Castle Adventures

By Allison Crane

In our ‘various excursions’ around Great Britain, we have seen a total of 3 castles and one, ah, not-so-castle. I believe Janean elaborated on the, um, latter so I will focus on the other three.

The first real castle that we visited was Alnwick Castle. The castles that we visited were all either a fortress, a home, or of an amusement park style. This castle, however, was a sort of mix of all three. It had defense and protection enough to be called a fortress, inhabitants (some Duke and Duchess whose names I didn’t bother to memorize) that made it a home, and some activities that definitely made it ‘amusing.’



Mom demonstrating technique on broom mounting.

Alnwick castle, as it was the home to some of the Harry Potter filming, (including the  flying lessons in the first movie), had broomstick flying lessons as an activity on the lawns. The ‘lessons’ consisted of learning how to ‘warm up’ your magic, mount, make broomstick engine noises (such as yipeeee! vroooom! or choo choo!) and play red light green light on a broom. In describing it just like that, it sounds quite boring, although in truth it was more hilarious and, at times, extremely embarrassing instead. The director of this activity, named Professor Bottomly, was both funny and a retired military officer. So, he had quite an enjoyable time making people do ridiculous things over and over because they either came late or were losing at red light green light. Unfortunately, that was commonly unlucky members of our family, namely me and my mom.



Hey look! Jeremy finally got the hang of it!

While we were at Alnwick castle, we also visited the stunning Alnwick Gardens, went on an Harry Potter themed tour of the place, and toured the state rooms. Overall, we had a very enjoyable time there.



Here I am inside the outer walls of Edinburgh Castle.

The next castle that we visited was in Edinburgh, Scotland and, coincidentally, was named Edinburgh castle. It was in more of the fortress category, for after going there I have learned that it is not a castle that I would like to attack any time soon. Or be imprisoned in. Or do anything other than have a tour of it, for that matter. It was a remarkable castle; with massive cannons on the battlements, a weird dog cemetery, gloomy dungeons, great hall with armor and weapons on the walls, and Scottish crowned jewels in the towers.



The most recent castle, that we visited fell most under the amusement category.  The castle, that is, Warick Castle, had a wide variety of shows, including falconry, trebuchet firing demonstrations, archery firing/educating, intriguing displays, and interactives.

Family photo in front of Warick Castle



 My favorite of those was most likely the falconry, although there was not a single falcon involved in the entire show. What would make it my favorite if there weren’t any falcons? Well, they did have eagles, buzzards, sea eagles, and vultures; all with at least 6 feet wingspans...which kind of made up for it. All of the birds were enormous and they included the Bald Eagle, which was small in comparison to some of the other huge birds of prey. (If I remembered some of their names it would be really helpful right now). Their size definitely was noticeable, considering that they swooped right above our heads, flying between a perch on the castle wall to the trainer. It was spectacular, if not scary.



From J.K. Rowling to Shakespeare

By Sarah Crane

It seems as though everywhere we’ve been we have stumbled across places where some of the greatest books have been born. From the cafes and cemeteries of Edinburgh to under the trees in Avebury, authors have found inspiration for their books.




In search of Ebenezer Scrooge 

When we were in Edinburgh a kind gentleman at a museum told us a story about a cemetery across the street. He told us that Charles Dickens came to that cemetery, Canongate Kirk Graveyard, and saw a tombstone that he thought read, “Ebenezer Scrooge, A Mean Man”, (really it said Ebenezer Scroggie, Meal Man) and this really made him think and wonder how this man must have lived in order to have people write that he was a mean man on his tombstone.  And so the story of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” was born.

Later that same day in Edinburgh, we decided we wanted to find a good place to get some ice cream. While we were walking down the streets towards the ice cream place, I noticed my dad had been hanging behind the rest of us and he appeared to have stopped to look at something. Curious, I walked back to where he was and realized we had just passed the café where J.K. Rowling wrote the first few Harry Potter books! Who knew that we would find “the birthplace of Harry Potter” on the way to getting ice cream! (Moral of the story is, ALWAYS get ice cream)



Janean walking on the walking trees

A few weeks later, we went to Avebury with my Crane grandparents who came to visit us from Texas. Avebury is the largest stone circle in all of Europe (even bigger than Stonehenge). So we were just walking along the paths seeing all these big rocks that had been there for thousands of years, and we saw this really cool looking tree. We stopped to take a closer look and saw the intricate root system as well as hundreds of ribbons that were tied onto the branches of the tree. We didn’t think much of it until my Grandma was looking at postcards and saw a postcard with that tree on it. Turns out, the tree we saw was where J. R. R. Tolken got the inspiration for the walking trees in The Lord of the Rings. Pretty cool huh?



Shakespeare's House

Continuing on this literary theme, we took a stop in Stratford-upon-Avon. Everyone’s heard of Shakespeare, right? Well he was born there, and turns out he’s shaped the English language even more than I ever knew! My favorite of his additions to the English language was a list of Shakespeare’s Insults. Why say someone is ugly when you could say that “scratching could not make it worse…such a face as yours”? Why say someone is stupid when you could say that “I was searching for a fool when I found you”? Why say someone is fat when you could say that “you are spherical, like a globe. I could find out countries in you”? I think I prefer Shakespeare’s insults. Now I’ve decided to devote all of my spare time to studying English literature. HA! Yeah right! My dad made me write that.

Just in case you're not feeling charitable ;)
 

 

Our First Castle

By Janean Crane

When you think of a castle you probably think of a large, beautiful building that is quite old and holds a lot of history. Let’s just say that that isn’t the case for all castles. There are two words that come to mind to describe the first castle we saw: Square and dull. When we first arrived at Boston castle we wondered where the castle was as we looked upon a brick-box of a building. 

Boston castle in all it's glory

When we walked in we quickly realized that the brick-box was the “castle.” We then got a very quick tour and learned that it wasn’t a medieval castle, (no surprise there).  It turns out that it was built as a hunting lodge and party house around the time of the Boston Tea Party. In that small square building, they manage to find room for a gift shop and a room with some children’s toys. After this great disappointment, we decided to wander the public footpath in the area of the Castle and I think that everyone would agree that it was a lot more enjoyable. On the path we found thousands of juicy black berries. We were able to pick two bottles full of ripe berries. Maybe we didn’t find a real castle but we definitely found a yummy snack. We all knew one thing when we left that castle, the castles could only get better . . . at least we hope. . .

The tasty treat we found outside the "castle"