Shrewsbury

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Chichester

We were only at Chichester for a very short time on the way to the train station. From what little I had time to see it seemed like a very nice city. The cathedral was grand and right near the main market square. The wall surrounding the cathedral and gardens is the old Roman wall. There was a turret somewhere as well but I couldn't find it. The wall is very similar to that at Portchester being built primarily out of flint.

Jerusalem

COMING SOON

Jerusalem is amazing. Full stop. I think that it is the single most amazing place that I have ever been. It certainly gives Petra a run for its money. While Petra is all about the glory of the desert and the abandoned monuments, Jerusalem is very much a living city. There is nowhere I've been that can compare to it. And I got to spend most of a week there. Yes!

The King's Highway

There's not much to say about the King's Highway except 'Wow.' It goes through one of the most beautiful stretches of country I've ever seen. I understand that the portion north of Al-Karak is even more impressive since it has the Dead Sea. At any rate there is nothing along this road except for fantastic desert scenery and the occasional small town or farm. Until you get further south you don't run across any junctions or roads going East to hook up with the main highway. You just have this one little road winding through nowhere.

This stretch of road goes back for centuries. Back before cars when flat terrain was valued less than a supply of fresh water this was the main trade route through Jordan. It was certainly around at the time of the Crusades since Kerak was located where it was in order to control the trade. The Bedouin still travel this route with their sheep and caravans, although they avoid the road. We saw several groups of them as we rode through. One group even waved at us. Speaking of Bedouin I'm told by one of my taxi drivers that they're terrible with cars. Apparently they think that driving a car is like riding a camel and can never get used to the speed. Florida has its little old ladies, California has its teenagers, and Jordan has its Bedouin.

Kerak

Ah Al-Karak. It's a small city now but back in the day it used to be nothing but a Crusader castle on a hill. It used to be the home of Reynald de Châtillon, Lord of Outrejordain, who royally pissed Saladin off by raiding a convoy and contributed to the fall of the kingdom of Jerusalem. If you've seen Kingdom of Heaven you may remember this castle from that. In that movie they turned this:

 Into this:

As with everywhere else in that movie the castle had to be flat and lifeless while the real Kerak is on a hill surrounded by many other hills. Al-Karak (the name of the modern town) is the capital of the Karak Governorate and is located about halfway between Amman and Petra. It seemed like a logical place to stop since I knew the castle was supposed to be nice and I needed to get to Petra. The guidebook recommended I not do that and the guidebook was right. Unless you're driving it's probably best to go straight to Petra if you're on a tight schedule. Getting a ride to Petra turned out to be impossible. During the summer that might not be true, but I was there in January and there weren't enough people wanting to go to justify a servee. More on that later.

Newark-on-Trent

Newark is a town on the bus route from Nottingham to Lincoln. I didn't realize that you could get a cheap train to Lincoln (the last trains I'd had cost over £30) so I took the bus. To get from Nottingham to Lincoln you need to get off here and hop on another bus. It's a nice little market town that I didn't mean to get stuck at for an hour. The bus stop is right over the road from this castle so I went to see it.

Glastonbury

I went here as part of a University organized trip. So a whole bunch of students being ferried around the country. The theme was Arthurian legends so we went to places associated with those tales. I've always loved the legend of King Arthur so it seemed like a good trip to go on. There are a lot of myths weaved around Arthur, many of them contradictory. The one place that has tried to associate itself with Arthur more than any other is Glastonbury.

In 1191 the monks at Glastonbury Abbey went so far as to claim they had found Arthur's grave. In reality they probably found a Dark Age tomb of some nobleman and his wife, but they claimed that upon it there was the inscription Hic jacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus. That's the line that gave T.H. White the title to his book The Once and Future King.which sounds rather better than the more literal translation "Here is buried Arthur, king once and king in future." The problem with it is that it was written in High Medieval Latin (Classical Latin has no J) and sketches of it (the original has disappeared) reveal it to be engraved in the then current style. It was during a time of great interest in the Arthurian story. Richard the Lionheart brought a sword supposed to be Excalibur with him on Crusade.