And here we were. The bus dropped us off in Tintern, Wales, with our heavy backpacks and dying phones. Tintern was quiet. We stood in an empty, narrow street, looking up at the steep hills surrounding us, the dark-green faces of the fells dotted with little homes that gazed into the valley.  

Tintern wishes not to be noticed. Everything is fortressed, guarded by its wooded hills. The River Wye is the trespasser. Everything else is demure, gentle, and silent, while the river is brazen, forceful, and loud, slashing an oxbow through the little valley. It rages and rages, but the residents and surroundings alike shrug their shoulders and roll back into a dreamy slumber.

Our only directions from the poem were “a few miles above Tintern Abbey.”