Queen of the castle(s)

Where to begin? I've been busy since I last posted! It's been a fun but often gruelling week, as I spent a good deal of time plugging away at D.H. Lawrence's Women In Love. That being said, I did make time for more castle expeditions (mostly at the expense of the rest of the week's assigned reading), so as promised, more castle pictures!

Our bus tour on Sunday turned out to be a mini-bus tour - only about 15 people total in a van - saving us the embarassment of piling out of a huge coach bus and being full-on touristy. The tour took us south of the city, along the coast, eventually arriving at Bamburgh Castle, across the border in England. Not only is the castle rather stunning, but the location is incredible - it's right on the coast:









In most of these castles they don't let you take photos indoors; luckily, the only staff to prevent you from doing so are usually roaming from room to room, permitting a few sneaky shots.

Turning off the flash helps too - and in the case of the very cheesy dungeon they have set up, the lack of flash makes it look way creepier than it did in person:


Spooky, no? The dungeon is complete with cheesy dungeon music - clearly authentic, as I'm sure back in the day they pumped in creepy tunes to add to the tortured atmosphere.

Next, we were off to Alnwick Castle, located further inland, still in England. Almwick is about as storybook as a castle can get - the fact that it stands in for Hogwarts in the first Harry Potter movie is a testament to that!



(Apparently Harry learns to fly his broomstick here? Forgive me for not knowing the details, but being a humongous literary snob, I eagerly turned down the chance to go on a "Magical History" (read: Harry Potter) tour of the castle, opting for real history instead...)



One of the incredible things about this castle is that people actually live here. For half the year the castle is closed to visitors and the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland (I think) move in. Unfortunately, I couldn't take any photos of the absolutely stunning interior of this place (their library was fabulous - and clearly lived in as well, scattered with family photos and a flatscreen tv). The one inside picture I could sneak is below:


Says a lot about their visitor demographics - it takes a lot of little skater boys wearing heelys (those shoes with wheels in the heels) to necessitate putting up a sign.

It's no surprise, really, that little wannabe-knights flock here - they have two massively cheesy sections, one called A Knight's Quest, where you swordfight dummies and arch and such, and the other called A Dragon's Quest, a blacklight-lit room full of fake skulls, skeletons, terrified little children, and with a smoke-blowing dragon at the end. No pictures of that, sadly - luckily (or embarrassingly?) my quest for knighthood was caught on film:


At this point, my camera batteries conveniently died. The rest of the tour was spent back in the border region of Scotland - we made a brief stop in Kelso for a snack, followed by a trip to the Wallace statute (not to be confused with the Wallace Monument). Finally, we ended up at Scott's View. This was a favourite spot of Sir Walter Scott (who in turn is a favourite of the Scottish - seriously, I may do an entire blog post about all the monuments dedicated to him). Apparently his horses were so used to stopping here that when they were pulling his funeral procession, they stopped here automatically, providing Sir Walt with one last look of the stunningly beautiful country side. As I said, my camera died, so these are shots stolen from friends (that's me on the bench though):



We arrived at the perfect time of day - sun setting over the hills, mostly clear skies, slightly crisp breeze blowing through the valley. I could have stayed there for much, much longer, looking out at the view - the effect was both calming and invigorating all at once. A perfect end to the day.

Spending the day walking and driving in the countryside was appropriate, seeing as it was Thanksgiving Day and I would have normally spent the day in the countryside of Hanover, Ontario. The leaves here are just turning now (mostly just yellow, no brilliant Ontario colours). Our residence's thanksgiving potluck on Saturday was delicious - tons of food and someone even brought Swiss Chalet sauce! - but not quite the same as home - no Jeopardy, for one thing! All things considered, if I'm going to miss thanksgiving at home, I think touring castles is a pretty good alternative activity.

Other updates: Macbeth was pretty good - not as tight as the Stratford production I saw a few years ago, but the genuine Scottish accents certainly add to the play. Macbeth was excellent, Lady Macbeth was overdramatic, and I disagreed with their decisions when it came to the hallucinations (In the "damned spot" scene, Lady McB had blood all over her nightdress and hands, which in my opinion kind of takes away from the "it's all in her head" effect). But, that being said, I'm glad we went!

Last night we went to see a movie called "The Stone of Destiny," about a group of Scottish nationalist Glaswegian students who steal the Scottish coronation stone from Westminster Abbey in the 1950s. It was a tad cheesy but otherwise good fun. A highlight: as the credits rolled, we noticed that the movie received Canadian funding - funny for such a thoroughly Scottish movie to be paid for in part by Canadian tax dollars! (I'm sure that's the sort of thing used by Harper to justify his cuts to arts spending, which we can only hope does not continue in light of this week's election results). Not sure if it'll be released in North America, but if it does come out, I would recommend seeing it - it's really a great story.

This weekend, we're planning to do a day trip to St Andrews, and tomorrow (weather permitting) we might finally walk up the street and do Edinburgh Castle. I think castles in Scotland are like restaurants in Montreal - there seems to be an inexhaustible supply. Some friends are even looking into renting a whole castle for a weekend (yes, apparently you can do that).

That's all for now - happy belated thanksgiving to everyone!