Long live Camelot!!!!!
NOT DIAL-UP FRIENDLY.
So, yorunohime and I went to see Camelot Pierrefonds. IT WAS SO PRETTY. We had quite some problems with getting there, since the trains had quite some problems. On the way there, we had a delay of an hour, due to the train being late, something in the train being broken and 'cause we had to throw people out.. on the way back, the Paris-Rotterdam train had no problems, but we had LOADS of time to kill at the stations of Compiègne and Paris, and we missed the train back to Utrecht by 2 minutes. BUT I DIGRESS.
We had an awesome hotel. Very nice guy too. And well, the room was pretty big, and we had the BEST VIEW EVER. Namely, this:
It's the friggin castle!!! And there was more..
Lac de Pierrefonds!
At the end of the first evening, we had thunder, which was pretty awesome, 'cause it wasn't near, and it was a clear night. We saw LOADS of thunder people! It was SO pretty. We filmed some bits, and I've taken some screencaps to show you. The castle looked positively delicious this way. *g* It looks better on video, and a million times better in real life, but you guys will have to do with this:
There was more to be enjoyed than just the castle. There was also a nice little church. 2 of its statues for your pleasure, 'cause I particularly enjoyed them:
And this is what the lovely lil church looked like from the outside:
Pierrefonds itself was really pretty too, you know. So some photo's, so you guys can capture the nice feeling from the small village!
Okay okay, so I should probably talk about the castle. It's FAR TOO PRETTY. I adore it beyond words. We got lucky, the Merlin cast wasn't there yet. Otherwise there would've been more bits we couldn't see! As it was, the towers couldn't be climbed e.g., and some bits you saw in Merlin aren't accessible for the public either. It's a real damned shame. But despite the Merlin cast not being there, it didn't mean the whole series was absent.. 'cause we could see.. bits from the set!! How awesome is that?! We couldn't touch it though:
Gwen's fountain!!!!
So, we couldn't touch the things (there was even security, who on Wednesday took a fancy to us and just didn't stop talking! annoying, 'cause we couldn't follow him, poor guy xD), but it was still pretty:
And some new stuff was added on Wednesday!!:
And the back of the sets:
I was really happy to see the sets! I mean, they're far too pretty. And it made me feel as if Merlin was sort of there, anyway :) And how many people can claim to have seen the sets and know what they're for? ;) Not even security-guy Jan seemed to be completely sure what "Merlin" was *g* He kept calling it a movie.. it's a series, man :D But it was cool. And you can actually recognize these bits from the series (especially Gwen's fountain)! How cool is that?!
Anyhow. The sets were somewhere at the beginning. 'Cause if you want to reach the castle, you gotta take a walk through the park or take the back door. I prefer the walk through the park. =P It was really quite pretty. We could find ruins from a tower there (the castle has been destroyed, and has then been rebuilt under Napoleon III), which was pretty awesome, and also a trébuchét, for which River texted home to find out what it was. Some sort of catapult, apparently! And it took 60 man to be able to use it! How insane is that?! Here are some pics for you to enjoy (with the first being the ruin, and the second being the trébuchét, obviously):
The castle itself is well worth a visit, even if you don't go in. The thing is HUGE and impressive, even from the outside. There are 8 towers, all named after some great and just king. One of them is King Arthur, how cool and fitting is that?! The only weird thing is that they call him a Christian king, and I'm fairly sure he was Pagan.. oh well, whatever. *g* The castle is made up prettily, with loads of attention to detail, while still being majestic. I'll show you:
The last photo is the way to the entrance. And there, we got this, which was extremely useful for getting in, of course:
This is one of the first things to see, namely the draw bridge:
And this is the view from the enormous court yard:
And here's some more detail on the chapel, 'cause I thought it was pretty:
The first time we visited the castle, we visited the last tower first, which we shouldn't have done, but who knew? My pics are in that order too, and since I'm lazy, I'll just upload in that order.
Here are pics from the entrance hall:
The last one is just one of many of such decorations in the wall. They were all weird and some even disturbing. The guy to renovate the castle, Viollet-le-Duc, enjoyed these things. I don't really. It gives the castle a certain charm, but it was really over the top IMO. But I quite liked this dragon. It was better than a weird animal eating humans, for example.. Moving on, next pics are from the bedroom. (River if I'm wrong, feel free to let me know.)
