Bridgette and I began the morning with a trip to St. Pancras train station to buy tickets to Salisbury. We were promptly told we were at the wrong station despite the National Rail website implying we could leave from St. Pancras. A short tube ride to Waterloo Station, however, set us up for a very adventurous day. We managed to get round trip tickets to Salisbury for £10 - £35 cheaper than they were online! So glad we didn't purchase them ahead of time! The train was lovely. Sounds weird, but the seats were comfortable, we had a table and 4 seats to ourselves so we had plenty of room to spread out, read, and bask in the time set aside to relax.
Salisbury is adorable, full of little canals, shops, and restaurants. Bridgette and I wandered around for a bit before grabbing lunch at a small tapas bar where we ordered soup and salad. We got distracted by the shops and this drum corps (video to come later) before heading back to the train station to catch the tour bus to Stonehenge. We arrived at the train station to pick up the bus, but had missed the final departure to Stonehenge by over an hour!! Dejected and upset that we had traveled 2 hours away from London only to have our dreams deferred by a ridiculous schedule (The last bus departed at 2pm! SO early!), Bridgette and I decided to turn our luck around and hail a cab to take us up to the stones. It ended up being GREAT. Our cabbie, Michael, raced us up to the Stonehenge admission place, but we had officially missed the last tour by about 5 minutes. Continuing our streak of determination, Michael drove us to the farm next to Stonehenge. With the stones in view, we hopped the barbed wire fence and frolicked across a field full of sheep.
As we neared the stones, we saw that there was only a rope a foot off the ground cordoning us off from our true destination. One small step for Sara and Bridgette. One giant step for study abroad adventures! With no one with any authority in sight, we hopped our second fence of the day and joined all the other tourists for an "up close and personal" (meaning a 50 feet away) view of the stones. Really, we are better off not having taken the tour. We both feel like we didn't need to spend an hour and a half being told "These stones are really mysterious, and no one knows what they're doing here." Our cabbie then took us to Old Sarum, the ancient castle, where we took a quick jaunt up the hill for a couple photos and promptly came back down. Five minutes later, Bridgette realized her phone wasn't in her pocket. Cue panic attack. We turned around, trekked back up the hill, hopped yet another fence, and (luckily) found her phone on the ground where we had been.
We finished the day with a small walk back into the town for dinner. We settled on Patisserie Valerie and had the weirdest experience. The restaurant was out of everything. It was obvious that the weekend tourists had wiped them out, and their next delivery of food doesn't arrive until tomorrow morning. It took several rounds of us ordering food and the waiter coming back to regretfully tell us that they had run out of salad, quiche, and sandwiches until the waiter finally came back with a menu marked with checks and exes next to every item on the menu. It was a very polite way to say "All we have to give you is scrambled eggs." So, we had scrambled eggs and toast, and I got some chocolate cake to go because, obviously, no adventure is complete without chocolate cake. You can quote me on that.
There were SO many opportunities for disaster today, but we persevered, saw the sights, and befriended a very worldly and personable cabbie. All in all a VERY successful day out.
P.S. We are both obsessed with traveling by train and can't wait to take it again!
We finished the day with a small walk back into the town for dinner. We settled on Patisserie Valerie and had the weirdest experience. The restaurant was out of everything. It was obvious that the weekend tourists had wiped them out, and their next delivery of food doesn't arrive until tomorrow morning. It took several rounds of us ordering food and the waiter coming back to regretfully tell us that they had run out of salad, quiche, and sandwiches until the waiter finally came back with a menu marked with checks and exes next to every item on the menu. It was a very polite way to say "All we have to give you is scrambled eggs." So, we had scrambled eggs and toast, and I got some chocolate cake to go because, obviously, no adventure is complete without chocolate cake. You can quote me on that.
There were SO many opportunities for disaster today, but we persevered, saw the sights, and befriended a very worldly and personable cabbie. All in all a VERY successful day out.
P.S. We are both obsessed with traveling by train and can't wait to take it again!