After Christmas, we decided to hit up a few spots we had been waiting to visit including Stonehenge and the town of Wells. On a sunny afternoon a few days before New Year's, we drove a little over an hour to Stonehenge.
We arrived just a few hours before the early winter sunset and toured the hi-tech visitor center. We then boarded a bus to whisk us over the hill to the actual stone circle.
As visitors can no longer go right up to the stone circle without applying in advance and paying a steep fee, the stones now sit majestically alone atop a modest hill with a greed meadow surrounding them. Beyond the green meadow are golden rolling hills with sporadic burial mounds popping up.
We slowly sauntered around the perimeter walking path taking photos as we went and listening to the audioguide on our smartphones. Just as the sun set, we captured an excellent shot of the nearly winter solstice sun aligning with the back of the circle.
On the way back home, we stopped in the town of Marlborough to have dinner. We managed to find a tea shop still open and popped in for a meal. After a very delicious meal, we had some yummy treats.
A few days later, we spent a night in Somerset in order to see the town of Wells. On the drive down to our B&B, we stopped over in Lacock Abbey, a large estate that Laura and the children had already visited a few months prior since it was just off the road.
There was a fun deciphering Christmas game for the children where they had to decode the names of reindeer and Callum really enjoyed it. Inside the house there were about a dozen terracotta statues from the 1700s adorning the walls of the main sitting room. One in particular reminded Tyler of the character Gandalf the wizard from Lord of the Rings.
We toured around the house quickly and exited out to make it to our final destination for dinner. The kids gave their best Santa impression on the sleigh outside.
A little later we came across a very unique and fascinating castle in the small village of Nunney.
Built in a French style in the 1300s, it was then besieged by parliamentary forces during the English Civil War and eventually ruined by canon bombardment. 
It was taller than the island of land it was on was wide and consisted of 4 giant, circular towers with a small enclosed central area between them. It appeared the castle had at least four levels within, but it was difficult to tell in its ruined state.
Callum and Claire ran around playing with a couple of slightly older British boys who were also visiting the castle with their parents. They ran around the outside of the castle and hung out of the ruined windows and rubble of the wall chasing each other.
We made it to our little 2 room Air B'n'B before dinner and dropped off the bags before going to dinner. We checked out the recommendations from our host and picked a place that had a good review and drove off through the dark country roads to find it. The place was a lonely pub in the middle of nowhere, next to a slightly spooky church.
Little did we know that it was a gourmet pub with quite the local following. The meal was excellent with an appetizer of tapas and cheese followed by Indonesian Fish Curry and Parmesan Risotto. We enjoyed ourselves and the kids were behaved very well too.
The next morning we visited the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Museum just a few miles from our hotel. It housed an impressive array of aircraft and stories since WWI. It also had a very engaging aircraft carrier exhibit that really made you feel like you were onboard a ship.
We ate lunch at the on-site café and then drove about an hour to the town of Wells.
Wells was once one of the main cities in Southeast England because of its large Cathedral. Our goal was to observe the Evensong service that evening, and we had arrived a few hours early to take in the town.
We strolled around the cathedral and its adjacent fortified Bishop's Palace while Claire slept in the stroller. The Bishop's Palace had a wall with a decent sized moat surrounding it that were fed from natural springs in the area.
We then stumbled upon the oldest complete street in Europe right next to the church.
Built in the late 1300s in order to house the choristers of the cathedral, the neatly symmetrical street was nearly perfectly preserved and still housed the choir. Everywhere we looked was another ancient and beautiful scene.
The sun was just setting as we reached the front of the church and the orange glow really made the façade pop out.
We strolled through the church and enjoyed the choir practicing for their service later that evening. The church is well known for its magnificent scissor arch in transcept.
We tried to find a café for tea, but everything had closed up since it was New Year's Eve, so we drove on home after securing a snack for the kiddos.
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