Favourite Historical Sites...

Einhard · 07-10-2010 7:43pm #1

I don't think a thread on this topic exists alread, and I think it might make for an interesting one. It does exactly what it says on the tin. Just name your favourite historical sites, both at home and abroad, and a little explanation as to why. No show offs!! If you want to dazzle us all with the extent of your travels, off to the Travel forum with you!:D

So first off, I'd go with the Hill of Tara in Ireland. Was working in Navan a few years back with my father, and persuaded him to take a detour on the drive home. I wasn't at all expecting the sort of emotional resonance that I felt at the place. I'm far from being sentimental or anything of the sort, and I imagined I'd stand there and be underwhelmed by a few grassy humps and hollows, but something really struck me about the place. I'm not sure what it was, and I'd almost be reluctant to go back in case it was just a fleeting, ephemeral thing.

Abroad, I'd have to plump for Petra. Absolutely amazing place. Generally speaking, I tend to be somewhat underwhelmed when visiting world famous sites. Expectations are often way too high when one has seen, and read about such tourist hotspots. However, Petra was amazing. We spent an entire day there, and explored every nook and cranny. It helped that it lashed rain in the afternoon and so we had the place almost to ourselves, with streams and rivulets pouring off the steep cliffs and down what would have been the main thoroughfare. Evberything about the place- the location, history, architecture, and more- was stunning.

Historical site that has most disappointed: Giza. *shudders

MarchDub · 07-10-2010 8:15pm

I don't think your experience at Tara was a fleeting ephemeral thing at all. Tara is a great experience always for me. Haven't been there for awhile though.

But - and I show my own antiquity here - the greatest memory I have is of Newgrange BEFORE the excavations took place there. I used to play there as a child in the early 1960s and it was pure magic. There was a wilderness and eternity about the place - we had to jump down into the passageway as it was half hidden/covered by earth. The chamber would echo with our voices. You could feel the ancients presence. Yeah, really. But now? Just another commercial site.

ValJester · 07-10-2010 9:09pm

Topographies Des Terrors- manages to present the SS Headquarters in a way that dosn't overwhelm you and make you feel complete despair, which is the biggest acheivement imaginable.

Eliot Rosewater · 07-10-2010 10:10pm

Bebelplatz, in Berlin, is a very touching place. It was the site of one of the Nazi Book Burning in 1933. In the middle of this huge platz there's a small square hole, a metre each side, which is like a window into this underground sealed room lined with empty bookshelves. The bookshelves symbolise the void left by the books destroyed at the Burning.

One of the books burned that night was a play by Heinrich Heine which contained the words "where they burn books, they will eventually burn people". Considering what happened 35km north of Bebelplatz a few years later, at Sachsenhausen concentration camp, that line gains a great degree poignancy.

Berlin as a whole is a treasure trove for historical stuff.

Doozie · 07-10-2010 11:27pm

Favourite Irish site Tara and Dublin's Medieval Walls. I was doing an essay on Tara one winter and I went up not realising the sun was about to set....well..... it was one of the most shockingly amazing sites I have ever seen and really brought to life the pagan landscape and the sacredness of the experience (pre-Motorway of course).
The Medieval Walls are sitting there for the last 1000/900 years admit the hustle and bustle of Dublin's traffic....if those walls could talk.

Aboard - I think the Unesco Castle at Carcasonne in Sth France is...AMAZING! Huge Huge double ramparts with, tiny medieval streets inside... yes it is a bit touristified... but I'm not overly against it.

(other favourite was Ephesus in Turkey..... AMAZING)
sorry I have too many!

Denerick · 07-10-2010 11:37pm

I spent a few days in Florence once and was completely spellbound. Such a wonderful city, brimming with renaissance art and grandeur, glorious cathedrals, ceiling frescoes, complete with narrow little streets that seem to have a museum or great building emerging from nowhere.

In Ireland, the remnants of the ringfort in one of the Aran islands was pretty cool. Was there when I was a child and my father told me that they used to push prisoners off the side of the cliff - as a father would tell his child out of pure deviousness

(The ringfort is actually a half ring fort as one side runs along the cliff) That played havoc with my imagination for years.

