Photo of the Week--6/27/11

Now this is what we're talking about! You probably can't see that Boy has a smile on his face—a rarity on our later trips—but it's definitely there because we found a trebuchet! Treb-oo-what, you may wonder? It's an old-fashioned siege engine, sort of like a catapult but using counterweights to fling projectiles through the air. It was just one of the things that made our visit to Urquhart Castle in Scotland such a fun time, although we did not detect a monster in the Loch behind the castle.

Photo of the Week--6/20/11

I love it when historical places, like the city of Carcasonne in France, can spare a little corner to let visitors play pretend and live a little history. Carcasonne is an old-fashioned walled city and you can really be transported back in time as you walk the cobbled streets and see the fog move against the walls. And when you can look out of an old-fashioned fortress door and pretend to shut Mom out, well, that's the best!

Photo of the Week--6/13/11

Now that's what I call a castle--hewn into the very living rock of the Welsh countryside. Caerphilly is the largest castle in Wales and the second largest in Britain (after Windsor Castle, the queen is number one in everything). It was built in the 13th century and has everything you look for in a castle: a huge moat, tall towers, and a little bit of ruins to give it character. I'd certainly rather be defending it than assaulting it, that's for sure.

Photo of the Week--5/9/11

Okay, so I'm a week late to celebrate the royal wedding, but here is a photo from Merrie Olde England, a veddy British garden at beautiful Sissinghurst Castle in Kent. It had been a medieval castle once visited by Queen Elizabeth I, then fell into disrepair, was built and re-built, housed prisoners of war in the 18th century, and was finally rediscovered by married writers Vita Sackville-West and Sir Harold Nicolson in the 1930s. They're the ones who designed the marvelous garden, which was full of beautiful blooms when we visited in summer of 2001. I'm hoping I'm going to have some beautiful blooms of my own in my garden soon.

Photo of the Week--2/28/11

What is it about Germany that brings out all these picture-perfect castles? Neuschwanstein was built by a mad king, and this castle, Burg Eltz, has been in the same family for 33 generations. Actually, it's owned by three branches of the same family, one of whom still uses part of the castle. The rest is open to tourists, but at one time there were around 100 family members living in over 100 rooms of the castle. With it still inhabited, no wonder it's still in good shape, with fresh paint and lovely decor inside. I'm not sure why Boy is making a monster face, or holding up six fingers, but at least he's facing the camera.

Photo of the Week--1/31/11

Now, that's what I call a castle! Yes, if you look at the very top of the photo, you see a little square section of the rock that isn't as rough as the rest. That's Dumbarton Castle in Scotland, and yes, we walked up to the top of this very tall hill to visit it. It was only accessible by a very narrow staircase, and we could imagine how easy it would have been to defend the castle from attackers. Why someone would want to attack ... that was a little harder to imagine.

Photo of the Week--12/20/10

I chose this photo not so much because the building is that interesting in itself, although it is a pretty example of a British manor house. No, St. Michael's Mount is more interesting because of how it's situated. Take a look at the picture to the right: St. Michael's Mount is just off the Cornwall coast in a nice little bay. When the tide is in, as in this picture, it's an island. When the tide is out, you can walk from the mainland to the mount. That makes this building, and the little village at the base of the mount, much more interesting. Imagine how much work it must have been to get all the building materials up to the site! Although the St. Aubyn family has owned the mount since the mid-1600s, the National Trust manages visitors, so you can visit most of the island, either by boat or on foot. If you've ever seen the 1996 film version of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night with Helena Bonham Carter and Imogen Stubbs (and if you haven't, you should), you might recognize the island as the setting for Orsino's castle. We visited in 1999, and the mural/map along one building in the film was still visible. Cool.

Photo of the Week--12/6/10

In July 1999 we rented a car and drove around the northwest part of Ireland, and in County Galway we found this cute little castle, Aughnanure. It's not a huge complex, like you generally think of when you hear the word "castle," but rather a "tower house," a defensive structure that was designed to defend a key strategic location. There are a couple hundred of these "castles" in County Galway, and Aughnanure lies near Lough Corrib, the second largest lake in Ireland, and near enough to the city of Galway to be an important water supply. As you can see, the castle was in a bit of disrepair, although thankfully it was sturdy enough for us to climb the ruins. Because if you're going to visit a ruined castle, you should at least be able to climb around it like a bunch of monkeys and play hide and seek.

Photo of the Week--10/18/10

Boy, I have been writing this blog for quite some time ... long enough to go through all our vacation photos and post two from each one. I'm going back to the beginning again, and this time instead of the best photo, or one featuring the family, I'm going to look for weird and wonderful buildings. This is Clifford's Tower in York, England. It's the keep of York Castle, which was destroyed and rebuilt several times between its erection in 1068 and the British Civil War of the mid-1600s. The mound on which it sits is artificial, so the Tower really stands out, especially as you wander the scenic city walls which wend their way through the city.

Photo of the Week--7/5/10

I realize my weekly photos have been woefully short on pigeons lately, but our last trips during our time in England were to more scenic places. Like this one: Urquhart Castle, on the shores of Loch Ness in Scotland. So why is Boy smiling? Is it because there were no pigeons for him to chase? Is it because we saw the Loch Ness Monster? Or is it because we saw an actual working model of a trebuchet (a type of catapult), just like the ones we saw people build on "Scrapheap Challenge" (aka "Junkyard Wars" in the US)? I leave it to you to decide.

Photo of the Week--6/28/10

No pigeons in the South of France, either, although you do find the occasional castle in a really strange place. This is Montségur, a lovely ruined fortress atop a 3000-foot hill in Langedoc, north of the Pyrenees Mountains. And yes, we did walk up to the castle atop the hill, where we found not pigeons (they are too lazy), but lots of little lizards, sunning themselves on the rock. You can tell this picture was taken before we went up the hill, because we are still smiling. Although Montségur is mentioned as a candidate for the Holy Grail castle, we were not assaulted by flying cows and poultry as we made the ascent; however, it was a long and tiring walk and we were not able to smile again until several lizards made an appearance.