HaveBeen: To Do - The Dungeons (London, York, Edinburg, Amsterdam, etc.)

Do you dare?

 

When I was in Edinburg, a promotion girl on the street convinced us to make use of a deal for something called "The Edinburgh Dungeon". Me and my friend were all about trying everything, so we decided to go. Once we went inside and I saw the decorations, I wanted to turn around and run away because I am, eh... quite easily scared. But since we already bought the tickets we were stuck. I didn't know what to expect, but it was simply awesome. A combination of live actors, video recordings and scenery made the dungeons a great experience. After going there, my new dream was to become one of the live actors. Unfortunetely I am not a very good actress so I had to let go of that dream. Instead I visited the Dungeons in Amsterdam and the one in York. The others are still on my wish list. There are some things that are the same in each dungeon, but most of the acts are based on national or regional myths and gohst stories. It is a way to find out about the history of the city in a fun and creative way.

So, there I was.

And here, I ended up.

And some of my special memories:

Edinburgh Dungeon
We got a discount couplon and paid just 9 euro entrance. In the court room (returning at all Dungeons) one boy was accused of dressing up in women's clothes and was asked if he pleated "guilty" or "very guilty". The poor boy, he clearly did not get the joke. He kept shouting that it was not true and he was not guilty. We passed some of Edinburgh's own legends, such as the story of Burke and Hare, two men who dug up corpses from graves and later even killed people to sell their body for science experiments (one of which we also got to enjoy). Later we went on a trip on a underground boat where according to the legend a cannibalistic family lived. At the end of the boatride, one of the cannibals was waiting. He told me I had a stupid name but I was too afraid of him to tell him his name was even more stupid. Next, we were brought to a room, where they were going to "hang us" in another short ride, which resulted in a lot of funny pictures. After all of this, I was hooked!

 

 

All the attractions of Edinburgh

Amsterdam Dungeon
These dungeons are a  bit special as the tour is bi-ligual. In my group I was the only Dutch person and this led to some funny situations where they asked us to get up and follow them (in Dutch) and I was to only one to do it. I because a translator for the whole group because some of the vervoices were in Dutch for a large part, and sometimes important information got lost, because things were not translated. They just changed language every couple of lines, which is even a bit confusing to those of us who speak both languages. But bedsides this, it was a wonderful experience again. It was great to see some of the Dutch history portaied this way. Especially the ride at the end was funny. I heard someone at the other side of the door tell the tour guide that they lost the key of the door. So the man told us that they had to "clean up the body of someone who did not survive the ride". Pretty creative.
We had a discount coupon (from my friends hostel) this time so we paid just 9 euros again.

All the attractions of Amsterdam

The court where you will have the most unfear trial ever

 

York Dungeon
I used to live close to York, so this Dungeon needed to be visited. I booked online of forehand and was given a 2 hour time sloth in which I had to start the tour. We paid just 7 euros per ticket this time. All actor immediately notices that my and my friend were the easiest to scare and made use of this a lot. Very funny (for the other visitors). For the mirror maze (also a returning attraction in the Dungeons) I had devloped the tactic to turn right at all times. Part of the group thought I knew what I was doing and started following me. Unfortunately there was a small circle of mirrors build in this maze, which made us walk quite some circles before we discoved (these mazees are tricky). Later, we heard the full history behind the English celebration bon fire day. At the very end, a girl was chosen to be burned as a witch, which she did very convincingly with coughing and all. I would have thought that she was part of the act if her brother had not wondered out loud where she was. But, after we got burned ourselves (this was a quite wonderful piece of creativity with hot lights and flamy curtains), we found the girl back in the souvenir shop. Pfiew. We survved yet another Dungeon experience!

All of York's attractions

I would love to visit all the other ones now!




For a full list of all the Dungeon experiences, see http://www.thedungeons.com/default-locations.aspx

Each website is available in the local language and in English. You can read which stories the tour consists of and even do a test to see if you are brave enough to concur the journey. Most locations have discounts available and pre-booked tickets are recommended to save waiting time and money.

Are you ready for the ride?