Lochleven Castle, the island is bigger than in Mary's day, as the loch has been lowered by a meter. It used to only have 5 ft of ground aroung the castle.
The ruins of the rooms where mary was held for some of her stay
Ali then drove us to Falkland Castle, where Mary spent her childhood, once again we paid the man the money and went in to spend the day... The castle was quite nice, they have lots of sheets to read in each room, so you know what you are looking at and don’t miss anything, way cheaper than paying guides you think? Not so, they have people sitting in each room to make sure you don’t pinch anything..... There were a couple of four poster beds that would bring a pretty penny, but a little too decorative for my personal taste, so I didn’t slip them into my handbag.
Falkland Castle, where Mary stayed as a child, before going to France at 6 yrs of age
Sheonagh loves to read all the information available, much to Ali’s disgust, she tells me he just runs through the historical places and waits for her at the end, in the coffee shop. So she is glad I am here, she can take her time and enjoy the history, without watching Ali run by.... Unless of course there is a tractor, Ali loves tractors and machinery. Perhaps that is why Sheonagh is enjoying this week as much as I am, she has found someone to enjoy the history of the buildings with, and most of the ones we have visited, she has not visited before either. We are having a ball. I really should buy Ali a book on tractors, to keep him busy as we meander around the castles. We are having a day off today, and going to the highland games tomorrow at Glamis (forget the i remember?). So today Ali has the day off and guess where he has gone, yep a local farmers show, to look at? You guessed it, tractors!!
Many of the houses in the village of Falklands have the dates when th ehouse was built or the initials and date fo the marriage of the first inhabitants of the house.
Yesterday Ali drove us to Roslin, to visit the Rosslyn Chapel, from the De Vinci Code. Yep, I am now famous, I have been to the Rosslyn Chapel, do you want my autograph? Well I suspect you will have to wait in line, but that’s okay, I am worth the wait!! The chapel was incredible, I have been to a lot of churches lately and they are all nice, some fancier than others, but this one was unbelievable, it had hundreds of stone carvings, it was amazing. Sadly it is now being renovated so a lot of it was covered, but still worth the visit. Under the chapel is a very large space or vault. It is the burial chamber for the knights of the family that own the land. There are many stories of what is buried in the vault, part of the real cross (on which Jesus was crucified), the holy grail, and many other religious artefact's are mentioned in different myths, but the family will not allow the vaults to be opened as it is a family burial chamber, so no-one can verify or refute any myths. The guide explained that some of the weird carvings are meant to represent musical notes and that if it is ever decrypted that the music if played at a certain time on a certain day, on certain instruments will unlock all the mysteries of the chapel. Well a man and his son are supposed to have solved the music notes (took them 20 years), but when they played the music nothing happened, so it was not the right time. They do have the music on CD in the crypt, but Sheonagh and I decided not to play it, not because we would have died of fright if things started opening, but because we decided to leave the secrets hidden to keep the mystery of the chapel...yeah okay, believe what you like. They told us they used to get about 30,000 visitors a year, but now since the book, they get about 170,000. The renovations were not going to be possible for 5 to 10 years, but are now being undertaken, so Dan Brown has done them a real favour. I loved that book, so being at the chapel was really something. Photographs are not permitted in the chapel, so I brought some postcards and took pics of the photo’s they have up around the grounds. I cannot scan the postcards so shall post some of the ones I took to try to give you some idea of the place.
The ceiling
The inside, the flash can be seen, sorry!!
Some of the hundredsof stone carvings, they literally cover every inch of the chapel. Amazing.
We got to Edinburgh at lunch time and had lunch in a pub. We then went to see Mary King’s Close, it is a close (small lane way or street) that had been closed off in the 18th century and built over, so it was pretty amazing. Sheonagh had told me about it, so I desperately wanted to see it, it was brilliant, we had to pay the man the money again, but we had a tour guide this time, we went down some steps, lots of steps and then we were in the close, it was really something, a change from castle’s and churches, this was where the poor people of Edinburgh lived, and some middle class as well. When we entered the first room the guide told us it was part of a rich mans house at one time and Mary Queen of Scots had been held here for one night before being transferred to Lochleven castle for her imprisonment...what, I thought I had finished with her, but maybe she is not finished with me... ooohhhh...
The close was only about 5 feet wide and the houses had been up to 8 stories high, so it would never have been very light down at the bottom. It is only about 2 to 3 stories high now and then the bottom of the Chancery building starts. When they explain the sanitation of the day it really made you gag. Apparently twice a day when the clock tower struck 10pm and something else (memory going) everyone got their toilet buckets, yelled “gard a l’eau”, (watch the water) in bad French and threw the contents of their buckets into the street. So if you lived at the top of the close, up the hill you only had minimum sewerage outside your door, but if you lived at the bottom of the hill/close you were ankle deep in the stuff, all year round, eeek. It was horrible, can you imagine the smell. Not all history is “the good old days” I have come to realise that in the last few weeks. I am quite glad to be born in the 20th century lately. No pics allowed in the close, so I brought a postcard, but cannot scan it. I may try to photograph it later, but off to lunch soon.
Sheonagh and I caught a bus home in the late afternoon, we had given Ali the afternoon off. It was another long day, and I fell asleep in the bus, I have been doing that a lot lately, sleeping in the car on the way home. The first time it happened, Ali told Sheonagh that my brain had gone into meltdown due to culture fatigue, as she was imparting too much information on me. Sheonagh is brilliant, she has so much knowledge and she is kind enough to share it with me on our visits. I am missing my nanna naps though, I was getting used to them before I left home.
I had a real disappointment this morning, I was going to contact my daughters, my sisters and my Mum on Skype, but for some reason it would not work, so I was desolate, I really was looking forward to talking to them all. So I shall try again tonight and from Glasgow on Tuesday. I don’t think internet access in Forfar is very good, or else there McDonald’s has blocked the use of Skype, I could email okay but not talk to them. Very disappointing.
Cheers
Lones
No comments:
Post a Comment