Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at
04:52:24 on Mon, 11 Feb 2008, Mizter T remarked:
Whoops, I didn't quite make myself very clear when I said I
"absolutely agree", I was trying to say that I absolutely agree that
Stonehenge is worth a visit, rather than agreeing that it was a
disappointment.

It can be both at the same time. Many places are like that. I'd include
both John O Groats and Lands End (and the less well known "most
southerly point") in that category.

Call me a philistine, but I was very disappointed by the Colosseum in
Rome. All the tourist literature kept wittering on about it being
"bigger than you can possibly imagine", and when I got there it was
smaller than I was expecting. But it was worth seeing, just to
understand what it was all about.

The one at Pula in Croatia is better, as it is still used (though as a
cinema - you can't get the lions these days).

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

Paul Terry wrote:
In message , Ian Jelf
writes

However, visits usually involve an element of "disappointment because:

(snip)

And also perhaps because it is now no longer normally possible to walk
among the stones - you have to admire them from a distance.

A few years ago, and perhaps now, you could book the place for a private
viewing which would let you go right in. Someone I vaguely knew booked
it for his birthday. You had to sign lots of papers saying you wouldn't
break it.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

In message , at 21:04:36 on Mon,
11 Feb 2008, Ian Jelf remarked:

Although Stonehenge is often described as "disappointing",

It is *much* smaller than most people imagine.
The circle may be. The monument is much more. And much bigger.

And sufficiently less visible and less well described that the average
tourist (not someone on one of your tours) will generally be unaware of
it. All they see are the standing stones.

Although that's partly because you can't get very close to it any
more (I can remember when you could wander round inside).
In fact you do go inside the monument; just not the stone circle
itself.

See above, for most visitors stonehenge *is* the stone circle.

there is a reason it is so famous.

It is very old.
Actually, compared to other monuments, the present stone circles isn't
especially old. The earthwork on certain other features are indeed
much older, though.

It's older than Roman, which is the oldest constructions most people get
to see elsewhere. (Outside Egypt etc).

When tourists come from a *State* that's only got 100 years of
history, some
thing that old is almost literally unimaginable.
To be fair, most people come from somewhere a bit older than 100 years
(even excluding any indigenous cultures. I regularly take people to
see attraction newer than many US or even Australia features, eg
Beamish, the Black Country Living Museum, Ironbridge Gorge, etc.)

I'm not sure I understand what that list of features is for. In the USA
the very oldest stuff you come across normally is "anteBellum", and
there's very little of that.

It is, as far as I am aware, absolutely unique among the stone
circles of Western Europe for having the lintels across many of the
stone uprights. This represents the absolute pinnacle of what
Neolithic to Bronze ages peoples achieved.

Very few people seem to go to Stonehenge to wonder over the
architecture.
Mine do! ;-))

I'm afraid I find it's all a bit "why did they build Windsor Castle so
close to the Heathrow flightpath". So people seem to think "oh, it's all
fallen down", rather than "gosh how wonderful it must have been when
intact". As with the Parthenon in Athens, photographs usually give a
misleading impression of how much is still intact, so when you visit,
it's a disappointment.
--
Roland Perry

"Arthur Figgis" wrote in message
...
Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at
04:52:24 on Mon, 11 Feb 2008, Mizter T remarked:
Whoops, I didn't quite make myself very clear when I said I
"absolutely agree", I was trying to say that I absolutely agree that
Stonehenge is worth a visit, rather than agreeing that it was a
disappointment.

It can be both at the same time. Many places are like that. I'd include
both John O Groats and Lands End (and the less well known "most southerly
point") in that category.

Call me a philistine, but I was very disappointed by the Colosseum in
Rome. All the tourist literature kept wittering on about it being "bigger
than you can possibly imagine", and when I got there it was smaller than
I was expecting. But it was worth seeing, just to understand what it was
all about.

The one at Pula in Croatia is better, as it is still used (though as a
cinema - you can't get the lions these days).


That'll be because of the Lion Bar... straying off 'topic' again...

Paul

Interesting thread this, isn't it?!

In message , Roland Perry
writes
In message , at 21:04:36 on
Mon, 11 Feb 2008, Ian Jelf remarked:

Although Stonehenge is often described as "disappointing",

It is *much* smaller than most people imagine.
The circle may be. The monument is much more. And much bigger.

And sufficiently less visible and less well described that the average
tourist (not someone on one of your tours) will generally be unaware of
it. All they see are the standing stones.
Absolutely. I was only speaking from a personal perspective.

Although that's partly because you can't get very close to it any
more (I can remember when you could wander round inside).
In fact you do go inside the monument; just not the stone circle
itself.

See above, for most visitors stonehenge *is* the stone circle.

there is a reason it is so famous.

It is very old.
Actually, compared to other monuments, the present stone circles isn't
especially old. The earthwork on certain other features are indeed
much older, though.

It's older than Roman, which is the oldest constructions most people
get to see elsewhere. (Outside Egypt etc).
The oldest Earthwork, notwithstanding you perfectly valid point above,
dates from ore than 3000BC, so is not only pre-Roman but also pre-Greek.
This is the circular ditch which is pretty much clearly visible.

The oldest of all the monuments in the landscape, the delightfully-named
"Robin Hood's Ball" (not accessible) and The Cursus (on the open access
land only half a Kilometer or so North of Stonehenge) go back much
further, even predating the Pyramids of Egypt.

But I accept that this is just semantics and that the Stone Circle is of
most people's interest, of course.

