Conwy Castle and the Guide to Medieval Europe

Conwy Castle, Conwy, Wales, UK

Something strange came over me when I visited a castle in Wales last summer. It was on June 22, and I had been travelling in the British Isles for the previous seven days, but this was my first full day on the Welsh side of the Irish Sea, and I woke in the Castle Hotel (not an actual castle, though quite historic in its own right) inside the medieval walls of the town of Conwy (pronounced Conway). The Castle Hotel stands just down the street from Conwy Castle, built lightening-fast (by medieval standards) from 1283-1289 by England's King Edward I.


View from the Conwy Castle of the Town and the River Conwy.

Conwy Castle is unique because it not only stands as one of the best examples of late 13th-early14th century military architecture in Europe, but it is also in unusually good shape for being a fortress built by occupational forces (the English) in contested territory (Wales). Though the castle endured a siege and did change hands more than once throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it sustained very little structural damage, was never extensively remodeled, and is remarkably well preserved today. Thus, the castle retains a strong sense of its own medievalness.

This is what struck me as I explored the corridors and climbed the towers of Conway Castle on that Saturday in June: the castle felt entirely medieval, with just enough signage to be informative, but not so much to be intrusive, just enough restoration to give a sense of its original purpose and finesse, but not so much as to feel staged or kitschy. I found it easy to imagine how the various chambers and wards might have looked in the castle's heyday, the straw strewn wood floors and tapestried walls and fire lit halls bustling with soldiers and servants, and occasionally visited by the king himself. I looked out the archer's perches high in the towers and wished I was there a couple hundred years ago so I could try shooting my own English longbow through the narrow arrow-loops at imagined adversaries down below.




Tower view of the inner and outer wards of Conwy Castle.

This fantastic experience of the medievalness of Conwy Castle stayed in my mind for the rest of my trip, but the other castles I visited afterward did not offer the same sort of transportation back to the middle ages like Conway did. The other castles had been updated and destroyed and rebuilt and added onto, until the only thing medieval that remained was the foundation, or the stories of what had happened there five hundred years ago. It wasn't the same. I wanted that Conwy Castle experience, and I knew there were lots of other well preserved medieval places to be found, but I didn't know where to find them. Plus, many places advertised as "medieval" frankly struck me as none such thing; their medievalness had been long ago remodeled or redesigned and was lost forever.

I came to the conclusion that I wanted to find a guide book for those truly medieval places, not the ones that were once medieval but are now a better monument to Renaissance or Victorian architecture and culture, but a book that pointed out the castles, towns, or other sites which still retain their medieval nature. But no such guide exists. The closest I could find is Richard Barber's 1984 book, The Penguin Guide to Medieval Europe, certainly a densely informative book from an acclaimed author, but not quite the Here's-Why-It's-Medieval-and-Here's-How-to-Get-There kind of guide which I imagined.

Since I couldn't find the kind of guide I was looking for, I'm going to write a Guide to Medieval Europe, myself, or even better, a series of geographically oriented guides, divided by country or region.

This is a huge undertaking. It will not be easy and it will not happen fast. I probably won't even get to the writing stages for a few years yet, but I know I'm not the only one who would make use of, say, a guide to medieval Scotland which not only lists and describes various truly medieval sites, but also includes practical, trip-planning info such as where to stay, how to get there, accessibility, and much more. It's the kind of guide I wish existed, and since it doesn't, I want to offer my bid to fill that void.

So in the meantime, what will I be doing? I'll be gathering lots and lots of information and tips and doing lots of research. Then I will set off to actually visit the places I want to write about, and then I'll set about writing. I'll need all the help I can get throughout the process though. Let me be the first to admit that I don't know everything about the Middle Ages, and no matter how much research I do, or even if I earn a PhD someday, I never will know everything about the Middle Ages. I've only visited a tiny corner of Europe and only seen a handful of the hundreds of medieval sites Europe has to offer. If you have any suggestions on sites, museums, or castles I should include, or any other questions or ideas, please say so in the comments!

(All photos are the property of Deanna Leiber. Do not use them without permission.)

