Wednesday, April 2, 2008

{Tor Tower, 2005}

Tor Tower, Glastonbury, was one of my all-time favorite places in England. Glastonbury is an interesting place. It is very closely connected to Arthurian Mythology, (I know this because I am married to someone who did his thesis on Arthurian literature) and is now very hippyish--home base for England's new-age druids. There are lots of magic stores, herbal medicines stores, new age-bookshops, etc.
We (Scott) really, really, really wanted to see Glastonbury. Apparently, a must see for all Arthurian aficionados. Unfortunately for us, we were also in England over Summer Solstice--the biggest holiday in the year for a neo-druid.
We had actually arrived in London on Summer Solstice, and tried to see Stonehenge on the way to Bath. We weren't the only ones with that idea. As we got closer we noticed hundreds, maybe thousands of people, some with long cloaks and hoods (very Lord of the Rings), hanging out in the surrounding fields. There were police cars everywhere. We were informed, sadly, that Stonehenge closes on Summer Solstice--something to do with people trying to jump off it. Boo. So we didn't go to Stonehenge on 6/22/. We had to make a special trip to see it, totally out of our way, on another day.
Anyway, the problem for us was that all the druids who were at Stonehenge then go to Glastonbury for a week long festival. This put a serious damper on our ideas to see Glastonbury ourselves. Everyone kept telling us that there are hundreds of thousands of people all camped out there, and it would be impossible to get there, etc, etc. Total bummer.
Luckily for us, we decided to brave it anyway and fortunately, the festival was moved 5 miles away to some guys farm. Yay! We had Glastonbury all to ourselves. No on was there, well there were some people, but it felt like we were the only ones there. It was beautiful and I loved seeing all the sites that were so important to Scott. I also was befriended by a 4-year-old New Zealand boy who wanted go home with me. He kept asking who my friend (Scott) was. Adorable accent.
Glastonbury Abbey and Wearyall were pretty cool, but the tower and Tor were my favorite. When you were on top of the Tor (hill) you had an amazing view of the countryside-still very rural. It was all green and lush and totally enchanting.

2 comments:

Shan @ Design Gal said...

When I make it to England someday, I'll definitly stop here! Very interesting!

ike and em said...

It's so fun to see your beautiful photos and to read about your adventures. We all get to live vicariously through you!