I’m writing this blog through slitted eyes... we’ve done so much over the past few days that we’re absolutely exhausted!
We had an excellent farewell meal with Mike and Stella (pork belly as good as Clare makes!) and we left them on Friday morning to set off for Tintagel; the reputed castle and home of King Arthur. What remains of Tintagel (which was actually built by Richard Earl of Cornwall in the 13th century who was hoping to attach himself to the Arthur legend) is on steep, steep slopes on an extremely rugged part of the Cornish coastline. There’s little of the original castle left and its hard going up and down the steep steps and hills but the coast in that part of the world is stunning. We were too tired to walk up and down for too long and we went to wander around the little village of Tintagel. Tony was less than impressed when my ploughman’s lunch arrived after a 45 minute wait and his pasty didn’t turn up at all! We got that sorted out and the little pub we had chosen was very Lord of the Rings looking so it wasn’t all bad.

We pushed on to Shepton Mallet where we are staying in a very cute old stone cottage for three nights. Luckily we stumbled onto a very nice Indian restaurant where we had dinner and then got an early night for our epic day today. We got up at 5.00am for the one hour journey to Stonehenge for our inner circle experience. Amazing! So worth paying the extra money for. You’re not allowed to touch the stones or sit on them but you can stand right next to them and walk all around them as much as you like. Our session was 6.45 to 7.45am and we were lucky enough to have some very friendly and knowledgeable guards/guides to ask all of our questions of. The only problem we had is that the good weather seems to have gone now and it was so cold on the open plain! Small price to pay though. We both enjoyed it immensely (just as well because that was all that Tony got for his birthday!). From Stonehenge, we went on to Salisbury where we visited the Chapter House of Salisbury cathedral in order to see an original copy of the Magna Carta. It was so well preserved – it’s amazing. Both Tony and I had expected it to be quite decorated but it is an absolutely plain document and clearly the forerunner of convoluted legal documents in the known world! After Salisbury, we went to Bath and had a look around the Roman baths which was very cool. The complex is extremely interesting and very well preserved so you can easily see how it all used to work. It has also been added to since its discovery so there are parts that are a mixture of architecture and technology. We had a wander around (the buildings in Bath are lovely) but we were so tired, we decided we’d had enough and wended our weary way back to Shepton Mallet for some chips and an early night.