The Isle of Apples. Or is that Glass?
Mar. 6th, 2005 01:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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softstepshoes and I took a day trip to Glastonbury today. Big shout out to Traveline for giving me train and bus times that fit together like little puzzle pieces and let us get there and back with less than fifteen minutes of waiting around for transportation each way. Beautiful. My knees are in active revolt from all the walking and stair-climbing (am so getting whatever this is checked out by a doctor this summer), but the non-walking transportation worked out wonderfully.
Glastonbury is a town that is also known in Arthurian legend as pretty much the closest to a geographical location that can be had for the Isle of Avalon. Of course, Glastonbury is miles from the sea, and the biggest bodies of water I saw were duck ponds on the Abbey grounds. However, it used to be part of a bunch of islands, before the medievals started draining the saltwater marsh lands, leaving the whole area with a very weird landscape. There are stretches of land that are flatter than a pancake--the plains I saw in Indiana once simply don't compare, and that land freaked me out--and then you have a few random hills rising out of them, most of the hills being practically straight up. The whole landscape actually rather unsettling when viewed from the Tor. I've never seen anything quite like it.
That's not to say that the whole thing wasn't very cool, because it was. We had about five hours there, and we got to see lots of stuff. We started off at the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, a major religious/pilgrimage site since prehistoric times. The first church there was supposedly the first "above-ground Christian church" in the world. Not sure what above-ground has to do with it, but anyway. The ruins were definitely ruinous--there's hardly anything left, and some of what was was covered in scaffolding. Sigh. The abbot's kitchen was pretty neat, though: they apparently had running water even in 1400 or whenever it was built--specifically, they diverted a stream or spring to run along the inside of one of the walls, and it still does today. You could dip some kind of vessel in the stream and fill it with water, or wash your hands, or whatever. Pretty cool. And they had a few tiles from the original floor of the church left in situ, covered with wooden lids you could lift up in order to see them. I'm always amazed at how colorful these medieval tiles and fabrics are/were.
And of course, there's Arthur's grave. Or, rather, a sign towards the entrance of what was once the church saying that monks in 1191 dug him up from the graveyard outside, put him in a black marble grave at that spot, and then, well, lost him. There was Henry VIII's whole dissolution of the monasteries and everything, yes, but you'd think they'd be more careful with King Arthur's bones. ;)
Oh, and there were remains of the monks' version of Gund. Heh. Dining hall!
After perusing the gift shop (I got a little book that tells a very detailed version of Tristan and Iseult with pictures of various locations in the story, which we must go visit sometime), we headed off for the Tor. The Tor is the highest point for miles around, and looks practically unassailable from the bottom, but you can climb it in about fifteen minutes. Another freaky thing about that landscape. It was used for both Druidic rites and Christian worship (the remains of St. Michael's church are at the top), as well as for farming until the marshland surrounding it was drained. Apparently it's one of many hills that house fairyland; Chandra and I decided beforehand that any interesting-looking caves were not to be entered, nor little men in brown clothing or women with little wings to be followed, for fear of being taken away from this mortal coil and all that. Also, no taking of swords from any water nymphs. ;)
There are, of course, fantastic views over that weird landscape from all points along the paths up the Tor and at the top. The wind was incredible. It was like Dartmoor. I literally felt myself getting blown off the path three times, and given that it's quite the steep hill, that was...unsettling. It was so windy at the top that I couldn't ever really hold my camera still. But we could see all the way out to Wales! That's pretty neat. I felt a short, desperate urge to fling something off the top when I was there, but as I had no swords called Excalibur at hand, I couldn't play Bedivere. Sad.
It had been overcast all morning, and it started hailing on us just as we got to the base of the Tor. But by the time we got to the top, it was bright and sunny. I will never understand English weather. Unfortunately, the weather meant that I didn't get any really cool Tor pictures like you see online or in books; those require mists and sunsets and stuff. Ah, well.
At the bottom of the Tor, on the side opposite the one we came up, is the Chalice Well and Gardens, which I think might've been my favorite part of the day, despite the crunchy granola New Ageyness of it all. The Chalice Well is actually a spring that never runs dry, which people have built a well-like enclosure around in order to better access it. It starts at the top of the garden complex and runs down through various bits and pieces before finally flowing out to, I assume, join the town's water supply. The gardens are relatively small, and to be honest, they reminded me of this extensively-landscaped garden supply shop near 100 Oaks Mall back at home. They had a nice waterfall, a lovely fountain, a bathing pool (wouldn't try that in March), a drinking fountain, the well itself, and a lot of benches and flowers, but it was all very compact. Lots of daffodils, though. Thousands. No, really. Made me happy. And except for a few screaming kids, it was peaceful. I had some quality time just sitting down and absorbing the pretty. (I also visit the gift shop and got a gorgeous card with an artist's representation of the Tor surrounded by the ocean again. So pretty.)
