GLOBETROTTERS WRITING PROMPT

Ruins of the World — The Finale

From castles over mineral springs to petroglyphs on forgotten rocks

When we decided on the topic for this month’s challenge, we certainly didn’t know how well it would be taken on. You stunned us with a variety of fascinating tales on ruins around the world.

Not just ancient ruins but abandoned buildings to castles and even fascinating cliff dwellings. Your pictures and personal narratives took us to all those amazing sites. It was a joy to read through each and every one of these travel tales.

Over 40 stories came in for this month’s challenge and that certainly didn’t make it easy for us to pick one. But, we had to. And so here are our choices.

JoAnn Ryan

Hello everyone! So sorry but I ended up (mostly) taking the month off from Medium as I’m spending time with family. I have been trying my best to keep up with stories but since I have not had a chance to read all of the submissions, I will not be publishing favorites for this month.

Will be back home soon and hope to catch back up in June. Thanks for keeping Globetrotters awesome and thanks to my fellow editors for keeping things going as well!

Adrienne Beaumont

To be totally truthful, there was not a single story that I didn’t love including the ones that were written by Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages, Michele Maize and Anne Bonfert which were ineligible for the challenge. I loved writing about some of the ruins I have visited. I can’t believe I wrote seven stories. I could have written more. I ❤️ ruins! My first selection listed 12 stories so I’ve cut it down to 6, mostly because 4 of these I researched further and plan on seeing for myself later this year.

“Exploring the Ruins of Britain’s First City” by Claire Elizabeth Levesque

“Earthquakes, Invasions, and 2000 Years Have Only Brightened the Beauty of Kotor’s Walls” by Kerri Duncan

“A Three-Day Sojourn In Sopron” by Vickey Maverick

“Roman Ruins and Mineral Springs” by Krasi Shapkarova

The two stories that stood out for me are:

Erie Astin’s day trip to experience the White Horse won my heart and my mind.

as did Kim Baker’s story of visiting Hassankeyf with her brother before it was lost beneath the water. It made me feel sad for the place that had been continuously inhabited for 12,000 years as well as the people who had to leave their homes in the name of progress.

Michele Maize

I learned a lot this month by reading through all of the challenge stories. As always, I am blown away by the caliber of writing here at Globetrotters. It was hard to narrow down my favorites because they were all interesting in their own way. Here are my three favorite stories from the challenge this month.

Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles takes us on a walk through the sand to find the ruins in this underground city of Talakadu. Vidya explains the history behind the city under the sand and how it was unearthed to find the most beautiful ruins of the temple.

Claire Elizabeth Levesque found a cheap train ticket that landed her in a small town in Essex called Colchester. Little did she know that she would find some of England’s oldest ruins. Colchester Castle and St Botolph’s Priory were great finds that I enjoyed reading about.

Scott-Ryan Abt always has amazing photos and I knew his ruins story would be full of great photography but I really enjoyed learning about the ruins in Amman. The Roman Theatre in Jordan is impressive and the Citadel even more so because it is built on the top of the city center. Scott wanders the area and tells the story through his photographs.

Jillian Amatt — Artistic Voyages

Though I’m not a history buff, and admittedly don’t get overly enthused by visiting ruins, one can not deny that seeing these structures that have stood the test of time is fascinating. Though we only really hear of a few popular ones as travelers, it is clear that there are so many more that are around that we don’t know about. This month, I learned about a ton more, and I know that as a group, these 40 stories have only just started a small scratch on the surface of what we can find on our planet. A lifetime of constant exploration could never bring us to all of them.

I want to thank everyone who participated in this challenge this month. Your photos and information were all so incredible. But, of course, my job here is to choose my favorite stories of the month and I have limited my list to three that I particularly enjoyed.

Rhonda Carrier’s story of having the privilege of speaking in an old Roman Amphitheatre had me amazed. I remember when we were in Plovdiv, Bulgaria and we found out that the local Roman Amphitheatre was still in use today. I was fascinated that people had been attending and performing in the theatre for thousands of years. Then I read Rhonda’s story and couldn’t help but think how privileged she is to have had this opportunity to be part of humanity's collective history. Though many have attended performances in this theatre, much less can lay claim that they actually spoke (performed) in one! Just, WOW!

I loved Kim Baker’s account of visiting the now-flooded lost city of Hassankeyf. How incredible that she got to visit this place a few different times, since now people will need scuba gear to see it. It amazes me that humanity thinks it’s okay to just cover these clues to our past, and can’t find other solutions to our problems that don’t erase our history.

