St. Michael's Mount

COMING SOON

St. Michael's Mount is a little castle set on an island that is only accessible from a small road when the tide is out. It is very similar to Mont Saint-Michel which I kept confusing it with the whole trip, except that Saint Michael's Mount is much smaller and doesn't have a big town on it. The main town is that of Marazion located on the other side of the bridge. St. Michael's Mount is also closed on Saturday which is what screwed our schedule up. We had originally planned to go to Saint Michael's Mount on Saturday and Tintagel on Sunday but with the positions reversed we had to change our plans. If you're going to Saint Michael's Mount it is important to check the tides. If the tide is in there is no way of accessing the island unless you want to hire a boat.

Tintagel

Tintagel was fun. We left Arundel at 12:30ish and Tintagel closed at 5:30. We didn't start out rushed but as we got closer we realized that we were going to be pushing it. England is full of speed cameras which means that speeding just isn't worth it. Unlike cops Speed Cameras are always there and they don't skip cars just because other people are speeding. There's also no way to argue your way out of a speeding ticket since there is visual evidence of your identity when the camera takes a picture. Worst are the average speed zones where they average your speed for the entire section. These are mostly construction zones and they are annoying. I'm quite glad I'll never have to deal with them. The point is that it doesn't pay to speed. If a journey takes five hours it takes five hours.

Tintagel is a place filled with myth and mystery. Connected from an early date with King Arthur it has a strong mythical pedigree. This is the supposed site of his birth and where Uther Pendragon conceived him upon Igraine by appearing as her murdered husband Gorlois through the aid of Merlin. It is basically an island connected to the mainland via a thin spit of land. The island itself is all cliff and cannot be approached on any side. It is basically the perfect defensive position except that it is impossible to sneak supplies in. The cliffs are just as deadly for friends as for enemies.

 

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.