And then, since we had some time to kill before our bus, we had tea at a very crowded cafe and browsed all the New Agey shops. One had a really weird room dedicated to LOTR, but not to selling anything in it. It was just a bunch of fake greenery and twinkle lights in a horseshoe-shaped arbor that you walked around, with cardboard figures of various characters (including a life-sized Legolas) and some plaster Gollums, with speakers that had Gollum singing his fish song at you. It was actually a little creepy. There was also a fabulous used bookstore, which was really cheap, but I couldn't really find anything I couldn't live without. I did manage to find some French and German phrasebooks (which I couldn't find at either Waterstone's in Exeter), so now I can go to Switzerland/Austria/France and not look totally like I expect the world to speak English (even though I'm kind of hoping they do, 'cause I sure don't speak French or German!).
That's about it, really. Pictures (the few good ones I got) coming soon.
softstepshoes and I took a day trip to Glastonbury today. Big shout out to Traveline for giving me train and bus times that fit together like little puzzle pieces and let us get there and back with less than fifteen minutes of waiting around for transportation each way. Beautiful. My knees are in active revolt from all the walking and stair-climbing (am so getting whatever this is checked out by a doctor this summer), but the non-walking transportation worked out wonderfully.Glastonbury is a town that is also known in Arthurian legend as pretty much the closest to a geographical location that can be had for the Isle of Avalon. Of course, Glastonbury is miles from the sea, and the biggest bodies of water I saw were duck ponds on the Abbey grounds. However, it used to be part of a bunch of islands, before the medievals started draining the saltwater marsh lands, leaving the whole area with a very weird landscape. There are stretches of land that are flatter than a pancake--the plains I saw in Indiana once simply don't compare, and that land freaked me out--and then you have a few random hills rising out of them, most of the hills being practically straight up. The whole landscape actually rather unsettling when viewed from the Tor. I've never seen anything quite like it.
That's not to say that the whole thing wasn't very cool, because it was. We had about five hours there, and we got to see lots of stuff. We started off at the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, a major religious/pilgrimage site since prehistoric times. The first church there was supposedly the first "above-ground Christian church" in the world. Not sure what above-ground has to do with it, but anyway. The ruins were definitely ruinous--there's hardly anything left, and some of what was was covered in scaffolding. Sigh. The abbot's kitchen was pretty neat, though: they apparently had running water even in 1400 or whenever it was built--specifically, they diverted a stream or spring to run along the inside of one of the walls, and it still does today. You could dip some kind of vessel in the stream and fill it with water, or wash your hands, or whatever. Pretty cool. And they had a few tiles from the original floor of the church left in situ, covered with wooden lids you could lift up in order to see them. I'm always amazed at how colorful these medieval tiles and fabrics are/were.
And of course, there's Arthur's grave. Or, rather, a sign towards the entrance of what was once the church saying that monks in 1191 dug him up from the graveyard outside, put him in a black marble grave at that spot, and then, well, lost him. There was Henry VIII's whole dissolution of the monasteries and everything, yes, but you'd think they'd be more careful with King Arthur's bones. ;)
Oh, and there were remains of the monks' version of Gund. Heh. Dining hall!
After perusing the gift shop (I got a little book that tells a very detailed version of Tristan and Iseult with pictures of various locations in the story, which we must go visit sometime), we headed off for the Tor. The Tor is the highest point for miles around, and looks practically unassailable from the bottom, but you can climb it in about fifteen minutes. Another freaky thing about that landscape. It was used for both Druidic rites and Christian worship (the remains of St. Michael's church are at the top), as well as for farming until the marshland surrounding it was drained. Apparently it's one of many hills that house fairyland; Chandra and I decided beforehand that any interesting-looking caves were not to be entered, nor little men in brown clothing or women with little wings to be followed, for fear of being taken away from this mortal coil and all that. Also, no taking of swords from any water nymphs. ;)
There are, of course, fantastic views over that weird landscape from all points along the paths up the Tor and at the top. The wind was incredible. It was like Dartmoor. I literally felt myself getting blown off the path three times, and given that it's quite the steep hill, that was...unsettling. It was so windy at the top that I couldn't ever really hold my camera still. But we could see all the way out to Wales! That's pretty neat. I felt a short, desperate urge to fling something off the top when I was there, but as I had no swords called Excalibur at hand, I couldn't play Bedivere. Sad.
