Our tour group: (from left): Maureene, me, Linda, Jamie, Tres

First off, thanks to everyone who entered our two year blogiversary giveaway contest! The winners are:

• King Arthur magnet: Mary Beth Lewis
• Location magnets and Cernunnos plaque: Wisher
• Figurines: Heather

I will contact you by email to make arrangements to get your gifts to you. Now, on to the matter at hand. For those who haven’t yet seen photos from my trip, you can view them on Flickr. I also have some very amateur video on YouTube from the trip. In case you were wondering, the tour I went on was called From Avalon to Camelot, and was conducted through Gothic Image Tours. I waited until now to publicize it because I wanted to make sure it was something I could endorse. I would recommend it to anyone. The accommodations are top notch and the nature of the tour allows for personalized interaction and visiting out of the way sites that a larger group wouldn’t be able to manage. Tour guide Jamie George has been doing this for over 20 years and certainly knows his stuff. He also has the contacts to be able to arrange for guests such as Arthurian scholar Geoffrey Ashe and divination expert Sig Lonegren. My group had some last minute cancellations and was therefore only five people, including Jamie. Besides me, there were three women from Australia – Tres, Maureene and Linda – none of us knew each other before the trip. Now, we’re all good friends and are keeping in touch.

The George and Pilgrim Hotel, built in 1475, where we stayed.

We started the tour in Glastonbury. We stayed at the George and Pilgrim’s Inn on High Street. This hotel has been around since 1475, and has played host to a number of famous guests over the years, most notably King Henry VIII, who stood in one of its rooms to watch Glastonbury Abbey (which is across the street) burn during the dissolution of the monasteries. The hotel is also host to a number of ghosts, including a merry, fat friar. None of us saw him, but Tres did have her TV come on unexpectedly one morning and Maureene was taking a picture of the town when she captured what appears to be a ribbon of energy, which she didn’t see at the time. By the way, some of the hotel’s rooms are named. I stayed in “The Nun’s Cell,” which is really funny since I used to want to be one and was voted Most Likely to Become a Nun in high school.

High Street in Glastonbury. Jamie’s shop, Gothic Image, is on the right.

Glastonbury itself is a nice, eclectic town. Somehow I was imagining a place full of frenetic energy, but it’s really not. There are plenty of New Age shops specializing in esoteric subjects, crystals, jewelry, etc. but you can also tell people live there. I guess what I’m saying is it isn’t a pure tourist trap. The Tor and Chalice Well are actually a bit away from the town center, so you either need to drive take the trolley/bus to get to it. Glastonbury Abbey is within walking distance. (More on Glastonbury Abbey in the next post.)

Wells Cathedral

If you get the chance to take a little side trip, I highly recommend the town of Wells, which is about a 15 minute bus ride from the top of High Street. We went there on the recommendation of one of Maureene’s friends, and I will never, ever forget it. The town itself is cute, but the main feature is its breathtaking cathedral. No photo could ever do it justice, no matter how professional. It gave me a whole new respect for the generations of people who spent their lives building these monuments to God. To think that they accomplished such feats in an age without our modern technology is very humbling. The main attraction is a clock that has mechanical figures that come out every hour and do I little routine. There are many such clocks throughout Europe, and this is the second one I’ve seen, but they never fail to inspire.

The Bishop’s palace grounds in Wells.

And if the cathedral wasn’t enough, we also toured the Bishop’s palace and grounds, which adjoin the cathedral. I haven’t uploaded most of those photos yet. The best I can do to capture their beauty is to say the grounds are better than any botanical garden I’ve ever been to. Seriously, if it was possible to die of beauty, this place would do it to you. And, you can even see the Tor from its walls!

Gardens in the grounds of the Bishop’s palace in Wells.

So that’s a bit of the first part of the trip. Next time I’ll talk about Glastonbury Abbey and let you in on what Geoffrey Ashe had to say about it and Arthurian legend. Then we’ll talk about Cadbury, a likely spot for Camelot. There will be a few posts on Tintagel and Merlin’s cave. I’ll probably put St. Clether’s Chapel, St. Madron’s Well, St. Crede and St. Nectan’s faerie pool into one. Then we’ll talk about the stone circles of Boscawen-Un (which is very special to me) and the Merry Maidens, as well as the dolmen of Lanyon Quoit. And of course, Avebury and Stonehenge. So stay tuned for the next several weeks!

What do you want to know about Glastonbury or Wells? Do you have any questions about the tour? What do you want to know more about?