When tourists come from a *State* that's only got 100 years of
history, some
thing that old is almost literally unimaginable.
To be fair, most people come from somewhere a bit older than 100 years
(even excluding any indigenous cultures. I regularly take people to
see attraction newer than many US or even Australia features, eg
Beamish, the Black Country Living Museum, Ironbridge Gorge, etc.)

I'm not sure I understand what that list of features is for. In the USA
the very oldest stuff you come across normally is "anteBellum", and
there's very little of that.
What I meant by that is that many of our tourist sites depict a way of
life from only a century or so ago and that there are similar tourist
items of interest in the New World, old Western Towns, Sovereign Hill in
Ballarat (Australia) and so forth.

It is, as far as I am aware, absolutely unique among the stone
circles of Western Europe for having the lintels across many of the
stone uprights. This represents the absolute pinnacle of what
Neolithic to Bronze ages peoples achieved.

Very few people seem to go to Stonehenge to wonder over the
architecture.
Mine do! ;-))

I'm afraid I find it's all a bit "why did they build Windsor Castle so
close to the Heathrow flightpath".
For the record that really *does* happen. I've also been asked where
Windsor Castle was, while standing at the entrance to the Central
Station with the Castle directly behind me and in full view of the
questioner (who wasn't one of my clients but someone who'd interrupted
me!).

So people seem to think "oh, it's all fallen down", rather than "gosh
how wonderful it must have been when intact". As with the Parthenon in
Athens, photographs usually give a misleading impression of how much is
still intact, so when you visit, it's a disappointment.

A slight variant on this was a lady who gave me a *lot* of grief about
Stonehenge a few years ago because when she came before "it was on the
ocean". Never worked that one out, although she also said the same
about her "previous visit to Bath".
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

In message , at 15:16:22 on Tue,
12 Feb 2008, Ian Jelf remarked:
I'm afraid I find it's all a bit "why did they build Windsor Castle so
close to the Heathrow flightpath".
For the record that really *does* happen.

I'm sure it does. You have to get into the mindset, where an American
airport was usually built on the edge of town, and the built-up area
encroached around it. A bit like Kings Cross, Euston and so on being
built on what was, at the time, the edge of London.

So people seem to think "oh, it's all fallen down", rather than "gosh
how wonderful it must have been when intact". As with the Parthenon in
Athens, photographs usually give a misleading impression of how much
is still intact, so when you visit, it's a disappointment.

A slight variant on this was a lady who gave me a *lot* of grief about
Stonehenge a few years ago because when she came before "it was on the
ocean". Never worked that one out,

Maybe confusing it with a visit to some Scottish megaliths?

--
Roland Perry

On Tue, 12 Feb 2008, Ian Jelf wrote:

Interesting thread this, isn't it?!

In message , Roland Perry
writes
In message , at 21:04:36 on Mon, 11
Feb 2008, Ian Jelf remarked:

Although Stonehenge is often described as "disappointing",

It is *much* smaller than most people imagine.

The circle may be. The monument is much more. And much bigger.

And sufficiently less visible and less well described that the average
tourist (not someone on one of your tours) will generally be unaware of
it. All they see are the standing stones.

Absolutely.

You may call it megalithic culture, I call it vandalism!

there is a reason it is so famous.

It is very old.

Actually, compared to other monuments, the present stone circles isn't
especially old. The earthwork on certain other features are indeed much
older, though.

It's older than Roman, which is the oldest constructions most people get to
see elsewhere. (Outside Egypt etc).

The oldest Earthwork, notwithstanding you perfectly valid point above,
dates from ore than 3000BC, so is not only pre-Roman but also pre-Greek.
This is the circular ditch which is pretty much clearly visible.

The oldest of all the monuments in the landscape, the delightfully-named
"Robin Hood's Ball" (not accessible) and The Cursus (on the open access
land only half a Kilometer or so North of Stonehenge) go back much
further, even predating the Pyramids of Egypt.

Oh, well if you compare it to Johnny-come-lately cultures like the Greeks
and Egyptians, of course it's going to look old! You want to get over to
Knocknarea or Carnac, they know a thing or two about 'old'.



It is, as far as I am aware, absolutely unique among the stone
circles of Western Europe for having the lintels across many of the
stone uprights. This represents the absolute pinnacle of what
Neolithic to Bronze ages peoples achieved.

Very few people seem to go to Stonehenge to wonder over the architecture.

Mine do! ;-))

I'm afraid I find it's all a bit "why did they build Windsor Castle so
close to the Heathrow flightpath".

For the record that really *does* happen. I've also been asked where
Windsor Castle was, while standing at the entrance to the Central Station
with the Castle directly behind me and in full view of the questioner (who
wasn't one of my clients but someone who'd interrupted me!).

I take it you told her she was at the wrong station, and that she'd need
to take a train to Paddington, make a tube transfer to Waterloo, and then
go to the Riverside station?

A slight variant on this was a lady who gave me a *lot* of grief about
Stonehenge a few years ago because when she came before "it was on the
ocean". Never worked that one out, although she also said the same about
her "previous visit to Bath".

Maybe she'd last been there a really, *really* long time ago ...

tom

--
No hay banda

Tom Anderson wrote in
h.li:

[snip]

I take it you told her she was at the wrong station, and that she'd
need to take a train to Paddington, make a tube transfer to Waterloo,
and then go to the Riverside station?

[snip]

tom


So you have a GPS controlled Routing Guide?