It had been overcast all morning, and it started hailing on us just as we got to the base of the Tor. But by the time we got to the top, it was bright and sunny. I will never understand English weather. Unfortunately, the weather meant that I didn't get any really cool Tor pictures like you see online or in books; those require mists and sunsets and stuff. Ah, well.
At the bottom of the Tor, on the side opposite the one we came up, is the Chalice Well and Gardens, which I think might've been my favorite part of the day, despite the crunchy granola New Ageyness of it all. The Chalice Well is actually a spring that never runs dry, which people have built a well-like enclosure around in order to better access it. It starts at the top of the garden complex and runs down through various bits and pieces before finally flowing out to, I assume, join the town's water supply. The gardens are relatively small, and to be honest, they reminded me of this extensively-landscaped garden supply shop near 100 Oaks Mall back at home. They had a nice waterfall, a lovely fountain, a bathing pool (wouldn't try that in March), a drinking fountain, the well itself, and a lot of benches and flowers, but it was all very compact. Lots of daffodils, though. Thousands. No, really. Made me happy. And except for a few screaming kids, it was peaceful. I had some quality time just sitting down and absorbing the pretty. (I also visit the gift shop and got a gorgeous card with an artist's representation of the Tor surrounded by the ocean again. So pretty.)
And then, since we had some time to kill before our bus, we had tea at a very crowded cafe and browsed all the New Agey shops. One had a really weird room dedicated to LOTR, but not to selling anything in it. It was just a bunch of fake greenery and twinkle lights in a horseshoe-shaped arbor that you walked around, with cardboard figures of various characters (including a life-sized Legolas) and some plaster Gollums, with speakers that had Gollum singing his fish song at you. It was actually a little creepy. There was also a fabulous used bookstore, which was really cheap, but I couldn't really find anything I couldn't live without. I did manage to find some French and German phrasebooks (which I couldn't find at either Waterstone's in Exeter), so now I can go to Switzerland/Austria/France and not look totally like I expect the world to speak English (even though I'm kind of hoping they do, 'cause I sure don't speak French or German!).
That's about it, really. Pictures (the few good ones I got) coming soon.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-06 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-06 04:35 am (UTC)Don't ever go to Kansas, then. Seriously. Northern Nevada was perhaps worse, though.
The first church there was supposedly the first "above-ground Christian church" in the world. Not sure what above-ground has to do with it, but anyway.
Hmmm. I remember a church in Helsinki that was underground and very old, but I don't remember the details...
Sounds very cool! Although after my second trip overseas, I decided that you can always tell the Historical Landmarks by the scaffolding. If it doesn't have scaffolding, it's not a H.L.... (Of course, I was in Berlin while they were working on the Brandenburg Gate - it wasn't covered in scaffolding, but one Big. Huge. Tarp. The whole damn thing. Although they had done up the front to *look* like the gate, so you could kinda-sorta see what it would look like, if you could actually have seen it. Yeah, I have sucky timing, why do you ask?)
no subject
Date: 2005-03-06 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-06 05:16 pm (UTC)I plan to avoid the real Midwest (Ohio's just Mid Atlantic with an identity crisis) as much as I can. Completely flat land freaks me out so bad.
Hmmm. I remember a church in Helsinki that was underground and very old, but I don't remember the details...
I think it might have something to do with the earliest Christian churches in Palestine, etc. being underground both figuratively and literally, but I'm really not sure.
Sounds very cool! Although after my second trip overseas, I decided that you can always tell the Historical Landmarks by the scaffolding. If it doesn't have scaffolding, it's not a H.L....
Unfortunately, yes. Sigh.
(Of course, I was in Berlin while they were working on the Brandenburg Gate - it wasn't covered in scaffolding, but one Big. Huge. Tarp. The whole damn thing. Although they had done up the front to *look* like the gate, so you could kinda-sorta see what it would look like, if you could actually have seen it. Yeah, I have sucky timing, why do you ask?)
Oh, ew.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-06 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-08 02:08 pm (UTC)It's probably safe to assume that many of the people running the shops were some variant of Wiccan.
We didn't climb the Tor (too bad) but I did see the well and was a little bit disappointed. However, the abbey was neat. Have you ever gotten to Tintern, btw?
I thought the well was more interesting than the Abbey. Perhaps my Pisces nature is finally showing through. ;) Haven't yet gotten anywhere in Wales; working on that. Weekend trip sometime in May, maybe, or at some point in June. Probably not to Tintern, though--I'm a little tired of broken-down old religious structures at the moment.