Tintagel

Tintagel Castle.

Home of Merlin, host to the Arthurian legend; bleak, exposed, open to wind and sea.

The castle ruins themselves are romantic and barren, comprising a few low walls remaining after centuries of decay and neglect. The plateau summit of the castle peninsula is unexceptional apart from the traces of millennia of human occupation and the strange tunnel through an undulation of the surface. But the emotional significance of the site transcends the banal nature of the simple location: it's the home of stories, legends and half of England's self-image.

And yet the little town itself, half a mile from the castle, is the epitome of nasty tourism rip-offs and redolent of what we have become. Tacky shops selling gems and souvenirs and keepsakes, ice-cream and pasties and chips. Waddling tourists for whom the walk to the castle is too much, but for whom the shops are designed.

Tom and I visited Tintagel on our route home from surfing. The worsening of the weather gave us the grey skies, wind and drizzle which were the perfect welcome to Tintagel. It's at its best when the heavens make it seem worst, the wind cutting out the civilisation which separates us from our half-remembered past, leaving just the ruins in their elements of rock and wind and water.


:-)