Portsmouth Harbour to Salisbury Wiltshire🚉: 7th May 1999

Описание: Portsmouth Hampshire to Salisbury Wiltshire
Day-2 BritRail🇬🇧 courtesy of South Western Railway🚉

Checked out from "The Lady Hamilton" B&B where i had an enjoyable stay and amazing full English breakfast (very convenient to the Hard bus station and Isle of Wight Ferries) and had a quick look of HMS Victory and the Mary Rose Museum at the nearby Historic Dockyard, before heading to Portsmouth Harbour rail station, 15 minute-walk away.

The "11:38 am" departed on time calling at Southampton Central, 1hr 10 minute trip to Salisbury. Arrived in typical English weather of intermittent rain, and took the next bus outside the rail station to Stonehenge, 48 minute journey, 3km west of Amesbury and experienced for two amazing hours through a fence in pouring rain😜😜🌧🌧 this awesome prehistoric megalithic monument built on the alignment of the Midsummer Sunrise and the Midwinter Sunset from 3000 BC to 2000 BC on Salisbury Plain, work of several Neolithic tribes indigenous Britons with advanced tools each undertaking a different phase of its construction, 1000 years before Celtic high priests aka Druids inhabited the region. It consist of an outer ring of vertical standing stones, each 13 feet high, 7 feet wide, and weighing 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones - one of the most famous cultural icons in the UK🇬🇧

Druids, pagan spiritualists and revellers gather at dawn by Stonehenge’s ancient stones to see the sun rise behind the 'Heel Stone', the ancient entrance to the Stone Circle - and rays of sunlight are channeled into the centre of the monument on the first day of summer marking 'Summer Solstice' on June 20 or 21, when the North Pole is tilted maximum toward the sun which reaches its highest position in the sky, ensuring the longest period of day light for the year, a significant event in the pagan calendar and for non-pagans too. Similarly, the first day of winter marks 'Winter Solstice' December 20, the longest night and the shortest day of the year, when the North Pole is tilted furthest from the Sun.

Solstices have been celebrated at Stonehenge for thousands of years to mark the changing seasons and also on 'Spring Equinox' March 20, and 'Autumn Equinox' September 22, when the earth’s axis is angled so that it gets an equal amount of daylight and night. All over the world, day and night are of equal length, the sun rises exactly in the east, travels through the sky for 12 hours and then sets exactly in the west.

Returned to the medieval Cathedral city and explored its attractions starting at the High Street Gate, the main point of entry into 'Salisbury Cathedral Close' built between 1327 and 1342. On the south front of the gate is a central niche in a pointed arch holding the statue of Edward VII. Beside the gate stands the 'Porters Lodge' for the servants of kings and nobles in the Middle Ages. Adjoining it is a small prison once used for those convicted of misdeeds within the Liberty of The Close.

In the centre of The Close is the splendid 13th-century Salisbury Cathedral, home to Britain’s tallest spire (193 meters) and houses the original and best-preserved 1215 Magna Carta. Take a walk down the West Walk, on your right is the 'Wardrobe', (original building was constructed in 1215 and rebuilt in the 15th century to store the robes of the Bishop of Salisbury) now the home of The Rifles Berkshire and Wiltshire Museum. At the next left turn further up the street is the Salisbury Medieval Hall and Salisbury Museum facing the cathedral.

Tucked away on the North Walk next to St Ann's Gate, one of the five entrances to The Close with easy access to the city centre and stunning views of the Cathedral, is the Malmesbury House ( with nine bedrooms and six bathrooms), one of the most exclusive British addresses outside London whose residents have included former Prime Minister Ted Heath.

King Charles II hid here after being defeated by the Parliamentary army of Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War at the disastrous Battle of Worcester in 1651, and again after the outbreak of the Great Plague of London in 1665 when he fled the city in July when it was killing a thousand people a week. He addressed the local public from the projecting oriel window which still overlooks St John Street and bears his coat of arms, while the great composer George Frideric Handel, gave his first English performance in the mansion's music room.

Exit St Ann's Gate into St John's Street, turn left into New Street, turn right into High Street and proceed ahead to 'Market Walk' Shopping Mall next to the beautiful River Avon and old mill - great place to sit and have coffee with lots of quirky little shops mixed in amongst the bigger names.

As the sun sets, stroll west along Malthouse Lane, pass Salisbury Playhouse and the City Hall, turn left into Fisherton Road to my final stop at my hub, 'Clovelly Hotel', at 17-19 Mill Road directly opposite the rail station*💓