Medeltidsveckan på Gotland (Medieval Week on Gotland)

View out over the beautiful skyline of Visby, Gotland

Step into the city of Visby, on the western coast of the Swedish island of Gotland, and you're stepping into the past. This town of 22,000 is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and with good reason, as it is arguably the best-preserved medieval town in all of Scandinavia. Much of the city's defensive ring wall, built in 1300, still stands, along with towers dating from 1300 - circa 1500. Visby is nestled into a hill, so you can climb up to the eastern side and gaze out over the city's narrow, winding cobblestone streets, her many ruined medieval churches, and out to the Baltic Sea on the horizon.

Though this experience would be a real treat at any time of the year, you'll get an even greater deal if you plan your trip (and you should!) for a whole week in August each year, when Visby comes to life as her 14th-century self once again for the Medeltidsveckan, or Medieval Week.

Visby's ring wall

The idea started in the winter of 1983, when the Gotlanders decided that they wanted to plan a week of festivities for themselves to enjoy, after the end of the typical summer tourist season. They hatched a plan to hold seminars and classes throughout the quiet winter on various Medieval subjects and skills such as blacksmithing, Gotland's medieval history, clothing, architecture, and traditional music. Then, at the end of the following summer, they'd hold a big party to celebrate and show off their new knowledge and skills. Thus, the Medieval Week was born.

Before long, news began to spread of Gotland's annual medieval party, circa 1361, and other Swedes and Scandinavians wanted in on the fun. Thus, the Medeltidsveckan has grown over the years into one of Northern Europe's largest and most authentic Medieval Fairs, with thousands of visitors enjoying both intelligent academic affairs and merry reenacting exploits.

Medieval Market:
The largest ongoing portion of the Medeldtidsveckan is the fantastic Medieval Market, spread throughout the beautiful landscape in the northwest corner of Visby's ring wall. Hundreds of vendors set up shop in the colorful market, filling it with the sights, sounds, and smells of an authentic medieval market in a trade city, like Visby was in 1361. You'll find delicious food and drink, clothing from realistic to fanciful, beautiful wools, furriers, blacksmiths and silversmiths, and nearly anything else you could imagine. Even if you're not in the market to buy anything, it's well worth a browse just for the experience.

Patrask, performing in the medieval market

Music and Entertainment: 
At three different stage areas scattered in the market performed a full line up of [free] entertainers, magicians, musicians, and acting troupes, just like there would have been in a real medieval trade fair. Even though I can't understand very much Swedish, the performances I sat on the grass to enjoy were lots of fun. My absolute favorite was the concert by the medieval "glamrock" band, Patrask, whose fast piping and lively drumming would set anyone's feet to dancing.

Lectures:
The organizers of the Medieval Week put together a great schedule of lectures and guided tours. The lectures cover topics from Viking archaeology to women's roles in medieval Scandinavia and more. The guided tours highlight the medieval history of Visby and the buildings and houses therein which date to the middle ages.




Archers prepare for battle

Real Tournament, Archery, and Combat:
This is one of the coolest parts of the whole event, as there is an ongoing jousting tournament - and I mean real jousting with knights in armor on horses, in an actual competition, not just lame actors like at many American renaissance festivals - which culminates in a fantastic final tournament by torchlight at the end of the week. They also hold archery, hand-to-hand combat, crossbow, fencing, and even medieval sports tournaments for both children and adults.Their traditional archery tournament is one of the largest, if not THE largest, in Northern Europe.


Battle Reenactment:


near the end of the Battle of Visby

I don't know how often they'll do this, as the Battle of Visby Reenactment put on as a part of the Medieval Week in 2013 was only the second one they've done, but if you go when they're doing a battle reenactment, don't miss it. I've seen a few battle reenactments before, and this was by far the best I've ever had the pleasure to see, even if I could only understand about 2% of the Swedish narration. It wasn't too difficult to decipher what was going on from a good vantage point. The whole show lasted about an hour and included some very realistic combat, field nurses, clergy, and even looters.

If you go:
So here's the rub, most of the events are in Swedish, such as the tours of the city, lectures, tournaments, reenactments, and nearly every other organized part of the Medeltidsveckan, BUT don't let the language barrier stop you. Nearly everyone there speaks English. I'd say skipping lectures because of the language barrier is reasonable, but don't let it stop you from bargaining with the merchants in the market, cheering in the crowd at the jousting or archery tournaments, or enjoying the musicians and other performances. You may not be able to get quite the "complete" experience of the Medieval Week, but you can still get a great feel for what Visby was like in 1361, haggle for some fantastic handmade and authentic medieval style goods, and have a smashing good time!

