If you could attend any historical event...

[annis]

What an amazing experience to know you are standing on the very spot where a momentous event took place, Margaret.

i haven't travelled, and I live in New Zealand, a country very new in terms of European history, though with many generations of native Maori history.
When I was growing up, though, I lived in a city called Tauranga where a major battle of the nineteenth century New Zealand Wars took place, known as the Battle of Gate Pa. ( In the Maori language a pa is a settlement.)

The whole area was a park and we used to run around the old trenches and visit the pioneer cemetery (a depressing number of children's and soldiers' graves) The Maori were clever and fierce warriors and were in fact the first to use trench warfare, an idea later adopted by Europeans on the Western Front of WWI.
It's a strange feeling to be playing around in a place where people have fought and died.

This particular battle was famous for a couple of reasons. A relatively small number of Maori (about 200) defeated nearly 2000 supposedly superior and more sophisticated British forces, and the Maori of Gate Pa were Christians who showed great respect and mercy to their opponents.

If you scroll down to the bottom of this article about the battle you will see the rules set out by the Maori chief for the conduct expected of his people during the fighting - these rules were strictly adhered to. (Pakeha is the Maori word for Europeans)
http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-M ... dy-d2.html

[Christine Blevins]

Visiting a battlefield is always a very moving experience. One that stands out for me as an American is Gettysburg - especially the field where Pickett made his charge - the courage it took to march that distance under artillery fire - amazing.

[SonjaMarie]

I might be getting a book on Battle Field Ghosts from BF soon, so that will be interesting to read.

SM

[EC2]

The tournament of Lagny sur Marne where William Marshal was in action. I'd love to have a motion camera on his horse and find out what it was really like. There are some descriptions of technique in the primary sources that I have a hard time getting my head around.

Other than that - well when Jesus was around and the moment at the tomb, to find out what really happened for myself.

[alice]

Probably Shakesperean London, hanging around the theatre with Will and his players. There are probably loads of other times I'd like, but I love Shakespeare so much, I would love to meet him and be caught up with all that world.

I also love anything to do with R111, so would like to be around to see what really happened to the Princes in the Tower. I've been to Bosworth Battlefield, where he died, and it was just that, a field. It did have a visitors centre though, which showed the scene of his death on a loop, with Olivier playing him from Shakey's R111. That was a while back, so it may be a bit more commercialised now, I know some of our students went recently, and I remember thinking they won't like it, they'll just see a field, and it will mean nothing to them.

[nona]

I would like to know what really happened to the Neanderthals, was it climate changes or humans. oh and watch the Egyptians build one of their Pyramids of stone. I think it would be neat to see the Vikings at the hieght of the reign, walk through a village and aboard one of their fighting vessels. The list could really go on.

[Ash]

[<<discovered I was standing just beneath the spot where Constantine had most likely stood at that pivotal moment in history

Oh, I've had some of those 'oh my gawd' moments from traveling.

We went to Rome with a friend who'd never traveled before, so everything was new and exciting. But the most amazing thing for her was when she realized she was on the very steps where Ceasar was killed. Talk about goosebumps for her. But for me it was going down under one of the churches to find myself standing in a Temple of Mithras.

In Wales, visiting the tomb of Llywellyn the Great, and seeing one of his castles was amazing after I had read Penman's trilogy. In both places, I felt like I was there, like there was a connection. I also went to Swallow Falls, which wasn't as huge as it miustve been in those times, so I was underwhelmed, but still amazed that this was a place he frequented so often.

Another was in Jamestown colony. Looking out over the water, I could almost see the ships of the colonists coming. The whole site had a very eery feeling to me, like I had been there before.

Finally, the long hike up to the top of Masada in Israel as a teen. A group of us went up there to sleep amongst the ruins, and watch the sunrise. I don't think any of us went to sleep, and what started out as a roudy slumber party turned into a rather somber consideration of the history and how we were affected by it. Another place where I definitely felt I had been there before.

[EC2]

[quote=""Ash""][
Finally, the long hike up to the top of Masada in Israel as a teen. A group of us went up there to sleep amongst the ruins, and watch the sunrise. I don't think any of us went to sleep, and what started out as a roudy slumber party turned into a rather somber consideration of the history and how we were affected by it. Another place where I definitely felt I had been there before.[/quote]

Yes, I found Montsegur in the Pyrennean foothills a bit like that. I got quite irritated with a pair of tourists who weren't into the atmosphere and who were discussing whether to have the ham or cheese sandwiches in their lunchpack first!
This year I was invited to Hamstead Marshall by the lady who actually lives on top of where John Marshal and William Marshal would have called home (or one of them). Both father and son would have known it as children though, and it was wonderful to walk the same ground as people I've come to know and love in the historical record. It's not open to the public, it's someone's private home and I feel very privileged to have been asked to visit and then to stay to dinner.

[nona]

I hope my husband and I can travel when the girls are older, what I wouldn't give to go to Wales, Ireland and England. I keep telling myself one day we will.

[donroc]

Neantherthals is a great one.

Sticking with the N's, I might drop in on Nostradamus to see how he did it, as charlatan or seer.