Arundel Castle

In Maine, there is a little town called Arundel, which is pronounced uh-RUN-deul. There is also a little town in England called Arundel, but I get laughed at if I pronounce it the same way. Here, it's AHR-run-deul. La di da. It's not too far from Brighton, and I hadn't seen any castles in these parts yet, so Ed and I went in April to czech it out.

Here's me at the ol' train station, waiting for our second train, since AHR-run-deul is inconveniently located with respect to Brighton and the rail lines.

Establishing shot of castle. Ain't it purdy? It's wicked old, from 1067, but it's been restored since then.

Next to this part were a bunch of tents with kind of a Medieval Times/Renaissance Faire thing going, but we didn't go over to see any of their smithery or hear any of their stories.

 Acceptable.

Once up in the castle keep or somewhere, we could get a nice little view of the areas we didn't pay to get into. It's kind of like an amusement park. If you want to do only the crappy little kid rides, then you pay the base price. Then for better rides, you go to the Silver Package; for better rides and a restaurant coupon, the Gold Package; and for better rides, a restaurant coupon, and access to the bathroom, the Platinum Package. Except naturally, in a castle, it's whether or not you want to see the keep, certain bedrooms and living areas, dungeon, and so on (but of course you have to piss down a hole in the side of the castle). We opted for the Silver Package. Yea.

Here's me, like enjoying myself.

 I'm pointing to where the arrow goes.

Since Ed is escairt of heights, I went around the top of the keep alone, and took these shots:

I don't know what this building is. It's nice.

 Ed waiting for me:

 

Next we walked around the grounds and found the little chapel. I was reminded of the Queen of Hearts' garden before the roses got painted red.

I'm recalling that we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the chapel, and inside the castle, too, for that matter. Instead, we took note of all the Jebuses inside the chapel, and how small the people buried there were, based on their grave statues (get it, GRAVE statues for dead people?) Then we left and continued walking the grounds.

 Outside the chapel was a little path that was very obviously supposed to be walked on, but as I was met by a locked gate at the end, I found it was meant for employees and such to walk on, not visitors. I took this picture anyway. Neener neener.

There are a bunch of gardens on the castle grounds, which our package allowed us to see. They were cute. This little stonezebo had nice patio furniture inside, clearly meant to tantalize lowly plebes like us, since the inside was roped off.

We're having FUN, DAMMIT.

Dude, this thing was like the weirdest fountain ever. It has that background of rocks and/or shells or something, and a rock base, with a geyser fountain, which could be fine, except that it has that awful rotating crown on the top. What were they thinking?

There were more gardens than this, but apparently we stopped taking photos. You know what gardens look like, though. I think I remember seeing they were growing organic produce in some sections of the place, which is neato. They also had a couple of those Precious Moments fountains with spouting cherubs, heh.

We didn't get there until like three in the afternoon, which only left us a couple hours to wander around. We went to the gift shop and I kind of wanted to buy something, but nothing I could afford and easily transport back to the States struck me. Ed got a pencil so we could do a crossword on the train back. Then we got some ice cream at a corner store. It was on one of those double-headed cones, and that was fun.

This is a picture of a field. I think we took a picture of it because there were some bunnies in it. Either that or Ed was trying to take my picture and completely missed. You can see my shoulder.

But it was getting towards supper time, so I couldn't stay to watch the bunnies.