Please feel free to leave any questions or corrections in the comments, and learn more about the Medeltidsveckan på Gotland at their official website.

(All images are copyright Deanna Leiber, please don't use them without my permission.)

A Day in the Life of an Archaeological Field School Student

Trench 3 after we finished de-turfing on the first work day.

I'm now three weeks into my archaeological field school on the island of Gotland, in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Sweden. This is a five week course, so there's just under a week of digging left and then a week of lab work and research before the course concludes on August 9. I did have a bit of archaeological experience prior to this trip, but it consisted of two weeks of volunteer work at the Bethsaida Excavations in Israel (while on a study abroad trip to the Middle East in 2011). This experience has been very different so far. So to give a little picture of what the dig has been like, I'll relate the story of a typical day at the Gotland Archaeological Field School.

7:30 a.m. - Convince myself to get out of bed and get ready for the day... usually a slow process.

7:55ish - Head to the dining hall to eat a hearty Swedish breakfast (yogurt, granola, linden berries, hardboiled eggs, fresh fruit, and bread) and pack a lunch to take with me to the excavation site.

8:30 a.m. - Board the bus to drive from the Gotlands Folkhögskola in Hemse to the excavation site at Paviken, on Gotland's Western Coast. (This is a great time to catch up on sleep, write in my journal, or read a book.)

9:10 a.m. - Arrive at Paviken and hike through a nature reserve to our dig site, a Viking Age harbor and manufacturing site that was inhabited from roughly the 7th- early 11th centuries. The site was excavated in the 1970's but the site director died before he could finish his records, and before he came to any conclusions about the site. Naturally, this makes our job more difficult, as we're working with Pars's incomplete and confusing records, while trying to make sense of what we find, too.

10:30 a.m. - Fika. Otherwise known as a coffee break, this is a very important part of every Swede's day. Included in the mandatory tradition is a very tasty cinnamon bun called a bulle. I do not protest.

12:00 p.m. - Lunch. 'Nuff said.

2:30 p.m. - Fika. Yep, Swedes are serious about this coffee break thing.

4:30 p.m. - Ride the bus back to Hemse and collapse onto my bed until dinner.

5:30 p.m. - Food. Delicious Swedish food.

6:00 p.m. - Free time, which for me means working out, showering, then engaging in some combination of something like goofing off online, writing, drawing, Skyping, or working on my research project for the field school (ceramic!). There's even another fika in the evening, which usually includes cookies - if none of the other groups staying here at the Folkhögskola have stolen ours, that is.

11:00-12:00ish - Sleep.

So that's a typical day. The archaeology part can be fascinating, tedious, exciting, boring, and frustrating, but over all it is pretty rewarding. I'll post later with more details on what the digging part is actually like, as well as some more history on the site, Paviken, and Gotland in general. It's really an awesome place for archaeology.

"What? That's Legal in Ireland?"

If you hang around Ireland enough, you're sure to hear someone say something like,

"Very good crack there!"

or "That was great crack!"

First, do not be alarmed. They're not talking about the kind of stuff that's outrageously expensive and a felony to possess in the States. In fact, they're not talking about a physical thing at all. "Crack" is how the Irish Gaelic word craic is pronounced. It's a very common word in Ireland, referring to "a good time," a "good atmosphere," or plain old "fun."

So when an Irishman recommends a pub or restaurant or hostel with the qualifier, "they'e got great craic!" Take his advice. Good times will abound!

I've only been in the British Isles for about 10 days, and though I knew about some of these cultural and language differences beforehand, I thought it might be fun to share a few with you:

1. Craic (crack) is good.

2. There are no free refills. You'll often get a can of soda/pop, if that's what you order. They'll give it to you with a glass. Pour it into the glass and then drink it. Do not drink straight from the can (or bottle). And don't expect ice, either.
    [By the way, both of these are actually healthier options than the typical American-style bottomless glass filled to the brim with ice cubes; studies have shown that ice machines are often not cleaned as often as they should be and can produce ice cubes laced with lots of nasty bacteria, and soda is packed with tons of sugar and caffeine and other stuff that's better in small doses anyway.]

