Avebury and Stonehenge

I wanted to visit the stone rings and I was told that the one in Avebury was the best as there is still the opportunity to walk through and touch the stones. Avebury is a very pretty village built throughout the rings. The National Trust has been responsible for maintaining the stones since the 1940s but before then, stones were broken up for construction of houses and/or walls and others were buried in the fields. Of the approximately 600 stones in the original rings, only about 120 remain standing.
According to a local antiques dealer and historian, the Avebury rings pre-date those at Stonehenge. I am not convinced that he was corrected but he was so passionate about his subject. He grew up in the village and had great stories about finding coins about the village. He had a number of them for sale in his shop and I suspect that when, the inventory gets low, he visits his favourite digs.
He had a great lunch at the local pub and then explored the village and its church.

Stonehenge is fairly close and is full of tourist buses and people everywhere. On one side of the road is the Stonehenge and on the other are 3 huge mounds. The admission fee was 15 pounds per head and you were behind a fence following others in a circle around the site. There is a second fence between paying guests and the roadway which is only about 10 feet apart. We decided to see what we could of Stonehenge from the road and visit the mounds instead. There were less people and more cows and sheep on our side of the field. We were rather amused at the number of people who paid the price and walked through the site talking on their cell (mobile) phones.

I preferred Avebury. There is a real sense of being with the stones. They are not exhibits but rather part of daily life. The sheep graze through the area keeping the grass clipped and the visitors walk where they wish.