The Holy Grail

While in Glastonbury we also went to visit the Chalice Well, which is said to be the site of the Holy Grail. Here is what is said about the Well on its website:

 "The Chalice Well is among the best known and most loved holy wells in Britain. Many legends are attributed to its chalybeate waters, which flow ceaselessly at a steady rate and temperature that never varies. Not least among these is that they represent the blood of Christ miraculously springing forth from the ground when Joseph of Arimathea buried or washed the cup used at the Last Supper. For others the waters are acknowledged as the essence of life, the gift from Mother Earth to sustain its living forms and so a continuous spring like Chalice Well is a direct expression of an unbounded life force."

It was very quiet, very spiritual and we left there calm and happier

The chalice Well Symbol " is an ancient sacred symbol of two interlocking circles where the circumference of one circle goes through the center of another identical circle. Its geometry symbolises a union, of heaven and earth or spirit and matter and appears throughout the gardens."

A cute seat

The waterfall

After the Chalice Well, we wanted to see two very old trees called Gog and Magog, which are trees that have been there for over 2000 years. They are hard to find and not really known to many people. When we went to the Glastonbury Abbey, we were given a map of the Tor and on the hand drawn map were the trees put up in the corner. We did the best we could and tried to find these trees. We turn down this road which was more like a sidewalk. Here is a picture of Kit below on the road. We drove on it for awhile until we  found a small place to park the car. (we ended up scraping up the side of the rental car a little bit, oops. Good thing another car didn't come at us.)
We couldn't believe that these were real roads.

We had a hard time finding the trees. We walked for awhile and ran across some people and asked them where the Gog and Magog tree were. You can imagine the looks we got from people. They usually said, WHAT trees. After giving up and then finally asking one more person, we found them (they were so close to where we gave up the first time, if we would have walked about 1/2 mile more we would have found them, isn't that they way it always is.)

They are actually dying which was a bit sad, but it was still powerful to be near trees so old

The next day on our way back home we stopped at an Arboretum to see some fall colors. Only the Japanese Maples were turning but they were beautiful. We really enjoyed hiking through this huge arboretum and seeing a lot of people and dogs enjoying the sunshine.

It was such a nice trip and we loved being outdoors and exploring new areas of England.

Glastonbury

The next day on our trip we went to Glastonbury. Glastonbury is best known for it's annual music festival which has been around since 1970. I was just reading about the Glastonbury festival and the very first festival was only 1 pound plus free milk from the farm. The second festival was free. It became more popular in the 1980's  and is most popular festival in Britain and very hard to get tickets too. Kit and I tried this past year, but no luck. Bonnarro the music festival and Kit and I have gone to outside Nashville TN, was based on Glastonbury.

But we were not in Glastonbury to go to the music festival, we were there to see the history of the town. Glastonbury supposedly sits on the isle of Avalon. It is the burial place of King Arthur and the holy grail.  We visited the Glastonbury Abbey, (pictured below), where King Arthur and Queen Guinevere where buried. 

This sign states that Joseph of Arimethea, brought young Jesus with him on a voyage to Glastonbury and founded a church here.  It is also said that when Jesus died, Joseph brought the holy grail, the cup Jesus used at the last supper, and as legend has it, the holy grail might be  buried at the Tor.

There was an apple orchard on the abbey property.

The view of the whole Abbey, which burned down in 1184.

King Arthur's tomb

We didn't get to spend as much time as we would have liked in the town of Glastonbury. It reminded us of a medieval hippie town. There were many new aged shops, pagan shops and Christian shops all next to each other. It is a place we would like to visit again.

One of the oldest pubs/ inns in Glastonbury 

Me with a knight.

One of the shops, this one sold stones.

 The courtyard Dragon by the shop.

"Watch people trogging up the hill, and then watch them coming down – singing, chatting, brightened and changed.

Why? Here are a few clues.

Glastonbury Tor is home to Gwyn ap Nudd, King of the Fairies."  from the Glastonbry Tor website.

I was just reading this and Kit and both talked about how we did feel happier on our way down, now that could just be because walking down the hill is much easier than walking up or it was the fairies. We will never know.....

But when we were up on the tor and saw a very "Posh" (fashionable, wealthy) looking family running around and climbing up a very steep side of the hill, which was dotted with sheep poop everywhere. Kit and I were amazed that this very good looking family was practically putting their hands in poop and climbing up the steepest part of the hill when there was a path on the other side, so maybe it was the work of the Fairies.

Walking up to the Tor

 The Tor

Views from the top

 There was a small monks retreat up on the Tor in the early medieval times and the Tor is all that remains today.  If you would like to read more about the Tor go here and more about Glastonbury here.

More pictures to come of the Chalice Well.

Stonehedge

A couple of weeks ago, I had a week off of work for our half term break. (one of the wonderful things about working for a UK school system) Kit asked for two days off and we planned on going somewhere fun. Our first thought was Spain, but that ended up being to expensive, then we thought Scotland, but we would rather give Scotland more than 3 or 4 days. We ended up choosing the Somerset/ Wiltshire area about a 3 hour drive south of here.  We ended up only staying two nights, but it was so relaxing and reviving to be out of the city and in the country again. We stayed in an actual pub, with rooms above the bar/restaurant. The pub was called the George Inn and was in a town with around 100 people in the middle of nowhere, so nice.




On our drive there we stopped by Stonehenge along the way. It is a place that we have always wanted to go and were very excited to see. You expect Stonehenge to be out in the middle of nowhere, but it is actually right next to the highway. (as you can see below)

Stonehenge is a place that we have always wanted to visit. You can't walk right up to the stones anymore but it is still amazing to be near an artifact  that is from 3100 BC!

I think if you ever get the chance it is worth visiting Stonehenge.

After Stonehenge we visited the medieval village of Salisbury. It use to have a wall around it and still has part of the wall and gates still there today.

Salisbury Cathedral was suppose to be beautiful and a can't miss attraction. It did not disappoint at all. It has the tallest church spire in the UK, and you can climb up it but it was closed while we were there. It is also home to one of the 1215 Manga Carta. It also has the world's oldest working clock.

We walked into the church choir rehearsing which was very magical.

This is a baptism pool with running water.

When we were walking along the grounds we found this post with a frame on it. So we decided it was there for us to take pictures of ourselves with. We realized afterwards it was to hold up to the cathedral and take a picture of....

Driving along the villages in the Somerset country side

A village we drove through

English countryside

We went to Cheddar Gorge, a place I never thought I would see in England, but it was beautiful with 450ft cliffs. We enjoy actually hiking a bit and being surround by animals and green landscape.

jumping for joy!

I thought about doing a cartwheel here, but decided not to b/c of all of the cow poop.

Typical English countryside pictures

Me jumping off the wall, you would think it was super high up.

more pictures from hiking at Cheddar Gorge

We had a great day. The next day we visited Glastonbury...