3. Chips are crisps and fries are chips. The snack food called "potato chips" in America are called  "crisps" in Ireland and the UK, and what we would call "fries," they call "chips." So an order of the classic fish 'n' chips is fried fish (cod, usually) and a pile of thick steak fries.

4. Bacon is not bacon. It's ham - cut into narrower strips than normal. Twice, I've ordered a meal "with bacon" and was disappointed when the dish arrived and instead of those delicious, pan-fried, crispy brown and red strips of delight, there was pink, plain old ham. Both times the food was quite tasty, but just know that in the British Isles, bacon isn't a fancy kind of pig meat, it is just a fancy name for regular pig meat.

5. Shops and restaurants close early. Most stores close by 5 p.m., except for chain-supermarkets and bigger stores like M&S (sort of like an upscale Target that sometimes includes a grocery section) or international chains like American Eagle and H&M, which might stay open until 7 or 8. I was surprised to find this true even in bigger cities like Dublin and London. Restaurants might be open only until 6 or 7, and even the pubs stop serving food at 8. So don't do all your sight seeing during the day, expecting to do some shopping and eating after the museums close, you may end up without dinner.

6. Pubs are a great place to eat, drink, and experience the local culture. And they're actually really clean and safe, too, in general. This is especially true in Ireland, where smoking is now illegal indoors and many pubs serve delicious food. If you want to hear some live music, a pub is probably your best bet, especially if you're on Ireland's West Coast. Most pubs will even welcome children and are a great way to immerse your family in local culture, but they'll want your kids out later on, probably by 8. The best pub atmosphere I've ever experienced was at Dick Mack's in the small coastal town of Dingle, on Ireland's beautiful and wild West Coast. If you want to hear some beautiful live traditional ("trad") Irish music, that's the place to go, any night of the week.

(Originally posted with points 1-4 from Bath, England, on June 25, 2013; updated from Hemse, Gotland, Sweden on July 30, 2013.)

A Day in Stockholm

When I arrived in Stockholm three nights ago, I was so exhausted from traveling nonstop for two and a half weeks, the plane rides, and the bus-to-train-to-train rides to get to my hostel on the beautiful island of Långholmen, that I mostly went straight to bed. And I stayed there for half of the next day. So I didn't venture out into the city much until yesterday, when some interesting stuff happened:

It took about an hour to walk to Gamla Stan, the old part of the city, which dates to at least the mid-13th century. I bought a sandwich and lemon flavored Italian soda, and was looking for a nice place to sit and people-watch while eating when...

12:15- Ran into the royal palace's Changing of the Guards Ceremony. This involves a military parade, with a 30 minute marching concert from a visiting military band, and lots of barking of orders and snappy turns an such. It was doubly funny to me because I did the same thing while on my way to the train station in London, roughly two weeks ago, when my mom and I accidentally ran into the Changing of the Guards at St. James' Park.

12:57- Shortly after the ceremony ended, I witnessed an American family, with 2 older-teenage daughters, arguing and being angry with each other. It sounded like they were arguing over whether to go through the museum to the gift shop or just move on to a different building in the old royal palace. This was especially sad, and interesting, because this is the first time I have seen any family arguing with each other yet on this trip. Way to represent, America.

1:00- There is something very ironic about a family with small kids getting their photo taken in front of a cannon...

4:28- Browsed a display of 100 amazing photos of European wildlife connected with an initiative to re-wild Europe. Cool!! (Like reintroducing wild horses, red deer, and primitive cows.) 

5:00- Visited the Vasa Museum, whose centerpiece is the Vasa, the massive ship that sank in Stockholm shortly into its maiden voyage in 1628. It was tediously raised from 1957-1961, 333 years later, and is an amazing example from the height of decorative shipbuilding in Europe.

7:00- While walking back through Gamla Stan, I heard the sound of a band playing coming from a street over. I was about to keep going, but turned to go listen instead once I recognized the song as the Indiana Jones theme. They played that and one more song before packing up. It was the same visiting military band from the changing of the guards this morning. They were wonderful.

