However, I wouldn’t recommend you go there right now – except just after dawn maybe, as the rest of the day it’s thronged with tourists, mostly students from the rest of Europe.
So – for some tranquillity – get up with the dawn chorus to see the vale at its best.
The seventeenth century write Charles Cotton penned this poem:
“Oh, my beloved nymph, fair Dove, / Princess of rivers, how I love / Upon thy flowery banks to lie, / And view thy silvery stream, / When gilded by a summer`s beam.”
It sounds corny to our ears now (and probably then, if truth be told, as he wasn’t a great poet) – but it tells us something of the feeling.
This post is part of the City Daily Photo's Theme Day on 'Tranquillity'.
Click here to view thumbnails for all participants
Oh, yes. That does look tranquil, but without the tourists indeed. Our creeks here in Australia can lull one into a tranquil state, what with the tinkling of water over polished stone ant the wind whooshing through the branches of the she-oaks that often line the heads of small creeks like this.
ReplyDeleteLovely contribution to the Theme, Mark.
Ha! we have a surburb in Grafton called Dovedale, name after a very old house and where the well to do live, it's leafy but would never consider it tranquil. Much prefer your beautiful dale.
ReplyDeleteI lived in England for a few years in Southampton and even when I thought I found a place with no one else invariably someone would come along.
It seem there is very few places on earth where hordes of tourists do not invade (not even Mt Everest, anymore!).
ReplyDeleteBut this spot is all yours on this fine morning.
First thought, reminds me The Lord of The Rings. Don´t ask me why, the subconscious is like it is.
ReplyDeleteWell done, take care!
It's interesting that you should say that. JR Tolkien was gassed in World War One, and convalesced in mid-Staffordshire, only thirty miles or so from this spot... Maybe he did visit.
DeleteBeautiful place indeed :)
ReplyDelete