Cardoness Castle was an abandoned tower house, originally built in the 15th century, and now cared for as a protected monument. On the day we visited we were the only people there and the only other car in the car park was, we think, the ticketing staff member’s. There was quite a hike up to the top of the tower and we’re not fit people but we’ve never refused a tower climbing challenge yet.

Unfortunately for me it had also been spitting with rain on the day we were visiting this particular Welsh castle; not enough to put a hood on the camera or enough to make me check the front of the lens, sadly, which is why one or two drops got on the front and there is just a hint of blurring in the following pictures of Caernarfon Castle.

We also had time for a little bit of a wander into the town where we had some lunch at one of the pubs. Some quizzical looks passed between the pair of us at the pub’s less-than-politically-correct name. You don’t like to judge in these situations but you can’t help but come to certain conclusions.

After our initial drop off in the centre of Ghent and our visit to St Bavo’s Cathedral we wandered through Graffiti Street, crossed over one of the bridges spanning the canals in the city, and found ourselves face-to-face with the structure. With Ghent’s architecture being the way it is the presence of a castle in the network of streets didn’t look too out of place.

We paid the entrance fee and wandered inside. In terms of rooms and things of interest in the castle there were plenty to explore and many explanations and examples of the types of torture equipment typically used in Ghent. Lovely.

The route through the interior of Gravensteen inevitably leads to its rooftop which affords great views over the surrounding city of Ghent and plenty of wide, sweeping photographs. The climb up was fairly steep but not the worst or longest one we’ve done when we’ve visited castles back home.

After descending there is another walk around the inside the walls that can be taken. This allows for some views from the archery points in the walls outwards as well as unobstructed views and photo opportunities of the main keep of Gravensteen too.

Built from local sandstone on a headland of rock itself over 60 metres high Harlech Castle was quite an imposing-looking structure on the day we visited, its heavy, grey, Welsh stone made to look even more oppressive under the heavy, grey, Welsh skies.

These photos of Harlech Castle give some idea of its height above the nearby town of Harlech as well as how the land drops away sharply towards the Welsh coastline adding to the stronghold’s already impressive defences against invaders.

There wasn’t a huge amount to see as the ruins of Threave Castle itself are quite small although its location and views were pretty good even under not the prettiest of skies.

The main thing for us, though, was that Threave Castle was on an island. We’d guessed there would be a bridge to it but we soon discovered it could only be reached by boat. As a fun element to the visit the boatman would only come to ferry you across when you rang a bell so we duly did that before our trip to the castle’s keep. After we’d returned to the mainland and explored the garden areas for a bit we passed the pontoon to get across to the island again and saw a group of people standing there, waiting, looking across the water to the boatman who was simply looking back. They hadn’t realised the bell needed ringing. Luckily for them my wife walked down, struck the bell, and we wandered off as we heard the boat finally start up and head towards the sheepish-looking visitors.

Unlike Threave Castle in the vicinity there was no need to make use of a boatman to get us across to the castle’s interior this time as the moat was fairly narrow and easily crossed by a small bridge. The ruins of the inside of Caerlaverock Castle were not so all-encompassing as to prevent plenty of wandering around, up, and on.

Outside the castle were a few siege weapons. Caerlaverock had been besieged a number of times in its past and reenactments are a regular occurrence at the Scottish castle. I’m always partial to a nice trebuchet although the one we saw was pretty small.

We ended up using a Park and Ride bus to get into the city from the outskirts and this set us up very close to Clifford’s Tower, the keep area of what was York Castle. We’re quite fond of a castle as any search through our travel photos from the United Kingdom especially will show you so we immediately headed for this one and headed inside as well as, of course, up.

We hit the Jorvik Viking Centre next as we’ve got an interest in history and my wife’s genealogy appears to include some viking heritage in it. It was interesting but very busy with schoolkids when we visited. From there we had more of a general walk around York taking in a nose around The Shambles where souvenirs of the trip were bought and taking photos of some of the more interesting-looking sights in the city; I particularly liked the city wall. We had intended to visit the cathedral but our general rule of thumb when it comes to cathedrals is to donate at or above the suggested donation level after visiting but we refuse to go in any that demand an entry fee especially when it’s marked as a donation for tax purposes and a suggestion for legal reasons but you don’t get the option to refuse.

There wasn’t a lot to do in Beaumaris but that wasn’t the purpose of our stop. As is customary whenever we’re out visiting somewhere we hunt down history and in this case that took the form of Beaumaris Castle, constructed on the orders of Edward I as part of his campaign to conquer north Wales and quell any uprisings in the area. Being symmetrical, consisting of concentric fortifications, and having a moat made Beaumaris a very pleasing castle to see and photograph.

Beaumaris Castle also featured a few areas inside – narrow passageways and a chapel – that helped to make this one of the more intact, more interesting castles to visit.

We typically start with a circuit outside the walls of the castle. This affords views northwards to the chalk face of Portsdown Hill, then moving clockwise to views of Port Solent, then Portsmouth and the Spinnaker Tower, and finally down towards Gosport.

Heading inside there is a large, open, grass area where many people hold picnics. In one corner of the inner walls of the castle is a church. Strangely enough, in all the years we’ve been visiting Portchester Castle we’ve never once set foot in the church.

We don’t always venture into the castle keep but as the weather was nice on this visit in 2013 we did so and the photographs below are evidence of that. Not that you’ve any cause to disbelieve me.

If you’re going in the castle keep then you’re clearly going to want to climb to the top if it allows it and as luck would have it Portchester Castle does allow it. It can get very windy on the battlements as the castle is very close to the shoreline but the views across Portsmouth, Fareham, and Gosport as well as the overview of the castle’s layout and fortifications is definitely worth it.