7:55- Found myself subconsciously humming "I wish I was in Dixie" while walking back to my hostel on Långholmen.

Why do I Travel?

"Contemplate the fact that 'tourism' (the notion of travel for enjoyment) didn't exist until the Victorian Age. Before that time, travel was a chore only endured by armies, refugees, traders, emigrants, and religious pilgrims."

   - Rick Steves' Ireland 2013

These sentences struck me as I read them during my flight from Chicago to Dublin last week, and I've been mulling over them since then. First, I was struck with a slight pang of guilt at the idea of traveling "for pleasure." There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with the idea of leaving ones home and gawking at others' for enjoyment - or at least, that's the image that came to my mind. 

But then, I thought about it a bit longer and realized: I don't travel with the goal of "let's see how much fun I can have today." I travel to learn. I travel to experience things that shape cultures and to submerse myself in the amazing diversity and creativity that God put in this world - both human and natural. 

Dunguaire Castle, Kinvarra, Ireland.

I travel to walk among the remnants of times long past, as a student of history and literature, to gain a better understanding of what the context was really like for the events laid out in history books and legends. I travel so that I can write about my experiences and share them with people who cannot. I travel to gain perspectives far outside my own, to grow a better understanding of the world and the conflicts and complications therein.

But, I suppose I do find these things enjoyable; I love learning, I love writing about and sharing my experiences, I love connecting with people whose experiences are so vastly different from my own, I love widening my outlook on the world. I find those things pleasurable.

Okay fine. I guess I do travel for pleasure after all.


Why do you travel?
 

What to Do While Stranded in a Foreign Town

"It isn't an adventure until something goes wrong."

I came across that saying early in my planning for this trip and took it as a challenge. "I want stuff to go wrong, then, because I want adventure." Well, I certainly started my two month trip to Europe off on the adventurous foot then!

My dad is joining me on the first leg of my trip, the parts through Ireland and Wales, and though I booked my flight several months before he booked his, we were scheduled to arrive at the Dublin Airport within an hour of each other on Saturday morning (June 15). The plan was to pick up our rental car and drive across Ireland to Westport, in County Mayo, by that evening. So, when I arrived at the Dublin Airport and turned on my phone, I was greeted with adventure: dad's first flight had to make an emergency landing, so he missed his connection to Dublin, and would be at least a day late.

We had a reservation for a Bed & Breakfast in Westport, so I ended up taking the train there and had to wait until my dad's flight arrived the next day - roughly 4 hours late - and then for him to drive all the way out to Westport to catch up with me. So after arriving on the train and collapsing on my bed for the night, I basically had a whole day to kill in the small town of Westport. What did I do while stranded in a foreign town?

1. Find a map. Preferably a map designed for tourists. (Find maps at your place of accommodation or a Traveller's Information office - My B&B host gave me one.) They're simple, but outline the basic stuff you need to know: Where to eat, shop, loiter, etc. Touristy towns will often even have signs or maps posted around town with more info, too.



Georgian bridge built in 1704 in Westport, Ireland

2. Find a green space. Towns, shops, bustling streets, and other people are nice, but if you're stuck there for a whole day, make sure you can find a little bit of nature to escape into as well. For example, Westport is a very environmentally conscious town, so I got lucky: they have a very nice "Greenway" - a paved path just outside the town, but easily accessible from many points in town, just separated enough to be wild and well, green. The path wound alongside of the town, then on a hill above the town center (nice views!), across the river on a tall, arched stone bridge built in 1704, and across a field/park. It was beautiful. Riversides are also great places to sit and relax.

 

3. Follow the locals. If you're worried about safety or cultural faux pas, just be aware of those around you. If lots of people are eating at a particular café, it's probably got a tasty menu. If nobody else is drinking their soda out of the can, but pouring it into a glass first, you probably shouldn't drink your Coke straight from the can either.
 

Door in the Holy Trinity Church, Westport, Ireland.

4. Loiter in a church. Churches are almost always unlocked, especially near the center of small towns. Churches often have cool architecture, especially in the interior decoration, and especially if they're at least 60-70 years old: stained glass, stonework, mosaics, paintings, memorials, and other such stuff is common. Even if you're not into art and architecture, a church is a great place to, say, get out of the rain, or just sit and think, read, or talk with God - especially if you've already explored the town to your heart's content. 

