Melrose,
Scotland,
United Kingdom
Saturday, November 22, 2008
This weekend the Arcadia kids took a day trip bus tour to the Southern area of Scotland. Our first stop was the Traquair house, which is Scotland's oldest inhabited house. The dates given in Arcadia's wee trip summary are 1107-2007, but people are still living in the house today, just not really in the area where the tours are given. We first went to the family's private chapel, which was freezing because it was actually cold on this day, unlike most other days in Edinburgh so far. Luckily for us, our huge group was split into 2, and my group was the one that got to have tea and biscuits first! Yumm. Then we explred the house/museum, which was actually really neat because it had secret staircases which were put into place to allow the preists to escape to house because there was a long period during which catholics were persecuted in Scotland. Apparently Mary Queen of Scots stayed in the house with baby James at one point in time too. There was a hedge maze in the backyard, but I did not get the chance to get lost in it. I did, however, get to sample some of the ales produced at the distllery there. 2 out of the 4 were strange because they were fizzy, one had a weiss beer flavor, and the best one had a strange sort of fruity flavor, but it worked. Next, it was on to the tiny town, and I do mean tiny, of Melrose. The main feature of this town is the Abbey, which, like so many others, lay in ruins. I do think that it was the most ornate ruined abbey I have seen though, so it was worthwhile to visit. It had a few little shops to visit, and Sara, Yana, J, and I went to a small pub for lunch. There was rugby 7s on the tele, so I thought that was really cool. Melrose is actually the reputed birthplace of rugby 7s, so it was only appropriate that they would show that on tv. Next, the tour bus rolled through more mountainous valleys and over rivers to Rosslyn Chapel. This location was recently featured in the popular novel the DaVinci Code for its supposed ties to the Knights Templar and the Holy Grail. There was scaffolding all around the outside of the building, and we were not allowed to photograph the interior, but it was absolutely beautiful. I can only imagine what it looked like with all the different sandstone colors it had before people painted over them with concrete in a somewhat misguided effort to preserve the building. There were meticulously detailed sculptures almost everywhere I looked, including the ceiling. The most famous of these, are the columns at the the front of the chapel. Supposedly, the master sculptor carved the column on the left-hand side, then went away to study so he could do an even better job on the right-hand side, but while he was away, the apprentice carved it instead. When the master returned, he saw that the work of his apprentice was better than his own, which sent him into a jealous rage, and caused him to murder his apprentice. He was caught, tried, and killed for his crime. I don't know how much truth is in this story, but I did think the column on the right was done better than the others, and it was kinda cool to think about how something so simple could be so powerful. Then, we returned to Edinburgh. It was definietly a cool day trip though.
Comments
Excellent
It does sound like a nice trip and great detail on the column. Mum and I have heard that story about the aprentice before - too bad he didn't work for Trump - was it on one of the dvd's we saw before you left? Whatever - it all looks good.