Mid-life gap year Tanya and Craig

Often in our travels we visit a place and are truly wowed! Batalha Portugal is one of those places. Bathalha literally meaning Battle was founded in 1385 after the Battle of Aljubarrota. On one side was an army of 30,000 Spaniards vying to take the Portuguese throne. The other side (Portuguese) lead by Dom (King) Joâo with his army of 6500; won the battle. In mid fight Dom Joâo prayed and summoned the power of God, promising to build a superb abbey in return for victory.  Most of Dom Joâo’s monumental abbey formally known as Manueline Mosteiro de Santa Maria da Vitoria (Batalha Abbey) was completed by 1434 with 15th and 16th century expansions and additions.  The stonework on the abbey is of a detail which would usually be associated with lace, not stone.  The ochre coloured limestone building reaches to the sky with its intensely decorative pinnacles and parapets above the extraordinarily high ceiling. The warm light filters through the patterned c...

Before seeing the signs as we drove into town, we'd never heard of "Vila Nova de Foz Coa", a village in the upper Doura Valley (NE Portugal); nor did we know that the region has the largest known display of open-air (ie not cave) Palaeolithic rock art in the world.  It is World Heritage Listed. The rock art is only visible on guided tours taken from the Museum of the Parque Arqueologico do Vale do Coa on the outskirts of the village.  The rock engravings were discovered during a proposed hydro-electric dam environmental impact assessment in the early 1990s. Several thousand rock engravings are etched for 17km along the Coa and tributary valleys. The engravings include thousands of images of four tyes of animals: horses, aurochs (wild extinct ancestor of modern cattle), long horned ibex (wild goat), deer. The images have been dated from 40,000 to 10,000 years ago. The prehistoric engravings are made using three techniques, they are scratched, picked or gouged. So...

Two cultural icons of France’s Normandy region are the Bayeux Tapestry and Mont Saint Michel. Both are impressive, so much so they are World Heritage Listed. There is a link between them. Mont Saint Michel We have all seen pictures of Mont Saint Michel. Gabriel Gateaux visits it most years of the Tour de France and makes the traditional local omelette. Mont Saint Michel is set on top of a tidal island just off the coast of Normandy and is visible for miles around. It is an island with the biggest tides in Europe, some 15m. On the spring tide the sea goes out 15km from the coast and comes in again very quickly. Throughout history it has been a Roman Church, an Abbey, a fortress and a prison. It has been added to and adapted many times and is now a warren of buildings, rooms and corridors. At its base is a small village that serviced the Abbey. The Abbey has three levels: the top level was where the monks lived at its centre is the chapel, the second level was where important g...

Heligan Estate is a large property with magnificent gardens that was owned by the Tremayne Family for 400 years. Prior to WWI it was a thriving almost self-sufficient community. At least 13 of the staff served in the war and nine tragically did not return. Unable to live with the daily reminder of the ghosts of his staff and friends Jack Tremayne left and rented out the property. The gardens became over grown and in the passing generations they became lost.  In 1990 a descendant of the family uncovered garden building remains whilst cutting back undergrowth. Since then, Heligan has become the largest garden restoration project in Europe.  The 200 acres of gardens consists of a jungle with southern hemisphere plants; a sculpture garden that uses the plants as part of the sculpture; woodlands of rhododendron some 10m high; 1.8 acres of productive garden for use in the café and sold in the shop; wildlife hides and a rare, heritage breed farm. So...

This trip has provided us with an opportunity to learn and enhance our understanding of a number of public figures; Charles Darwin is one of these. Darwin was born and educated in Shrewsbury, a medieval market town filled with historic buildings. These include the old school house that Darwin attended which is now the city library.  The wood panelled interior walls still bear the graffiti from students of his era. A statue of Darwin is in the garden at the entrance to the library.  Darwin studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh where amongst other things he learnt the art of taxidermy. He didn't finish his medical studies, but leveraged and used what he learnt during his expeditions. His interest in natural science and in particular marine invertebrates and geology was fostered at Cambridge University.  Further along the River Severn in Shrewsbury there is a 12m high and 17m long concrete sculpture based on a double heli...

Having seen TV programs and films set at Fountains Abbey and the Studley Royal near Ripon in Yorkshire we were keen to see the 650 acres of water garden, abbey ruins and deer park first-hand.  The abbey is vast in scale, having formerly housed more than 500 monks. Founded in 1132, the abbey became very rich and prosperous. So much so, it became the wealthiest monastery in the UK owning vast areas of land across western Yorkshire.  Much of its wealth was based on the trading of wool and lead, two of the Yorkshire Dales’ most abundant resources. The abbey operated for 400+ years before i ts dissolution in 1539 under the order of Henry VIII.  Studley Royal Water Garden was one of the leaders in the ‘English’ formal garden style that swept across Europe during the eighteenth century. It was created by father and son John and William Aislabie. Eye catchers and follies were a common feature within ‘English’ gardens. Elegant ponds and cascades en...

Before meeting Tanya I had never heard of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (CRM). For many years Tanya has owned an item of jewellery designed by CRM, every time she wears it she say “I love CRM designs”.  But who was CRM and what is so special about his designs? In Glasgow Tanya made it her mission to make sure we both learned more. We went to the Willows Tea Rooms, The Lighthouse, the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and the CRM House in the Hunterian Art Gallery.   The staff at the CRM House were extremely passionate and knowledgeable about all things CRM and were able to put his designs into perspective.  In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s Glasgow was leading the world in architecture and design largely due to the influence of CRM.    CRM was born in 1868 in Glasgow where he was educated. At the age of 27 he was attending art school and working as an architect when he designed his first building for the Glasgow Herald known as The Lighthouse....

There is something magical about medieval castle ruins: the architecture and how social context and surrounding natural resources during the different time periods influenced it; the livelihoods of the servants and how they provided; and the dramas associated with the wealthy families, their interaction with the church, their generosity (or lack their of) and their warring factions.  Eilean Donan on an island in Loch Duich Dunnottar Castle on a cliff top in Aberdeenshire Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness

When you visit Scara Brae on Orkney you are made aware that Scara Brae is “Older than the Pyramids, older than the Great Wall of China, older than the Incas or Aztecs”. It is 5000 years old, which in itself is very cool, but if you didn’t know better, you could be left thinking that this is the oldest settlement in the world. Of course there are older sites, the Lascaux cave art in France is dated at 14,000 BC and some Australian Aboriginal cave paintings are 40,000 – 70,000 years old. Scara Brae is significant because it is 5000 years old; a complete village and is so well preserved. Scara Brae is a neolithic, new stone age village that was uncovered (it was buried in sand) in 1850 during a storm. It is a village that was largely intact with workshops and tools; homes with furniture, running water and in-home food preservation devices. It is a series of eight interconnected dwellings accessed through small tunnels. The homes had a bed on either side of the room, a...