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looking down on part of the castle, from a section
further up and out on the headland, connected by stairs
and a bridge over a chasm in the natural rock formation |
Once in Cornwall, one of our stops on Oct 7 (Friday) was Tintagel Castle. This was built in the 1200s-1300s and is associated in myth and legend with King Arthur. It's so massive I couldn't get it all in one picture, and a lot of it sort of blends into the existing stone of the cliffs. It ranges over a large headland on the coast, and it took a few hundred (very steep!) stairs to see all of it. The castle was really neat, but I had trouble getting good pictures of it; it's quite spread out and often only scant walls remain, there's not some huge imposing castle at the top of the mount. It's mostly scattered sections of walls and foundations. A lot of my best photos are of the scenery from the castle headland (I know this is a lot but I couldn't decide!!):
Here's some more shots from the castle and surrounding area:
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| at the start of the trail to the castle |
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this photo doesn't adequately capture how
steep these were. And slippery, because it
had been raining! |
The King Arthur associations have been thoroughly capitalized upon by the nearby Tintagel village:
After Tintagel, we drove to our hostel in Penzance and had a late dinner. We had free time after dinner, but the hostel was a 20 min (dark, cold) walk from Penzance itself. I was in a room with 4 of my friends from the upper-year program, and we all elected to study in our room in our pjs rather than walk into town. Exciting, I know! ;)
WOW Hanna!!!!
ReplyDeleteThat second photo looks very much like the exact area that I saw on the news last night (and I later looked up this video on YouTube). When the newscaster said "Look at this amazing video from the cliffs of Cornwall UK !", it certainly caught my attention !
You'll likely have to copy-and-paste this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVjr4mii3cE
Hi Hanna: This looks like a pretty amazing place to spend a weekend! Some time when you have nothing better to do (HA!), check out Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance. I think you would love it, having done musical theatre at Gateway. It, and HMS Pinafore are two of the favorites. The Glee Club did both of these when I was at Acadia, and lots of towns and cities, including Halifax, have Gilbert and Sullivan Societies, where the members stage a G&S work every year.
ReplyDeleteTo think that you have already been in England for over a month! Where did the time go? You have seen so many wonderful things and places, with more to come before you head home. xoxoxo Grammy M.
Oh my goodness, the photos are absolutely gorgeous. Wow.
ReplyDeleteThe photos are incredible - and what a gorgeous stormy but sunny day it was! I had to laugh at the picture of the wildflowers curled up into balls of seeds in one of the photos because I gathered an armful of these very same dried flowers on Vancouver Island today. But after several further stops in the car and the accompanying moving of bags and rummaging around in the trunk, I realized the seeds were damned sticky little things and were now attached to everything in the back of the car! So they were unceremoniously dumped out in the parking lot! They look much better in real life blowing in the wind on a English hilltop!
ReplyDeleteHey Hanna,
ReplyDeleteAmmazing pictures that virtually put you right there!
A geological note about Cornwall:
Tin and copper mining began in the Cornwall area during the Bronze Age about 2100 BC and continues well into the 1800's. I have a sample of Cassiderite ( a tin oxide mineral from Cornwall - a type location for that mineral)