Wales and Scotland

People should have built-odometers, like cars do, to see how far they have traveled. Over the last three days, I covered enough ground by bus, train, taxi, boat, and on foot to merit an oil change and a tire rotation.

The weekend started Friday morning when my Romantic Literature class boarded a bus bound for Wales. Having read extensively about Wye River Valley in class, we would finally see the place in person. Starting at Goodrich Castle, we hiked up several hilltops overlooking the winding river. In particular, the view from Symons Yat Rock is about five hundred feet above the riverbed and offers visibility of several miles over the farmland of rural Wales. I felt like I had stepped into a postcard. We took a boat ride down the slow-moving Wye and finally ended up at Tintern Abbey. The ruined monastery has been a tourist destination for three centuries and for good reason. Despite having read about the place, nothing could have prepared me for the spectacle. That feeling cannot be put into words. In reality, it was massive. No painting or photograph could relate how humbling it felt to be standing amongst the great stone structures built nearly a thousand years ago. The roof was long ago removed, so one looks up to see the heavens, which is usually raining.

As if that wasn’t enough, I woke up early the next morning to catch a train directed at Edinburgh, Scotland. Six hours on the train went by quicker than expected because the scenery rushing past the window was captivating. The landscape alternated between industry when near cities like Birmingham or York, but remained cultivated green hills through the remainder of the countryside. That trip marked the second time I have been to Birmingham this summer; the last time was in a far away place called Alabama.

Edinburgh exceeded all of my expectations. It looks so small on a map when compared to London or even neighboring Glasgow, but only because Edinburgh is compact. Like Manhattan, it had limited space to build out, so it built up. What resulted was the first example of skyscrapers; fifteen story buildings constructed about five or six hundred years ago. Edinburgh Castle sits atop a huge outcropping in the middle of the city overlooking the ocean. Henry V of England and Mary Queen of Scots were both born in the castle and it is the current residence of the Scottish Crown Jewels. More recently, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling lives down the street from our B&B and wrote her famous books in various pubs around town. The sound of bagpipes could be heard nearly everywhere in the city limits, either from the pubs blasting it out of speakers or the dozen or so street performers playing them on street corners. Pictures of Robbie Burns were everywhere. I personally experienced Scotland by eating a bowl of haggis. It sounds disgusting; it doesn’t taste nearly as bad.

Getting back from to Oxford from Scotland was also adventurous. Leaving at six o’clock last night meant that there were no more trains to Oxford. So we caught a train headed to Kings Cross in London instead. From there, we walked around the city until finding a bus going to Oxford. Needless to say, when we walked into Trinity College at 2:00 this morning, it felt good to be home. It is funny how Oxford has so quickly become a surrogate home. Traveling far to places like Scotland and Wales has helped make that possible.