Moving on to Salle des Preuses..
(Look, Aslan!)
It's prettier when you're there, 'cause my camera messed up a lot. Then we're skipping a lot of rooms, 'cause I'm too lazy to upload everything, but I'll just upload some highlights for you guys. :) And remember, go to visit the castle if you can!!
The castle on a smaller scale:
After seeing this, you get out in the shop, which gets out on the gallery. It's 57 metres long and it's pretty and featured quite a lot in the series! (Morgana and Uther, ep 7 - Merlin and Lancelot, ep 5 - etc.). I quite liked it! Here's a pic for you:
And some court yard pics taken from the gallery:
And now some pics from the way to Morgana's chambers, which are really pretty! But unlike Merlin, we're not allowed to go up the stairs. /cry
There were loads of things to be seen when you followed the corridor under Morgana's chambers, but they were mostly designs for the roof. But we could also find Excalibur there! Or, at least I like to think so. Look!
Coincidence doesn't exist, right? And what we could also see was..
Lord Valiant anyone?? Lovely statue, isn't it? We also located Lady Helen's chamber:
It was in the chapel. We couldn't enter Lady Helen's chambers though, but this was pretty too. I quite liked the whole chapel, really! Some more eye-candy:
And we also managed to locate the way to the slash dragon!!
But we couldn't enter that either. What we could walk up and down, like Gwen, Merlin and the others - is the way to the dungeons! Look:
Isn't it PRETTY?!?!?! Ahh I SO loved the whole castle. I'm happy to have seen it!!
And so ends my far too long entry that took far too long. Cookies for everyone who got this far! And since I'm speaking about Merlin anyway:
I didn't spend a lot of money in Pierrefonds.. so I spent it here back home! *lol* And I'm fairly consistent, 'cause what I bought was the "Sword In The Stone" movie by Disney. Aka the one about king Arthur. Apparently it was based on a book I have read. So cool. I really quite like it! Long live Merlin!! Although Colin is far better. And don't even get me started on how much better Bradley is as Arthur, but all of it was still all sorts of fun! \o/
But ahhh. I'm happy to be done with this! Took far too long it did..
And before I forget.. new eps starting the 19th of September!!!! *boogie*
So, yorunohime and I went to see Camelot Pierrefonds. IT WAS SO PRETTY. We had quite some problems with getting there, since the trains had quite some problems. On the way there, we had a delay of an hour, due to the train being late, something in the train being broken and 'cause we had to throw people out.. on the way back, the Paris-Rotterdam train had no problems, but we had LOADS of time to kill at the stations of Compiègne and Paris, and we missed the train back to Utrecht by 2 minutes. BUT I DIGRESS.
We had an awesome hotel. Very nice guy too. And well, the room was pretty big, and we had the BEST VIEW EVER. Namely, this:
It's the friggin castle!!! And there was more..
Lac de Pierrefonds!
At the end of the first evening, we had thunder, which was pretty awesome, 'cause it wasn't near, and it was a clear night. We saw LOADS of thunder people! It was SO pretty. We filmed some bits, and I've taken some screencaps to show you. The castle looked positively delicious this way. *g* It looks better on video, and a million times better in real life, but you guys will have to do with this:
There was more to be enjoyed than just the castle. There was also a nice little church. 2 of its statues for your pleasure, 'cause I particularly enjoyed them:
And this is what the lovely lil church looked like from the outside:
Pierrefonds itself was really pretty too, you know. So some photo's, so you guys can capture the nice feeling from the small village!
Okay okay, so I should probably talk about the castle. It's FAR TOO PRETTY. I adore it beyond words. We got lucky, the Merlin cast wasn't there yet. Otherwise there would've been more bits we couldn't see! As it was, the towers couldn't be climbed e.g., and some bits you saw in Merlin aren't accessible for the public either. It's a real damned shame. But despite the Merlin cast not being there, it didn't mean the whole series was absent.. 'cause we could see.. bits from the set!! How awesome is that?! We couldn't touch it though:
Gwen's fountain!!!!