So, my day wandering around Westport, Co. Mayo, Ireland, turned out all right. I walked to the quay or bayside end of town, trekked the Greenway to the other end of town, then back into Westport, crisscrossed the town, taking many breaks to sit by the river that is canaled through the center of town and rest without my 30 lb backpack on my back, crisscrossed the town again, then spent an hour in the German Gothic Revival church in town. Dad arrived by dinner time and though our schedule had to be edited and rearranged, everything ended up just fine.

I'm sure it will for you, too. :)

"Let's go for it!"

I recently returned home from a road trip out to Utah with my Dad, and a plane trip to visit my brother who now lives in Santa Monica, CA. It was a great double-trip, filled with breathtaking scenery, tough but incredibly rewarding hikes, snow skiing, beach-walks, and lot of other fun adventures. But I just want to share one story from this trip with you today: The Tale of the Poison Spider Mesa Jeep Trail; or How to Almost Die on a Shortcut*

On our first day in Utah, my Dad and I wanted to visit both Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park. It was the perfect introduction to the amazing types of natural wonders we would encounter throughout our stay in Utah, as Canyonlands is a sprawling landscape of massive canyons, cliffs, mesas, and jaw-dropping rock formations called "fins." 

We drove around Canyonlands for a while, went on a short hike on one of the scrubby, desert-like mesas, took lots of photos, and then we wanted to go to Arches National Park for a bit before heading to our campsite for the night. (Don't worry, we spent the next morning an afternoon thoroughly exploring Arches, too.) Dad had spotted a Mesa called Poison Spider Mesa on our fancy topographical map of the area and wanted to see it on the way between the parks, so I studied the map and found a Jeep trail that short-cut the route and would take us right next to said mesa. We were driving my Dad's Jeep, so it would be no problem as far as 4-wheel drive and all went.

We gleefully headed out for this trail, excited to test the merits of Dad's new Jeep and see some awesome scenery along the way. Once we left the highway and the tires hit the dirt road, our route looked deceptively easy: the road was bumpy, but straight and flat, seeming to disappear into the distant La Sal Mountains:

Before long, however, the road narrowed and turned down into a narrow canyon. Suddenly, we found ourselves navigating a single-lane, very bumpy dirt track that wound down the canyon like a rattlesnake - with towering red cliffs on our right and an ever-increasing drop-off to our left. In case of an oncoming car, there were a few areas wide enough for one vehicle to pull aside and let the other pass, but there wasn't really enough space to turn around, so we nervously and slowly continued down the treacherous trail. We soon encountered what stopped us short: a gigantic boulder that looked like it had just recently fallen across the road ahead, creating a triangle of open space between the cliff, boulder, and road. 

We stopped at what was thankfully a wide spot to check it out. It didn't look like there was much space in the opening, and we walked down to see if the Jeep might fit. Once under the boulder, the opening was a lot larger than it seemed, and while seeing what the road looked like beyond the bend, we heard voices up-canyon. A pickup truck full of college-aged guys and girls was rumbling down the road toward us.

"You guys okay?" the driver asked.

"Yeah, we just wanted to see if we could fit!"

"Oh, you'll fit just fine," he assured us, "We fit; we came up this way." And with that, they bumped on down the road, under the boulder, and around the corner.

Dad and I climbed back into the Jeep and looked at each other. 

"Should we go for it?" Dad asked.

"Let's go for it."

And we did. And it turned out just fine. We made it all the way down the canyon, past Poison Spider Mesa, and came to a nice, paved, flat road that followed the bank of the Colorado River and led us right up to Arches National Park.

*Okay, so we didn't actually almost die, but there were definitely some particularly rough and treacherous spots on that trail that had us worried...

Counting Down...

Guys, I leave for Ireland in just over 5 weeks. 37 days to be exact. Wow. That seems so near, yet I'm sure the fact that I'm headed to Europe and actually going to an Archaeological Field School won't really feel real until I am on the plane and jetting across the ocean toward Dublin.