I also really felt immersed in Erika Burkhalter’s story of visiting petroglyphs on the coast of Alaska. I spent 15 years living on the west coast of Canada and her pictures really confirmed how close-knit the indigenous tribes were along the coast since much of the indigenous artwork where I lived was the same. It also reminded me that ruins don’t necessarily have to be buildings. They can be the fragments and pieces that were left behind by civilizations as well, that tell us the stories of their lives.

Thank you to all of you who participated in this challenge. The world is a fascinating place, and it seems the more that I learn, the more I know that I don’t know much:)

Anne Bonfert

I want to thank all of you for your amazing submissions. I really enjoyed reading through all of them traveling with you to some very remote and ancient places on this planet.

The first one I mention stood out to me as I enjoyed hearing how Matthew David met a local in Delhi and then went on ruin-hunting adventures with him in the mega city.

The next one almost seemed like Simon Whaley took the challenge as an inspiration to go on a castle challenge with his nephew but it happened a few years ago.

Still, I really enjoyed his story, and especially the conversations between him and his nephew were so compelling.

The third story isn’t about ruins per se but about scribbles in rocks. Erika Burkhalter takes us far North to Alaska and shows us some fascinating and mysterious petroglyphs. Something I hadn’t heard of before and certainly didn’t expect to find in that place of all of them.

Once again, we thank each and every writer who has contributed to this writing prompt. The stories were all interesting and inspiring. I loved getting taken around the world to see the ruins in the most diverse places.

If you missed the deadline and still want to share a travel story showcasing ruins you found on your travels, you can do so. The article will just not be part of the challenge. We are always open to travel posts.

I also encourage you to stay tuned for our next writing prompt for the month of June. We will announce it here on Globetrotters on the 1st.

The team of editors also has contributed to the challenge with the following articles. These posts never join the contest.

Jillian Amatt — Artistic Voyages with “Ruins In Africa That Are Off the Beaten Track” and “Some Ancient Ruins Are Still In Use Today”

Michele Maize with “The Quest to Find a Movable Location Lead Me to Ruins”

Adrienne Beaumont with “Ruins of the World”, “I Thought Troy Was a Myth”, “Christmas Day in Pergamon and the Acropolis”, “More Ruins in Turkey”, “My Favourite Roman Ruins in Turkey”, “Exploring The Castle at Conwy”, “Ruins of Raglan”

Anne Bonfert with “Medieval Mdina and its Fortified History”, “Traveling Through Time With Ruins of the Past”, and “The Castle Above the Clouds”

And now, please give credit to all participating writers and do give a read to these awesome submissions if you haven’t checked them out yet:

Scott-Ryan Abt with “Room to Roam: You are Free to Wander Among The Ruins of Empires in the Centre of Amman”

Claire Elizabeth Levesque with “Exploring the Ruins of Britain’s First City”

Mariana Gonzalez with “Ruins in Peru: Beyond Machu Picchu”

Brad Yonaka with “The Enigmatic Temple of Hathor”

Kerri Duncan with “Earthquakes, Invasions, and 2000 Years Have Only Brightened the Beauty of Kotor’s Walls” and “Ruins,Ruins, RUINS! To the Kid Complaining in Bolivia”

Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles with “A Day Trip To The 13th Century” and “Walking On The Sands Of Time”

Erie Astin with “The Eye-Catching Chaos of Rome’s Ruins” and “The Wondrous Ruins of the White Horse”

Aaron Paulson with “May Challenge: Ruins of the World”

Simon Whaley with “The Great Welsh Border Castle Challenge”

Ronald Smit with “Rambling about Ruins”

Carol Labuzzetta with “One U.S. National Park Where You Can See Ruins”

Vickey Maverick with “A Three-Day Sojourn In Sopron”

Bert W.J.S. with “Echoes of Old Greece in the Ruins and Monuments of Sicily and Istanbul”

Krasi Shapkarova with “Roman Ruins and Mineral Springs”

Kim Baker with “The Lost City of Hassankeyf”

Serhii Onkov with “The Eternal Flame of Zaratustra”

Rhonda Carrier with “Speaking in a Roman Amphitheater in Jerash, Jordan”

Matthew David with “Ruin-hunting in Delhi”

Erika Burkhalter with “Ancient Stories Etched in Stone”, “Where the Buddha Sleeps” and “The Sinaguan Cliff Dwellings and Ancient Pictographs and Petroglyphs of the World Heritage Site of Palatki National Monument near Sedona, Arizona”

Nella DiCarlo with “Ruins from Rockwood to Rome”

Barb Dalton with “A Snippet Of Irish and Roman Ruins”

Manali Mitra with “The Exile Trail“

Alejandro Cuba Ruiz with “Huayna Picchu”

Your Globetrotters editing team (JoAnn, Adrienne, Jillian, Michele & Anne)