Another great spot is the Dunree fort near Buncrana in Donegal. It is a fully restored regimental camp, along with a museum and some old military paraphanalia. And cliffs.

Einhard · 08-10-2010 12:11am

Denerick wrote: »

I spent a few days in Florence once and was completely spellbound. Such a wonderful city, brimming with renaissance art and grandeur, glorious cathedrals, ceiling frescoes, complete with narrow little streets that seem to have a museum or great building emerging from nowhere.

I was in Florence and Tuscany myself recently, and while it was indeed stunning, I think I began to suffer from Renaissance overload after a week. By the time I got home I was desperate to see the plain, unadulterated grey exteriors of our own buildings from the same period!!

MarchDub · 08-10-2010 12:17am

For an overseas site I would nominate Gettysburg battlefield in Pennsylvania where one of the decisive battles in the American Civil War was fought. I once lived near it and it is preserved pretty much as it stood - well some woods areas were cleared in the early 20th century but it has never been built on or developed and the monuments stand where the different regiments fought. It's a huge area and comprises almost 6,000 acres.

The monument to the Irish Brigade is striking - and stands in a quiet hollow. There is a great sadness about the whole place -

The Sparrow · 08-10-2010 12:19am

Wow this thread has shown me how much the internet has taken over my life... I was expecting a thread on favourite websites with historical content

I think Kilmainham Gaol is a pretty great historical site in Dublin. Really well preserved and you get a sense of how awful it must have been to be there for any period of time let alone be sentenced to death and spent your last days in those horrible cells.

Auschwitz was not really a favourite but it was definitely interesting and eye opening and heartbreaking. Arlington Cemeterary was also very sombre.

I visited Gettysburg as well a few years ago and it was class. The majority of the battle field has been preserved and we went on a tour with just me and two mates and one of the park rangers bringing us to all of the key areas of the battle and explaining what happened.

Finally, Rome. Pretty much the whole lot of it is a historical site and the Coliseum especially is amazing.

deise go deo · 08-10-2010 12:30am

For me I had a very similar experience to the Op
I went up to Dún Aonghasa on the Aran Islands.

Staring down at the ocean over the cliff edge was epic.

fontanalis · 08-10-2010 12:44am

deise go deo wrote: »

For me I had a very similar experience to the Op
I went up to Dún Aonghasa on the Aran Islands.

Staring down at the ocean over the cliff edge was epic.

Wonderful picture. What's the consensus on the fort? Doesn't it seem like a pretty elaborate structure for a pretty much isolated island?

Einhard · 08-10-2010 1:45am

fontanalis wrote: »

Wonderful picture. What's the consensus on the fort? Doesn't it seem like a pretty elaborate structure for a pretty much isolated island?

I remember watching a programme a while back, I think it was Coast, and they were suggesting that it was actually built as a ring fort, but that erosion cut away the cliffs, leaving it with it with its rather distinctive shape. Probably not exactly what you were looking for, but interesting anyway.

As to the Coliseum, I was actually quite underwhelmed by the place. I think reading and hearing about it for years beforehand meant my expectations were too high.

CDfm · 08-10-2010 3:51am

The walls of Derry I spent a wonderful afternoon walking around them and you could get a feel for the "smallness" and localness of the troubles.

I learned more about the trade war origans etc and the context of it all.

Well worth visiting if you have an open mind.

deise go deo · 08-10-2010 10:15am

fontanalis wrote: »

Wonderful picture. What's the consensus on the fort? Doesn't it seem like a pretty elaborate structure for a pretty much isolated island?

When I was their they said that when it was built the Island was a strategic location between Munster and Connaught

magentas · 20-10-2010 4:31pm

the killing fields of cambodia is a chilling place the khmer rouge slaughtered 2million people during the reign of pol pot, went to dachau concentraton camp few years before and thought that was unsettling but nothing like cambodia

Angkor Wat is amazing though and prob my favourite historical site

Ephesus in Turkey is stunning too

Namdaemun Gate in korea as well as the many beautiful palaces

Clonmacnoise and Bunratty Castle I remember on school tours as a kid, recently re-visited bunratty it's nice to visit but love the site at Clonmacnoise

Favourite Historical Sites...

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