So, we couldn't touch the things (there was even security, who on Wednesday took a fancy to us and just didn't stop talking! annoying, 'cause we couldn't follow him, poor guy xD), but it was still pretty:
And some new stuff was added on Wednesday!!:
And the back of the sets:
I was really happy to see the sets! I mean, they're far too pretty. And it made me feel as if Merlin was sort of there, anyway :) And how many people can claim to have seen the sets and know what they're for? ;) Not even security-guy Jan seemed to be completely sure what "Merlin" was *g* He kept calling it a movie.. it's a series, man :D But it was cool. And you can actually recognize these bits from the series (especially Gwen's fountain)! How cool is that?!
Anyhow. The sets were somewhere at the beginning. 'Cause if you want to reach the castle, you gotta take a walk through the park or take the back door. I prefer the walk through the park. =P It was really quite pretty. We could find ruins from a tower there (the castle has been destroyed, and has then been rebuilt under Napoleon III), which was pretty awesome, and also a trébuchét, for which River texted home to find out what it was. Some sort of catapult, apparently! And it took 60 man to be able to use it! How insane is that?! Here are some pics for you to enjoy (with the first being the ruin, and the second being the trébuchét, obviously):
The castle itself is well worth a visit, even if you don't go in. The thing is HUGE and impressive, even from the outside. There are 8 towers, all named after some great and just king. One of them is King Arthur, how cool and fitting is that?! The only weird thing is that they call him a Christian king, and I'm fairly sure he was Pagan.. oh well, whatever. *g* The castle is made up prettily, with loads of attention to detail, while still being majestic. I'll show you:
The last photo is the way to the entrance. And there, we got this, which was extremely useful for getting in, of course:
This is one of the first things to see, namely the draw bridge:
And this is the view from the enormous court yard:
And here's some more detail on the chapel, 'cause I thought it was pretty:
The first time we visited the castle, we visited the last tower first, which we shouldn't have done, but who knew? My pics are in that order too, and since I'm lazy, I'll just upload in that order.
Here are pics from the entrance hall:
The last one is just one of many of such decorations in the wall. They were all weird and some even disturbing. The guy to renovate the castle, Viollet-le-Duc, enjoyed these things. I don't really. It gives the castle a certain charm, but it was really over the top IMO. But I quite liked this dragon. It was better than a weird animal eating humans, for example.. Moving on, next pics are from the bedroom. (River if I'm wrong, feel free to let me know.)
Moving on to Salle des Preuses..
(Look, Aslan!)
It's prettier when you're there, 'cause my camera messed up a lot. Then we're skipping a lot of rooms, 'cause I'm too lazy to upload everything, but I'll just upload some highlights for you guys. :) And remember, go to visit the castle if you can!!
The castle on a smaller scale:
After seeing this, you get out in the shop, which gets out on the gallery. It's 57 metres long and it's pretty and featured quite a lot in the series! (Morgana and Uther, ep 7 - Merlin and Lancelot, ep 5 - etc.). I quite liked it! Here's a pic for you:
And some court yard pics taken from the gallery:
And now some pics from the way to Morgana's chambers, which are really pretty! But unlike Merlin, we're not allowed to go up the stairs. /cry
There were loads of things to be seen when you followed the corridor under Morgana's chambers, but they were mostly designs for the roof. But we could also find Excalibur there! Or, at least I like to think so. Look!
Coincidence doesn't exist, right? And what we could also see was..
Lord Valiant anyone?? Lovely statue, isn't it? We also located Lady Helen's chamber:
It was in the chapel. We couldn't enter Lady Helen's chambers though, but this was pretty too. I quite liked the whole chapel, really! Some more eye-candy:
And we also managed to locate the way to the slash dragon!!
But we couldn't enter that either. What we could walk up and down, like Gwen, Merlin and the others - is the way to the dungeons! Look:
Isn't it PRETTY?!?!?! Ahh I SO loved the whole castle. I'm happy to have seen it!!
And so ends my far too long entry that took far too long. Cookies for everyone who got this far! And since I'm speaking about Merlin anyway:
I didn't spend a lot of money in Pierrefonds.. so I spent it here back home! *lol* And I'm fairly consistent, 'cause what I bought was the "Sword In The Stone" movie by Disney. Aka the one about king Arthur. Apparently it was based on a book I have read. So cool. I really quite like it! Long live Merlin!! Although Colin is far better. And don't even get me started on how much better Bradley is as Arthur, but all of it was still all sorts of fun! \o/
But ahhh. I'm happy to be done with this! Took far too long it did..
And before I forget.. new eps starting the 19th of September!!!! *boogie*