MY LAST DAYS IN ATHENS: Retracing Old Footsteps

TOUR BUS

JUNE 22/09
This was Anna-Britt's last day in Athens and I only had one day left myself. So we set off to retrace old, familiar footsteps around our favorite city. Of course we walked around Plaka, and I always have to stop and peek through the fence of #14 Vironos St where I used to live (and sometimes wish I still did!). Then we went to one of our favorite tavernas for lunch, Kouklis (which we always call "The place of the flaming sausages) on Tripodon St.

ME, AT KOUKLIS TAVERNA

After lunch we went and walked around the new Acropolis Museum and then we decided to do something very touristic. We took the little "Sunshine Express" touris train on a tour around Athen's historical center. This was more fun than we'd expected and worth the 5 Euro we paid for the trip which took about an hour.

We got on the train atAilolou St. by Hadrian's library. The train circles around up to Syntagma Square, along Mitropoleos St. to Monastiraki and past there to Thissiou passing by all the major archaeological sites. It was fun. We felt like a couple of kids. So it was a great way to spend our last day together in Athens.

As always, I was sad to see my friend leave (for Norway) but we'll get together again next year as we always do. We have promises to fulfil to each other: When she finishes her doctorate and I get my novel accepted for publication, we plan to treat ourselves to a trip to Egypt (from Athens.) A dream or a reality? We'll see. But it's certainly a great motivator.

THE PARTHENON

RETURN TO OLD SARUM

FORTIFICATION DITCH, OLD SARUM

May 28, after leaving Bath by train we arrived at Salisbury. Our intention (even before visiting Bath) was to head for the Iron Age hillfort at Old Sarum. We didn't regret our unexpected side-trip to Bath, however, and lingered there quite awhile before taking the train to our next destination. We got the hop-on-hop-off bus from the Salisbury station and set off for Old Sarum.

FORTRESS RUIN

This part of the trip, for me, was a renewal of some research for my W.I.P. novel "Dragons in the Sky: A Celtic Tale". As soon as I complete work on "Shadow of the Lion" I want to return to this beautiful first-person narrative that I'd set aside years ago in order to work on Alexander's story.

DRAGONS has a magic quality to it -- right from the beginning when I was searching for a setting for this story that was told to me by a Celtic girl, Olwen, in a voice that was almost as if I was channeling her. (Or maybe she was me in another lifetime.) I had gone to visit a friend in Bournemouth and then on to Stonehenge and later, while waiting in the bus station at Salisbury I'd noticed a sign that said "Old Sarum Iron Age Hillfort, 4 kms". I decided to walk there.

As I approached the earth mound where this ancient fort has once stood I had one of those dejas-vu moments where I actually could 'see' it all unfold as if I had actually been there before.
This, I knew, was the setting of my story about Olwen, the Druid's child.

I've made a couple of trips back to Old Sarum and made lots of notes, impressions, etc. But it's been some years now and I needed to refresh my mind and see if I could pick up any new 'vibes' at the site.

The times before I'd been alone, and this time I was with my sister and niece and as well there were other people on the hill. It was difficult for me to 'feel' anything, but I did take some video footage so I'd be able to refer to it later. I also discovered a part of the earth mound that I hadn't known was there on my first two visits. On top of the hill are the remains of the old fort.
This one would be at a much later date than Olwen's story, for DRAGONS is set in the 4th century B.C.

Old Sarum was developed in about 500 BC by Iron Age settlers and later occupied by Romans, Saxons and Normans. They built a castle and a royal palace and by the mid-12th century it was a busy town with a fine new cathedral Later a new settlement was made by the river, now known as Salisbury and Old Sarum was abandoned and fell into ruin.

After looking around and taking photos, we went back down to the road with the intention of hopping on the next bus to Stonehenge. Unfortunately we hopped on the wrong bus and then had to hop off and go back. No time for Stonehenge as we needed to get back to London to fetch our luggage and head for Cardiff.

VIEW OF SALISBURY FROM OLD SARUM MOUND