Favourite Historical Site

[gurneyman]

Gettysburg, Pa....that may change if I ever get to Greece to visit Thermopylae....

 

[digs]

That I've visited:

- the Acropolis of Athens (yeah, I teared up a bit as I walked up the steps, so what!?)
- the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion

That I've not visited:

- Abu Simbel (I am incredibly desperate to go to Egypt)
- Petra

 

[paranoid marvin]

Can't get enough of castles ; British castles especially. You can keep your Colliseum , Pyramids and Italian Cathedrals , castles are where its at. Warwick is a particular favourite , but there are many , many fascinating fortresses still standing in Scotland and especially Wales, Conwy and Caernarvon being especially cool

 

[River Boy]

Can't get enough of castles ; British castles especially. You can keep your Colliseum , Pyramids and Italian Cathedrals , castles are where its at. Warwick is a particular favourite , but there are many , many fascinating fortresses still standing in Scotland and especially Wales, Conwy and Caernarvon being especially cool

Warwick's great but I prefer Tamworth, far more spooky and built on the site of the ancient capital of Mercia.

 

[Somni]

I have now been to Vindolanda and it was good. They were digging then too, and what was nice is they don't mind stopping to talk to you about what they are doing!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I'll put a punt in for the only thing interesting in my town: Carrickfergus Castle. Pretty much intact Norman castle, one of the best preserved in the UK, stronghold of John de Courcy when he took Ulster for Strongbow and cracking views over the lough.

 

[Abernovo]

Back in Scotland, it would be Dunottar Castle, South of Aberdeen, perched on a cliff above the North Sea. It's a ruin now, but still impressive.

Here in Bulgaria though, it would have to be the fortress of Tsarevets. It too is no longer in its fullest glory, but is still absolutely magnificent, not to mention, huge.

 

[Alex The G and T]

Teotihuacan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan

Time felt very thin there. The right gesture just might brush aside a veil and allow one to step back 2000 years into a bustling, very different world.

 

[Foxbat]

My two favourites are both on Orkney -
Skara Brae and Maes Howe. Incredible places

 

[Morbius]

Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratory in Greenfield Village, Dearborn, MI.

Henry Ford relocated it to his museum in the 1920's. All of it: the long brick building, the equipment and apparatus, classic laboratory glassware, tools & chemicals & even the power plant that provided it electricity. All in their original physical state & position. You can go up and gaze all around as long as you want but you can't cross the barrier and go into the laboratory itself.

From lab notebooks to chemical jars with original manufacture labels dating back to the early 20th century, everything remains as it was. Undisturbed. A haunting, amazing thing to see up close.

 

[Mouse]

Glastonbury Abbey. Olympia was also pretty damn good when I went there.

I said Glastonbury Abbey two years ago? Hm. Well, it's nice but not massively exciting. If I can change it to just Glastonbury in general then I might agree with my past self.

Still agree with Olympia though. And I've been to both Olympia and the Acropolis and Olympia was way better.

Oh, Kutna Hora in the Czech Republic is awesome too.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Oh, Kutna Hora in the Czech Republic is awesome too.

I really oved that place too, not far from Prague at all. Brilliant cathedral (is it a cathedral or just a really big, big church?) Flying buttresses to die for though.

High point was when we were looking down into the crystal clear waters of the flooded lower levels of the mine to be told that we're on level 1 and there was something like seven levels of medieval mine workings going down into the earth. Pretty awesome. Industrious lot those Czech miners.

 

[Mouse]

Oh yeah the cathedral was amazing. I didn't see the mines! Did you see the ossuary?

 

[Venusian Broon]

Oh yeah the cathedral was amazing. I didn't see the mines! Did you see the ossuary?

Was that the skulls and bones one! - (I think) because someone had brought back some soil from Jerusalem and planted it about the place, so it really became the in place to put your bones - Really weird! (Prague tends to have alot of that sort of stuff - I like the mummified arm of a thief that a statue of the virgin mary caught - but today stapled to the ceiling of another church near the city centre)

The mines were brilliant to visit - I went (from memory) at about 1999 and there was a guide who was an old retired miner. Not from the medieveal period of course

I have to say though despite how wonderful Prague was, in terms of historical treasures and traditional streets, I had been a few years before and I was a little dismayed when I went the 2nd time to find it really 'Amsterdamised' i.e. boozed-, sexed- and partied- up. Dread to think what it's like now...

 

[Mouse]

I went in 2010 and didn't really see any of that side of it! I know it's big with stag-parties but I didn't see any. Maybe cos I didn't go out partying and whatnot.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I went in 2010 and didn't really see any of that side of it! I know it's big with stag-parties but I didn't see any. Maybe cos I didn't go out partying and whatnot.

Perhaps because the last time I was there we may have been in a hotel that was in the Prague equivalent of Soho.

But really love the 'feel' of the city centre though despite the modern crap, got a lovely kind of ye olde 16th century look and street plan still. And so much stuff -golems, Kafka, Doctor Dee and alchemists, the birthplace of robots*...

(Too far away for British Bomber Command to pound it into desolation in WW2 thankfully.)

* Literary of course, not where they made the machines that now make cars.

 

[Mouse]

Yeah I loved it. Took a million photos! Something to see everywhere you look.

 

[Allegra]

Yes Kutna Hora is really one of a kind. Funny it doesn't really have the bone chilling effect, rather comic and crafty. Prague is truly a magnificent historical city.

Still not managed at Allegra?

If you wait for things to settle down you may never get there.

I'm again seriously planning to go to Athens in November. Hope there won't be another riot considering they are probably leaving the eurozone in a few months. Poor Greece.

 

[Mouse]

If you do get to Athens, make sure you take a little day cruise out to the islands Hydra, Aegina and Poros cos they're super pretty. I love Greece.

 

[Allegra]

Yes I will. Thanks, Mouse.