Castles rock

Castle bagging. My friend in Scotland taught me that phrase last year. Sounds much more intriguing than castle visiting, doesn’t it?

I have always been fascinated by castles. And now, I can call myself a castle bagger. Woo-hoo!

I visited America’s largest ‘castle’ when I was kid. It’s not really a castle so I suppose that doesn’t count but I thought I’d mention it anyway. It’s Biltmore House,  a chateau-style mansion in Asheville, North Carolina. Definitely a must-see-worth-the-cost kind of place.

Biltmore is wonderful but it doesn’t stir my emotions like the castles I visited, er bagged, in the United Kingdom. When I was  kid, castles meant knights and damsels in distress. Princesses, kings & queens – the flamboyance and romanticism of royalty. As my love of history grew, I saw them in a different light. I can’t help but think of the people who built them, who lived in them, and defended them. I can stand on the battlements and imagine a knight on horseback thundering down the road, dust kicked up in his wake. An army approaching. A carriage. Or a wagon laden with goods. How cool is it that some of these magnificent places were built hundreds of years before Europeans settled North America?

I hope you enjoy my pictures. I took these on 2 different trips to the UK and I wanted to stroll down memory lane because I couldn’t add to my bagging this year. Have you been to any of these castles? What other castles should I put on my “must-see” list?