Stonehenge looks smaller than people expect and stranger than the photographs, a ring of grey stones standing alone on a swell of chalk grassland with the sky pressing down. It sits on Salisbury Plain, a high, open expanse of downland that was a holy landscape long before the stones. The monument went through phases from about 3000 BC, with the great sarsen blocks raised around 2500 BC, hauled, it seems, from the Marlborough Downs some thirty kilometres to the north. The smaller bluestones came from the Preseli Hills in west Wales, about two hundred kilometres away, which remains one of the most astonishing facts in European prehistory.
The stones are only the centre of a much bigger landscape. Burial mounds line the ridges, the Avenue runs off towards the river Avon, and nearby are Woodhenge and the vast ditch-and-bank ring at Durrington Walls, where the builders probably lived and feasted. At the summer solstice the sun rises in line with the Heel Stone, and thousands gather to watch it, while at the winter solstice the sun sets in the same axis.
The riding here is mostly about the roads that frame it. The A303 passes right by the monument and has been a famous bottleneck for holiday traffic bound for the west, with long queues on summer Fridays. Better to approach on quieter roads from Amesbury or along the Avon valley, where thatched villages and water meadows lie in the folds. The plain itself is open, windy and fast, with big views and little shelter, and military ranges cover large parts of it, so you will see red flags and warning signs.
The visitor centre lies a couple of kilometres from the stones, with a shuttle, and there is a charge to enter the managed site, so booking ahead is sensible. You can also see the stones from the public byway. Amesbury, with about ten thousand people, has petrol and cafes, and Salisbury, with its cathedral spire, is not far south. Go early or late; in the low light the stones glow, and the crowds vanish.