The crazy parts are these:

First, I still haven't made a single reservation for my time in Ireland, Wales, England, or Scotland. This means that the planned itinerary is somewhat up in the air at the moment, but I'd like to have at least some of those dates pinned down before heading over the Atlantic.. My semester ends in two days, though, so I will soon have more of time to work with my dad (who is accompanying me to Ireland and Wales) and mom (to England and Scotland) to make some of those calls.

Second, I'm super excited for the Medeltidsveckan, or the Medieval Week on Gotland! This is a week-long medieval fair that happens every August in the town of Visby on the Swedish island of Gotland. This just happens to be the same island where my archaeological field school is located. It also happens to occur just as my field school ends. Thus, I'll have a day or two to explore the fair at my leisure before ferrying back to Stockholm so I can fly homeward on August 12. I've heard that this fair is a big deal in Northern Europe, and since I have often been a little disappointed with the STL Renaissance Fair and its proliferations of anachronisms, overly-fantasized history, and the apparent confusion of "Renaissance" with "Medieval," I really look forward to experiencing a well done and huge (it covers the whole town of Visby), true medieval fair.

And so, if you have any suggestions or questions for my trip, such as where I should or shouldn't go in Sweden or the British Isles, or just general travel tips, post them in the comments! I am planning mostly based on people's personal experiences as well as the advice in my guide books, but I want to know your ideas and experiences, too!

Sweden is Settled... Mostly

 There is no turning back now.
I've bought my plane ticket (Home to Dublin, Edinburgh to Stockholm, and Stockholm to Home), finalizing the dates of my trip and when I will be in which countries: I will leave for Ireland on June 14, and fly home from Sweden on August 12. That's going to be a crazy two months. :)

While the iteneraries for The Republic of Ireland and the UK are basically set, I've made no reservations yet for those weeks of the trip. I have, however, settled the details for the days I am in Sweden before and after the field school's five weeks in July and early August. I've made my hostel, ferry, and hotel reservations for all but one night: the night just after the field school ends. There's a big Medieval fair in Visby the week that the school ends, and it is very popular among Swedes and other Europeans, so even with making my reservations a few weeks ago, all of the beds that cost less than $130 a night and were within walking distance of Visby were booked. So I decided not to make a reservation for that night and just see what happens. Maybe I'll meet someone who will let me crash on their couch, or their hotel room floor, or maybe the school will let me stay an extra night. The worst that could happen would be me hanging out in a pub for the wee hours of the night. But I'm honestly not worried. I know God will take care of me no matter what.

And besides, as someone once said, "it isn't an adventure until something goes wrong." :)

And Now for Something Completely Different...

Well guys, it turns out that being a full time college student, working ten hours a week, and running an Etsy shop takes up a lot of time. It also turns out that writing intelligent and interesting blog posts about Medieval and Ancient history is really hard. For instance, that post about the Vikings that I wrote? It took me over 6 hours to research and write... yeah, a lot longer than I expected, too.

Thus, I'm shifting the focus of Annales Historiae a bit. There will still be plenty of Medieval and other historical content, just in smaller packages and a less academic style. Also, it turns out that I've been accepted into an Archaeological Field School in Sweden for five weeks this coming summer, and I'm taking the chance to explore a bit of Ireland and the United Kingdom while I'm on the other side of the Pond. I've been to the Middle East before, but that was a trip organized by my university and I had practically no exposure to the very complicated process of planning an international trip. This time, I'm doing it all myself.

If you stick around, you'll get to journey with me through the adventures of scheming for a two-month trip to Northern and Northwestern Europe, actually going there, and plenty of tidbits about Medieval history and arts along the way.

For starters, one of my secrets to travel planning so far is my travelling friend Lisa's blog, "The Traveling Mandolin," where she runs a series called "Travel Tip Tuesdays" - chock full of great advice on packing, planning, staying healthy, and much more while traveling. I'm also already loving Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door 2013, an excellent guide book for literally everything that every sort of traveler needs to know for an amazing trip to Europe.

If you have any tips or suggestions for my trip, please comment below!

Incidentally, I'm also running a giveaway for a tiny leather journal necklace on my Etsy shop's Facebook Page, and you can still enter, now through Tuesday, February 12, at midnight CST!