and in Jedbourhg Abbey

One more memories from Scotland. On the way to Edibourgh we stopped in Jedburgh. I was the only one person from our group who wanted to see the ruins of Jedburgh Abbey. They gave me a very limited time to see everything that’s why I decided to go only to go to see the central nave. This beautiful place symbolize for me the gravity of passage of time. The central nave was constructed of 3 levels of arcades. Over the nave there was only the sky.

Hadrian's wall

I’m a lucky person this month: I’ve seen a lot of ancient Roman ruins. Three weeks ago I was in Pafos where I could see ancient mosaics. Last week I was in Scotland where, remaining roman wall and fortifications are preserved. Romans soldiers probably suffered very much from the weather there… I was exhausted by the wind, even though the Sun was shining, temperature was quite high and there was no rain (my English friend used to say: No rain? Wait a minute…). For no reason my attention was attracted by the remnants of a kind of floor heating: stones supporting the floor, between which hot air flowed. We went for a short walk on Hadrians wall. On the right there was a precipice (Scotland I suppose), on the left a meadow with thousands of sheep.

owl and ruins

The Alnwick Castle was very surprising for me. It is unbelievable mix of styles and artistic forms. There was something beautiful and interesting in every chamber but generally I felt like being in some big lumber room. For example in old beautiful library besides many shelves of books there was big plasma TV and two prepared dogs. In this unbelievable mess, as the most interesting thing, I found very small mascot of owl which was hidden behind a leaf of acanthi.
It was put there in order to attract children visiting the Castle. In every room there was such mascot somewhere. Children have to find it, and thanks to that game they pay more attention to the exhibition.
In the photo: I didn’t like inhabited castle, probably because I generally like much more mysterious places. That’s why I preferred the Holly Island with its monastery in ruins.