Still excited from his trip to The Viking
settlement at Jarlshof Sven soon set off again on yet another
expedition. As he had just visited the most Northerly group of
Islands in Britain, he set off heading south, to the Channel
Islands, which lie in the English Channel between England and
France
The Islands here have been important throughout History and there
are lots of different buildings left by different people who
have occupied the Islands. In the background here you can see Castle Cornet, which was built in the 13th Century by the Normans and was still there to be used by the Germans
in the 1940s when they invaded the islands.
The Castle has been continuously strengthened and expanded. Thick
walls were added in the 16th century to accommodate more guns.
In fact in it's 800 or so years it has been upgraded several
times, most recently by the addition of German concrete fortifications
and guns.
The clear waters around Guernsey are home to lots of different
types of fish, and the Islands are very popular with fishermen,
as well as with tourists and sailors.
Sven still can't see the attraction of a fish based diet though...
The Channel Islands were the only British territory to be occupied by the
Germans during World War 2. Today there are several museums on the island
detailing the time of the occupation, as well as a large number of intact
Nazi fortifications.
In addition there is an awful lot of military hardware still lying about,
now if only Sven can find the keys....
Almost the entire coastline of the island has been fortified. A line of
Pre-Martello towers defended the Northern coastline with an impressive
array of cannon.
Like many of the fortifications on the islands, this tower is open to
the public under the 'Fortress islands of Guernsey' scheme.
The Balliwick of Guernsey consists of 4 main Islands. These are Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Herm. During his time in the Channel Islands Sven also visited Alderney.
