Cardiff

Shrewsbury

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intro

Thessalonika

Thessaloniki isn't exactly a city you're likely to visit for fun. Most people who go there do so because it is a convenient stopping off point for visiting places in northern Greece and has the second major airport in Greece. As such it seems somewhat unfair to criticize it for being a grungy mess because it isn't supposed to be anything else. Basically Thessaloniki is Athens without the Parthenon.

Corinth

 

There isn't very much at Corinth worth seeing. The Romans wiped this place clean in 146 BC and they did a pretty thorough job of it. The city was rebuilt later but I believe it was in a different location since I didn't see any Roman or Byzantine remains here. Certainly by the time of the fourth crusade the Acrocorinth (the big cliffs there in the background) was the main stronghold in the area.

Nafplia

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Palamidi Castle

Mistra

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St. Michael's Mount

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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.

 

Arundel

On our way to Tintagel we stopped over for the night near Arundel. Arundel Castle is the best preserved in the country and is still the residence of the Duke of Norfolk.

Portchester

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Carcassonne

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Edinburgh

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Stirling

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Doune Castle

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56°11'6.17"N, 4° 3'0.21"W

Acre

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weew

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.