Lots of pictures.
Our trip started with a bunch of errands in town in the Volvo, since the other car was acting up and had to go to the shop. I would have offered to help drive, but I just would not have been able to manage left-handed shifting, 'cause it was a manual. Ugh.
Anyway, we headed to Tintern Abbey as the first stop of the day. I have to warn you right now: there are a million pictures here, and it's not even a quarter of what I took. It was beautiful there and if you want your eyes to fall out I'll show you the rest.
The river that runs by the abbey.
See it, hiding in the back? The little white building is where we ate lunch (yep, another pub).
The outbuildings are mostly just remains.
Yeah, I dunno, it's just cool.
The cathedral, however, is still standing in lots of parts and is one of the best-preserved medieval cathedrals in England (or something).
Inside the church part, the inner wall stands on this side but has fallen down on the other. You can see parts of the fallen rock down the lane here. The roof is reconstructed, but it sure provides good shelter for all the doves.
And the inside. It's breathtaking. I know it wouldn't have been grassy way back when it was in use, but it looks so beautiful to me, like the columns are just rising up from the earth. We lucked out and got there on a sunny day, which made it so much more special. It would have looked even more different back when it had a roof and windows.
A person for scale. Yeah, it's huge. I was standing up on a balcony to take this shot.
This balcony, to be exact. It was the night walk, where the monks would sneak in for the 2 a.m. prayers.
In some parts, the remains look like those of a castle. Oh, speaking of, get ready for another one coming up...
Just a pretty shot with the sun. So angelic!
The doors. Sadly, the one on the left that looks open wouldn't budge for me.
Some more remains across the road.
The most famous side of the cathedral--you can probably guess why. There are graves on the ground in front of this entrance--see them?
From the inside.
The remains of that other inner wall.
We spent a lot of time there, and I had too too much fun running around and exploring. There were a lot of random Americans there for whatever reason, so Martha and Jack kept chatting them up and introducing them to me. Hello, Iowa.After lunch, we headed to Goodrich Castle. I obviously did not put up a fight about going to another castle. This one had a cool little automated guide thing that you held up to your ear to give you the history of the castle as you wandered. It got annoying, though, since the guy wouldn't shut up and it meant you had to go in order and listen to everything. I quit halfway through, I'm sorry to say. I just couldn't take it!
Anyway, the view as we walked up:
Yay cross-shaped arrowloops! Oh, and those two big holes (plus the third to the right) are from the latrine tower. Oh, yes, we learned a lot about old poop.
English Heritage is working on making this castle somewhat refinished, so they have replaced two of the original stained-glass windows (they were knocked out who knows how long ago). You'll see this from the inside in a minute. It's interesting, however: this window is in the chapel, which is in...the gatehouse. Bit of an unusual combination, 'cause usually you would want the gatehouse to be the most defensible location...which means no windows. Inside the chapel there are arrowloops and sections for soldiers and even a hole for the bar to the gate--when it was opened, it would have blocked off the pulpit. Must have been one patient priest.
The barbican.
Looking down into the moat, you can see that it was built right on top of the natural rock outcrop.
A modern bridge where one or two drawbridges would have been.
See the two channels? Those would have been for two portcullises-- you know, those big iron gates that crashed down. There were also murder holes above our heads and numerous arrowloops, like this one that looks into the chapel.
There were a lot of schoolkids around, drawing.
Cannonballs left from the Civil War in the 1600s. These are what reduced the castle to the remains it is today.
The solar, or the main living space. It would have been several floors high.
The main plan. You can click on the picture to see it larger.
And here's the real reason the castle was taken down: Roaring Meg. It was special-built to destroy this castle. Nice.
The remains of the stable outside.
One of the unique features of this castle is that it has an extraordinarily high number of washbasins, like this one. Cleanliness was a sign of gentility according to my automated guide, so they must have been quite high class here.
The keep is built of a different stone and is the only building which is still intact up to the top for people to climb up on. Crazy people. Like me. The stairs say "dark and dangerous," and seriously, they are NOT kidding. I clung to the rope the whole way up and was shaking from nerves by the time I got to the top. I am quite glad I didn't have to run up and down those stupid stairs way back when to fight with swords. Ugh.
See? And they got worse.
But the view from the top was lovely.
Another fun part: the dungeon. It was this big dark hole in the wall, which I was too afraid to go in by myself, so instead I turned on my flash and looked at it from my camera. Good enough.
More washbasins.
I love how you can see the different levels in the remains.
Had there been a floor, I would have liked to sit in this window seat.
If you look on the left, you can see the remains of the sloping roofline.
Cross-shaped arrowloop!
The romantic remains of a set of stairs. So cool!!
Why hello down there!
This is the window that we saw from the outside.
Driving away, the castle was still visible up on the hill.
Okay, so you probably just died from castle overdose, but I loved every minute of it!Basically, the rest of the day we just watched TV, read, packed, ate, etc. I was a bit lonely, so it was nice to know I would be going back to Ireland soon.
This last video is the one that wouldn't load yesterday, from the Round Tower.
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