My wife and I spent three wonderful weeks touring England, Ireland and Scotland in 1998. The picture above is of Edinburgh Castle. A pity it is the furthest north we went in Scotland. Ah, well. I guess we'll have to go again someday...
Here are more pictures. Click on the thumbnail to see a larger version:
I'll start the picture show with York in northern England. The name of the town was shortened from the original Yorvik, a Viking town. You can tour the actual archaeological dig, which is over 30 feet underground.
Now the city is a (fun!) college town.
York is also called "the most haunted town in Europe". In fact, there are competing "ghost tours" nightly. I recommend the Original Ghost Walk that starts at the King's Arms Pub. (No, this was not a paid announcement! <G>)
An
example of stained-glass work at Yorkminster. Notice the dates in the
lower-right corner. They represent the construction and restoration dates
of the panes. Yorkminster was consecrated in 1472, but took over 250 years
(and over 10 generations of craftsmen) to build! It is said that an American
woman went to Yorkminster during the reconstruction in the 1960s. A
craftman called her over to show her the stone carvings he had completed -- then
promptly disappeared...
Clifford's
Tower, also in York. In 1190 the local Jewish population sought refuge
from persecution from local landowners. The Jews were the moneylenders of
York at the time, as Christians were not allowed to lend. The landowners,
who did not want to repay their loans, laid siege to the tower. The
imprisoned Jews, rather than face forced "conversion", torture and
death, took their own lives instead.
Years later, the ground inside the tower turned red. The affected ground was removed five separate times, but the red stain returned each time...
Every
American I know visits Stonehenge. The locals just don't understand why we
do it. But then again, they live with a sense of history that we Yanks
just cannot relate to. I ate in a pub over there that has been in
continuous operation since before Columbus stumbled onto our continent!
One of the things wrong with America -- no real sense of history.
By the way, the woman on the far left in the larger image had just completed a handfasting (wedding) for a couple inside the inner circle of stones. We have a picture or two of that (minus a zoom lens unfortunately) but I'm not going to publish pictures of someone else's wedding.
Sorry I do not have any good images for this site. Believe me I wish the pictures would have turned out! If anyone out there has an image or two they'd like to share here let me know!
We stumbled across this wonderful find on our way back from Stonehenge. It is just two miles east of that site. The site is huge, 56 acres, and a great place to picnic.
It started as a defensible site around 4,000 years ago (yes, the iron age). It was also used by the Romans, Saxons, Danes and the Normans along the way. Basically, it is medieval ghost town.
An extremely defensible ghost town, that is. First off, the town is at the top of a hill. You approach the site on a cart path. You cross an earthen bridge into the outer ring of land. The bridge you just crossed spans a defensive earth work (ditch or moat) that has 50 degree walls and is about 60 feet deep.
The outer ring of land is about 300 yards deep, and is also all uphill towards the inner ring. That's right, There is another huge earthwork to cross before you get to the town. Imagine being an invader: uphill all the way, 2 steep ditches to cross, arrows (and worse) being shot at you all the while -- in armor.
My kind of place. For more information, go here or here.
More
pictures from Edinburgh Castle. This statue is of Robert The Bruce (1274 -
1329), King of Scotland. For those of you who have seen the movie "Braveheart",
Robert the Bruce was NOT the whiny twit he was made out to be in the
movie. This statue is to the right of the main gate of the castle.
Click on the thumbnail to see this and other pictures from Scotland.
This
is actually a collection of sites in Ireland including Knowlth and other large
mounds from pre-history. The structure shown here is 5,300 years
old! Take a look at the larger images for more information.