The Organ Family: Renaissance Festival

I know this post is a couple weeks late, but I had to blog about our Renaissance Festival experience. A few weeks ago Mike and I decided that after 5 years of living in Nashville, it was time to visit the Tennessee Renaissance Festival. The festival is very interesting. It takes place on several acres of land that have been made to look like a 16th century English Village. Most everyone seems to go all out. Not only do many people dress the part, they also speak as if they are living in England during the 16th century. At times it was a little creepy. The festival runs each weekend in May and each weekend has a different theme. The theme for Memorial Day Weekend was "International Jousting Tournament."

We arrived at the festival around 10:30 and headed inside to meet up with our friends Kyle & Janna, and their two boys, Cody and Wyatt. We quickly headed to the jousting arena and grabbed a seat for the tournament. The tournament was fun. You could tell it was staged, but I'm sure all the kids really enjoyed it. After the tournament Janna and Cody enjoyed a camel ride (who knew they had camels in England during the 1500's). The rest of our afternoon was spent eating and browsing at the merchant tents, which sold costumes, jewelry, & arts and crafts. The last item on our agenda was to visit "Castell Gwyn".

Castell Gwyn was built by a man who had a dream of living in a castle one day. This is actually someones home. Construction was started in 1980 and was finished just a few weeks ago. Because the castle is someones home we were not allowed to tour the entire residence. It was neat, but very short and not really what I expected, but it made for some good pictures.