2008 - United Kingdom - Day 3 - Salisbury and Oxford

Today we left our hotel at 7:30 am. We drove a couple hours to Salisbury. The city was founded in the 1200’s. The cathedral there was one of the first buildings built in the city. I loved Salisbury. It was such a beautiful, quaint town with flowers and canals and swans and shops. We walked about 20 mins through the town to the cathedral. It is said to be the most beautiful cathedral in England. It had a very tall spire over 400 ft. tall. When we left Salisbury, we drove only 20 mins out of town to Stonehenge. Seeing it for the first time took my breather away. I have always wanted to see it. It was so cool! One thing I learned today was that there are dozens of these structures around Europe. This one is just the most spectacular. It is 5000 years old, as old as the pyramids. You know, I think those ancient civilizations had more technology or were more advanced than we think they were. One thing I was a little disappointed with, we couldn’t’ get close to it. I had expected to walk through it and touch it, but we could only walk around a roped off perimeter. By the way, everyone touring England decided to come see Stonehenge on the same day! It was so packed with people. We then drove another couple of hours to Oxford. Along the way, Michael was telling us about the martyrdoms that took place there of Arch Bishop Cramner, Bishop Ridley and Lattimer and William Tyndale, being burned at the stake for their beliefs. He read first hand accounts of the details of their deaths. It was horrific. I took a picture of the place of the martyrdoms in Oxford. Oxford was not what I expected. I thought it was one big university. But in fact is is made up of 39 colleges, all under the name of Oxford. This was also a very old city from the 1200’s. Henry the 8th founded the Christ Church College in the 1500’s. All the buildings were so amazing, built between 1200-1900’s, all on the same street. I bought a T-shirt of Stonehenge for Josh, and Oxford one for Michael, and a jacket for me. We then drove to Warwick where our hotel is.