St. Andrews Castle (Nov 17)

After reading week, my Latin class was moved from 3:00 on tuesday and thursdays to 4:00. So I have even more time to study or do other stuff before class. I decided to walk around town, and explore St. Andrew's castle. Using my membership to Historic Scotland I got in for free. It is about time that I made it inside the castle, its only been several months. To be honest, the castle was not as exciting as I was hoping. So much of it was ruins that not many rooms still exist. A lot of it had been destroyed, but it does have a fascinating history. When the castle was being besieged, the attackers tried to dig a mine underneath the wall where they would place gunpowder to blow the wall. Well the defenders took it upon themselves to hastily build a counter mine. There were two false starts in the castle for the defenders were working on sound alone. But they did manage to connect with the other mine and foil the plot. The mines were the coolest part. I felt like I was in the mines of Moria from LOTR. 

 The iconic tower

 One of the false mines

 View from the inside the gate

 For a castle that was connected with an Ecclesiastical organization, it had a cruel dungeon. It was impossible to go down. It was a bottle dungeon. The opening was narrow and opened as you got deeper. Prisoners had to be pulled up with rope. Very cruel in my opinion.

 The castle is very pretty

 Toilet with a view

 TO THE DUNGEON

(I think I heard some chains clinking) 

 The bottle dungeon

 You know this is a family tourist destination when you see this. I know many people who would not do this, but many that would. What did I do, I risked my own safety.

 This is the beginning of the counter mine. It was quickly dug and not done very well. The ceiling was only about 3 feet, so I had to crouch really really low to the ground just to make it through, but it was really cool. These mines are some of the best preserved in all of Europe as examples of siege mining.

 The Mines of Moria

 You really don't understand how small it really was

 To reach the mine built by the attackers, visitors had to climb through a whole in the ground just big enough to climb through, my back grazed the back side of the hole. Its also wet down there, so muddy and dirty. It was fun.

 This was the mine. It was well dug with stairs. This was original. It shows that they were taking their time with the mine compared to defenders. The ceiling was close to 7-8 feet, so plenty of room to walk. If you are afraid of tight spaces or getting stuck, you should not do this.

I did all of this before going to Latin. I would say it was a productive day.