Scotland England and the Wall: Well We Made It

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Well We Made It

It was a long haul but, we are here.
We left Regina at 11:00 Monday morning and arrived in downtown Edinburgh at just about 11:00 Tuesday morning, local time.

It was pretty smooth going without a excessively long waits between flights.

Everything worked the way it was supposed to.

The new double decker Emerites Air Airbus A380 was at the gate in Toronto while we were there so we had a good closeup view. Very big!

We had a walk, ate lunch and now it is nappie time, at least for a short one.

The picture is looking across Edinburgh's Old Town with in the distance Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat behind it, taken from our roof top terrace.

1 comment:

MorganJune 3, 2009 at 11:16 AM
That is a ridiculous view. The weather looks lovely too.
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Hadrian's Wall Background

Hadrian's Wall was built following a visit by Roman Emperor Hadrian in 122 AD. He was quite concerned about raiders from the north. The Roman's were experiencing military difficulties in Britain and he was eager to impose order. He also most likely saw the building of such an impressive wall as a symbol of Roman power in occupied Britain. It was constructed to keep Roman Britain safe from hostile attacks from the Picts. It took somewhere between four to six years to complete.

It was the northernmost boundary of the Roman Empire at that time. The wall stretches from Newcastle, Wallsend-on-Tyne in the east to Bowness on the Solway Firth in the west.

The wall was 73 miles or 117 kilometres long, about 8 to10 feet wide, and 15 feet high. In addition to the wall, the Romans built a system of small forts called milecastles which housed by 60 men every Roman mile along its entire length, with smaller towers every 1/3 mile. Sixteen larger forts holding from 500 to 1000 troops were built into the wall, with large gates on the north face. To the south of the wall the Romans dug a wide ditch called a vallum with six foot high earth banks.

The width and height of Hadrian's Wall was dependent on whatever construction materials which were available nearby. East of River Irthing the wall was made from squared stone and measured 3 metres (9.7 ft) wide and five to six metres (16–20 ft) high, while west of the river the wall was made from turf and measured 6 metres (20 ft) wide and 3.5 metres (11.5 ft) high. This does not include the wall's ditches, berms and forts. The central section measured eight Roman feet wide (7.8 ft or 2.4 m) on a 10-foot (3.0 m) base. Some parts of this section of the wall survive to a height of 7 or 8 feet