never actually see the standing stones themselves, but with all the Druid Rides and so forth, nobody would mind. But Stonehenge was, when I visited, situated so that you could not even see the car (or motorhome) you parked just across the road, and people were kept away from the monument itself by nothing more than a string about a foot off the ground that doesn't even show up when you take photos.
Now, I confess, there is a feeling of "other-worldliness" to Stonehenge, and even though I'm the skeptic I am, I was not immune. But that is not the point of this lengthening story.
My real point is this: a day or so later, I also visited Avebury Circle, another, much larger (area-wise) neolithic site. Now, there aren't even that many stones left at Avebury, and none are anything at all as large as those at Stonehenge. And yet, I still remember to this day that it "felt" much, much more other-worldly to me. I found, to be honest, that as I wandered through some of the ditch circle, as if I were being haunted.
Again, I point out that I do not believe in things like haunting and so on. But I am still impressed to this day (30 and more years later) that I was so much more emotionally impressed by Avebury than Stonehenge.
Weird, eh?
