Views from our apartment in Rome - Sept 21

Fantastic views from our apartment. St Peter's dome is off in the distance, and there are two other smaller cathedrals close by.Several times during the day the bells from this church ring.

This is the top of the Pantheon across our neighbors deck.

We look down on this narrow pedestrian street, and romantic accordion music from a street restaurant wafts up at night. One of our favorite things to do is to just sit in the apartment and enjoy the views and sounds of Rome. We found the apartment on FRBO.com. The Area Sacra Roman ruins of four temples under excavation are just across the street. There's a stray cat foundation at the edge of the ruins, so they are covered with cats.

We take a very old elevator (like in Charade) to the sixth floor, then walk up one flight.

We had a little adventure on the way from the airport. We thought we'd try to fit in with the locals and ride the train and tram into the city instead of arranging a driver or getting a taxi from the airport. Which went fine until we got off the train at Trastevere station. As soon as we had gone up the stairs, a man approached us indicating we had some foreign substance on our packpack and pants. Then, another man offered some tissues, which I took and began wiping off our small backpack without removing it from Debbies back. In another minute, still another man indicated we had even more of the foreign substance on our pants, and offered to help with a bottle of water. He even had some on his pants, and was demonstrating how to get it off. The substance smelled like mustard and mayonnaise, so I wasn't too worried, but perplexed as to how it got all over us. Something clicked in my mind about then, they seemed a little too helpful, I raised my voice and said "NO!", and put my hands out to indicate that we weren't interested in any more help. I told Debbie I thought they were trying to rob us. It might have helped that there were two policemen not far away outside talking to a man about his motorscooter. We hung around the policemen for a while, just to make sure.

We didn't know this, but the woman who arranged our apartment rental via email had a baby the day before, over 10 lb difficult delivery, so she wasn't answering her cell phone. We found the 26 Arenula apartment building and kept attempting to call her, thinking that maybe the whole apartment rental, $200 deposit, and required 770 euros in my pocket, might be part of a scan as well. Half expecting to get mugged any time, we kept calling her. After a couple hours, we got her, and she explained about the baby, and that her husband would meet us in an hour. It all turned out fine, the apartment is on the top (seventh) floor, and has absolutely fantastic views out over the old center of Rome. We can see the tops of many cathedrals and monuments right from our windows, even the bathroom.

Warwick Castle - Sept 19th

Warwick is one of the more commercialized castles, but it is the classic castle. It has been a significant castle through many centuries.
I guess a young Winston Churchill used to hob knob with the Warwicks. They were looking for volunteers, so I got to help wind up the large trebuchet, that's me in the hamster cage, which hucked a 16 kilo stone about 300 yards. They said that this is the largest authentic wooden trebuchet in existence.


For utube video, click here. I think maybe they have fewer lawyers in England than we do. Looking through utube, there are larger ones made from modern materials. I especially like this one about a rich English guy chucking flaming pianos and cars. His final words in the video are "It's not enough, is it?"

Loch Ness, Inverness, and Invercharron Highland Games - Sept 17,18

Driving across the Scottish Highlands
Urqhart Castle on Loch Ness - this castle was one of the ones which was blown up at one time, but it has a very pretty setting on Loch Ness, and lots of Loch Ness Monster tourists. We didn't pay much attention to the monster stuff.

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Though it's pretty far north (same latitude as Juneau Alaska), we had planned to be near the small town of Invercharron on the day of the last highland games of the summer. It was a lot of fun watching the dancing, piping, running, and strength competitions, like the caber toss and hammer throw. One thing we noticed was that most all of the dancers, pipers, and athletes all took it very seriously, you can tell by their faces.

Scottish Highlands - Sept 16

This is a typical Scottish Highlands road, and Kilchurn Castle, which used to belong to the McGregor Clan, according to the McGregor Clan website. The only way to get to the castle is by boat, and it wasn't running that day. The McGregor history includes the famous "outlaw", Rob Roy McGregor. It's a pretty wild history. see this link
This is Eilean Donan Castle, blown up and then restored in the 1930's.

To listen to Griogal Cridhe (Beloved Gregor) mp3 music, click here

Like the Orcop Holley story, and the roman history to come in later posts, I tend to take all history, including the stories of the Scotland McGregors, as possible or maybe probable history. The people who win the wars get to write the history of the war, and I'm not always sure they don't embellish the facts.

Edinburgh, Doune, and Falkirk - Sept 15

Edinburgh has very interesting topology, with the castle up on a hill. We had castle burn-out, and didn't go in. Debbie recovered by shopping for tartan scarfs. My grandmother told us that we were related to the Edinburgh Stevenson's (the famous author Robert Louis Stevenson, and his father and brothers who build most of the early Scotland lighthouses), but I'm not sure we can establish a direct link. My middle name is Stevenson with a "v", but my Mom's extensive genealogical research includes many Stephenson's (with a "ph"), only two Stevenson's, who are suspiciously married to women named Stephenson. So I'm not sure. The lines probably merge at some point anyway, so what does it really matter? I haven't found any direct link to the steam engine Stephenson's either. I suppose we'd all like to think we're related to someone of historical significance, maybe it makes us think we have more potential. But then again, any person who really accomplished something didn't do it because they were related to someone famous. More often I think the most successful people come out of obscurity.

This is Doune castle (in Monty Python and the Holy Grail), and the Falkirk Wheel, a sort of giant ferris wheel for canal boats.

More Abbeys and Castles - Sept 14

Every castle and abbey is unique, but there are certain types. These two, Alnwich and Banbury, Are still occupied by the same families for hundreds of years, and they open parts to the public, for a fee. They also have weddings and special functions. They are furnished extravagantly inside, but most don't allow inside photography. We toured through Alnwick, but got to Banbury (on the ocean) too late in the evening, so we just walked around it.

Other castles and abbeys are pretty much abandoned, and are cared for by a government sponsored foundation. These are Jedburgh Abbey and Melrose Abbey, where Paul traces his Stephenson line nine generations back.

Still other, generally oder castles are abandoned and ruined, usually by some group tired of retaking it, so they blew it up with gunpowder.

Castles and Beamish - Sept 13

We visited another open air museum, Beamish. They had a nice array of old buildings, vehicles, and we got to go on a coal mine tour with a retired coal miner, but you could hardly understand a word he was saying, his yorkshire accent was so thick.


We had picked a few castles and abbeys from online information, and stopped at a few. Middleham Castle
Richmond Castle