Peel - the Sunset City

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We got to Peel (Manx: Purt ny hlnshey) about 5 PM, in accordance with our prior calculating. That day the weather was quite well and let us enjoy the island's landscape. Hills and cliffs everywhere. Houses are plastered and in general look much better than in England. In England towns look bleak and getting upset especially when raining. We noticed no litter anywhere.

Our guesthouse - The Fernleigh is lokated at the front of the sea and quite close from Peel castle. We notice nice owners and cosy room. Splendid we thought - That's would be a nice couple of days holidays.

First decision that we made it was go anywhere to take a breath and see someting interesting, and obviously to find a local pub to drink some beers after despite of we brought from England almost two dozens of beers. We put cans on the table and everyone took just one and we were ready to explore.

Paweł followed me towards cliff and I guessed his intensions - to get to the tower up there... The Peel's cliff calls Corrin's Hill and its surmounted by Corrin's Tower. That tower was built around 1806 for a Thomas Corrin who owns the hill and much area nearby. While we were walking to tower wind blew in our faces and got our marsh a bit more difficult, moreover we felt rain droplets on our faces. We got to Corrin's Tower and we saw big part of island's west coast. I haven't ever seen before so magnificent landscape and I was enthustiastic because I overcame my own tiredness. Cliff mounted to over 140 metres above sea level. What we have done there? We opened the beers and drank our first beers in the island. Beer flavour is such different after walking along path on steep hill with wind and rain as companions. After we went to St Patrick's isle where Peel castle stands to go around - in one calm bay we spotted some seals. We were really happy because we haven't seen any seal in nature. At the later evening we met tailess cat. The typical Manx cat. I heard about that race but both of us haven't seen ever anyone of them. So we decided island is very interesting even with wild life because we saw creatures whose we haven't seen before :-)

At the morning next day we decided te see The House of Manannan (local museum) and Peel Castle.

In The House of Manannan we were surprised because we saw a splendid multimedial exhibition regarding the island's history. For me and Paweł as RPG freaks most interesting were all topics regarding Vikings and their heritage. We saw a Viking's longboat replica Odin's Raven that sailed from Norway to Peel to commemorate the Manx millenium. Afterwards we directed our steps to the Peel Castle. This castle was build by Vikings in 11th century and it encloses 11th century church and the Round Tower, the 13th century St German's Cathedral and the later apartments of the Lord of Man. Paweł found out from speaker guide the Round tower was used by the monks guring Scotsmen attacked. They closed up inside and kept waiting until Scots would got bored and drew off.

The same day (Friday) we drove by bus to Castletown and Port Erin.

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