October 26, 2008
Dawn (from the US), Angela (from Australia) and I joined up with a tour called Wizards and Warriors, obviously a sight that this would be a day for me to indulge in my nerdy love of Harry Potter. The tour was expensive relative to the ISC get-you-there-bring-you-back approach, but it was nice to visit several places in one day and hear all sorts of history and tidbits during the drive. I'm going to shamelessly steal a blurb from Heart of Scotland's website to explain what we saw:
"This exciting tour explores the violent history of the Borders, visits two of the finest castles in England (Bamburgh Castle and Alnwick Castle) before returning North for the magnificent Wallace Statue and Scott’s View, the finest panorama in the Scottish Borders."
Bamburgh Castle was our first stop and, while it's clearly a beautiful, massive building, I didn't really take much away from it. There are some nice views from the castle since it sits on a crag right on the edge of the coast:
And some awesome nose-picking gargoyles:
One of neatest things is probably what our driver said about the castle - "you can plot history in the walls of Bamburgh - referring to the different layers of stone used throughout the years:
Then we set off for Alnwick (pronounced "ann-nick") Castle. Of the two castles, I liked Alnwick more for one obvious reason: its proximity to Harry Potter. Dawn and I did a "magical history" tour of the castle led by a guy who doubled for Malfoy in the flying lesson scene from the first movie (filmed in the yard below). As Dawn said, maybe being an extra in the movie gives you a free pass on the interview for doing tours of the castle.
Other than the Harry Potter stuff, the castle also sported some very cool detailed statues of archers and soldiers and men hoisting large objects:
The craziest thing about these two castles: they're both inhabited! Can you imagine growing up in a castle? In Alnwick, we quickly toured through the beautiful interior. In the library, there were hundreds of ancient books lining the walls, even shelved above doorways. And sitting in the shadow of these pages from history? You first guess would probably not be a flat screen TV and surround sound system. Unbelievable.
After Alnwick, we crossed back into Scotland and somehow managed to combine a toilet break with a stop at an ancient abbey ruin... only in Scotland. Kelso Abbey, built in the 12th century and severely damaged in the "Rough Wooing" campaign. Advice to men trying to force women into marriage: invading your lady's homeland with armies and attacking its abbeys... not the best approach.
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