Have you ever wanted to travel back in time and get in contact with the culture and habits of the old civilizations? Since the time machine wasn’t invented yet, here are some countries where you can go and feel like you’re visiting another age.
- Japan: A Place Where Past and Future Meet
-
Japan has kept the tradition as one of its greatest treasures, even though being one of the most technological places in the world.
Having the balance and the honor as some of the most important values, Japanese family transmit the mores through generations, attracting the younger to preserve them. One example of a custom that is passed is the Taiko presentations, in which people play big drums doing a kind of choreography.
These presentations usually happen in traditional festivals, like the Tokushima awa Odori, carried out in the period of Obon (time to honor the ancestral spirits).
Another festival that is very important is the Joya no Kane, the Buddhistic traditional celebration of the new year. In this celebration, the monks play one hundred and eight gigs in a bell, and the last one takes place at midnight. Then, all people go to the first visit to the temple of the year, this act is called Hatsumode.
The temples are another manifestation of the historical past of Japan, because the big majority of them have more than a thousand years. The Kiyosu-dera temple for example is one of the most famous and have a thousand and two hundred years.
- Iceland: The Land of Ice and Fire
-
Known by its black sand beaches, vulcans and extreme temperatures, Iceland has a lot more than just amazing sights. Colonized by the Slavic and Celtic, the country is very proud of its Viking origin, taking in account that the soccer crowd uses the Haka of Vikings to encourage the team.
One of the things preserved by them are the rites of the religion Asatru, which is the faith in the Aesir gods (the ones that live in Asgard), such as Thor, Odin and Freya.
This was the main religion in the country until the conversion of the majorly of the population to the Christianism in the twelfth century, but some rituals were resumed in the seventies, like the Blot, a kind of sacrifice that, in the past, consisted in the offering of a dead animal for the gods, now substituted by fruits, cakes, beer and hydromel; and the Sumbel, in which people make toasts for the gods, ancestral and family.
Other Viking more that was preserved is the faith in the Huldufólk, that is a term to call all the magic creatures like elves, gnomes and trolls described in the first sagas wrote by the colonizers.
This faith is so strong that constructions and events dates can be canceled in order to not disturb the creatures of the “Hidden world” to avoid suffering with their revenge.
- Greece: Between Philosophers and Gods
-
If you liked to know that in Iceland you can feel a little bit closer to the Nordic Gods, you may like to go to Greece and visit the Pantheon of Atenas, the home of Atenas and other Greek goods. Today, there is a museum next to this place where pieces of the old Acropolis are exposed and where you can learn a little bit more about the history and the religious rites of the antiquity.
However, you can learn history just walking in some city streets and seeing the monuments that have been constructed in the B.C. centuries. Beyond the capital itself, a nice historical city to visit is Olympia, the cradle of the Olympic Games.
There you can visit the stadium where the first edition of this event happened three thousand years ago, see the gym where the athletes prepared themselves and visit the Zeus temple, the god for whom the games were dedicated.
But if you’re tired of god stuff, you can also learn a bit more about philosophy visiting the ruins of the Agora of Athens, place where the philosophers used to met to discuss about great decisions for the Greek society, which used to participate in this meetings to express the public opinion, something that turned this place in a symbol of the Athenian democracy.
- Scotland: Nessie’s Home
-
When we think about Scotland, one of the first things that come to mind is the scary story of the big monster that lives in the dark waters of the Loch Ness, but there are a lot more hidden in the foggy landscapes of the Highlands.
If you’ve ever watched Outlander, you may remember the rocks from where Claire Randall went back to past… Well, we don’t know if the Callanish Standing Stones really can take you to other ages, but we are sure that they carry stories from five thousand years ago, when the archeologists believe that they were aligned.
There were found some pieces of ceramic and an ancient tomb, so it’s a very important place to study the history of Scotland from the beginning.
Supposing that you’re a big fan of historical series, you may like Reign and wished to live in one of the castles like Queen Mary. You cannot live on them, but you can visit some of them like the Edinburg Castle, one of the most famous historical sites and one of the most visited, where people believe that the gosths of the Queen and of Robert the Bruce haunt it.
Other famous castles that can be cited are the Stirling Castle, Linghthgow Palace and Lochleven Castle.
A tradition that couldn’t be excluded from this text is the use of kilts and tartans, that kind of skirt that could be also used as a cover for men and boys that in the past used to have the colors of the Clan from which them came, but now is only used in traditional festivals like the Highland Games, where competitors from all the country put their strength in proof and remember the competitions of the past in which the Clans used to confront themselves.
Which of the countries will be your choice?