Today I was once again amazed at the power of the Internet and programs such as Google Earth.
We have lately been watching the series Brother Cadfael (produced by PBS and available on DVD) about a 12th century monk in the village of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. It's a medieval version of CSI where Brother Cadfael prevents all sorts of injustice by careful examination of the crime site and other evidence he comes across. We highly recommend the series.
But my original topic has to do with the town of Shrewsbury. The plots of many of the episodes rely on the fact that this town is close to Wales. Wanting to know just how close, I opened up Google Earth and "flew" to Shrewsbury, feeling like I was riding a magic airplane that traveled many times the speed of sound. But Google Earth, even better than an airplane, overlays the view of the ground with major roads, towns, and regional borders such as than between England and Wales, making identification of local features easy. Turns out the Shrewsbury is about 10 miles from the border making it definitely possible for a person to walk or ride between the two in less than a day.
While we were looking at the satellite views of the countryside, we "flew" over to Monmouthshire, Ponty Pool, Liverpool and other towns that come up in our family history. Every once in a while, Google Earth would offer a link to Wikipedia for further details about a locality or a link to some spectacular pictures of the area. What a treasure!
Brother Cadfael was always my favorite of the various detectives that PBS showed under the general title "Mystery"
ReplyDeleteOn another topic, Monmouthshire, Ponty Pool, and Liverpool come up in our Family History? I guess I need to study it more.