President Barack Obama enjoyed some sightseeing after the NATO summit with an unexpected visit to Stonehenge, saying "How cool is this?" in regards to the prehistoric landmark, The Telegraph reported on Friday.
The president shocked visitors when he showed up unannounced at the monument in Wiltshire, fitting in the visit after the final day of the alliance summit in south Wales.
Obama, who asked the helicopter pilot to make the unscheduled stop, said that seeing Stonehenge had been on his "bucket list" of things to do before he died. The president had just departed the conference - the first ever visit to Wales by a sitting presidential incumbent - by paying tribute to the host country.
Obama was accompanied by a tour guide and stopped to talk to a local family at one point. Then, he wandered on his own through the monument, wearing suit pants and a dress shirt, but no tie, following the two-day summit at the Celtic Manor resort, NDTV reported.
"It's spectacular. It's spectacular. It's a special place," Obama said, as he strolled past the huge erect stones, some weighing up to 25 tons, set up in two concentric rings, according to NDTV.
The meeting was steered by accusations by the Western alliance that Russia had made a "brazen" incursion into Ukraine and by the search for an international coalition to take on militants from the so-called Islamic State, who have created a home base in Syria and Iraq.
