Middle-Earth (Specialty) Tours

Remnants of Fallen Númenor
Although Númenor itself was lost at the end of the Second Age, traces of its grandeur still remain. Wanderers from the famous isle established strongholds throughout Middle-earth, from little-known Tharbad to mighty Minas Tirith. If we begin at Amon Sûl and travel southeast, we'll hit most of the major landmarks.
Amon Sûl might be better known to tourists as Weathertop. By Frodo's time there was little left to see, but this place had once been a mighty fortress and home to a palantír. Strider explains:

The Men of the West did not live here; though in their latter days they defended the hills for a while against the evil that came out of Angmar. This path was made to serve the forts along the walls. But long before, in the first days of the North Kingdom, they built a great watch-tower on Weathertop, Amon Sûl they called it. It was burned and broken, and nothing remains of it now but a tumbled ring, like a rough crown on the old hill's head. Yet once it was tall and fair. It is told that Elendil stood there watching for the coming of Gil-Galad out of the West, in the days of the Last Alliance. --FotR, "A Knife in the Dark"

Of course, Strider and the hobbits stood there to watch the coming of someone very different.


image from Elbakin.com
image from Elbakin.com
image from Elbakin.com
A little to the west of Weathertop is Bree, where we'll pick up the old North-South Road, known to the locals as the Greenway. Traveling through mostly barren, uninhabited lands, we eventually come to the River Gwathló (Greyflood). Here we find the ruins of ancient Tharbad.

Tharbad, by Rob Alexander		 Before the decay of the North Kingdom and the disasters that befell Gondor, indeed until the coming of the Great Plague in Third Age 1636, both kingdoms [North and South] shared an interest in that region, and together built and maintained the Bridge of Tharbad and the long causeways that carried the road to it on either side of the Gwathló and Mitheithel across the fens in the plains of Minhiriath and Enedwaith. A considerable garrison of soldiers, mariners and engineers had been kept there until the seventeenth century of the Third Age. But from then onwards the region fell quickly into decay.--Unfinished Tales, "The History of Celeborn and Galadriel"
It may be noted that Tharbad is referred to as "a ruined town" in [FotR], and that Boromir in Lothlórien told that he lost his horse at Tharbad, at the fording of the Greyflood. In the Tale of Years the ruining and desertion of Tharbad is dated to the year 2912 of the Third Age, when great floods devastated Enedwaith and Minhiriath. --Christopher Tolkien's comments in "Celeborn and Galadriel," Unfinished Tales
Now the Greenway takes us into the land of the Dunlendings, notorious for their battles against both the Rohirrim and the Gondorians. But we'll pass them by and instead pay a visit to Orthanc.
There stood a tower of marvelous shape. It was fashioned by the builders of old, who smoothed the Ring of Isengard, and yet it seemed a thing not made by the craft of Men, but riven from the bones of the earth in the ancient torment of the hills. A peak and isle of rock it was, black and gleaming hard: four mighty piers of many-sided stone were welded into one, but near the summit they opened into gaping horns, their pinnacles sharp as the points of spears, keen-edged as knives. Between them was a narrow space, and there upon a floor of polished stone, written with strange signs, a man might stand five hundred feet above the plain." --TTT, "The Road to Isengard"
Orthanc, by Alan Lee
A strong place and wonderful was Isengard, and long it had been beautiful; and there great lords had dwelt, the wardens of Gondor upon the West, and wise men that watched the stars. --TTT, "The Road to Isengard"

Unfortunately, like much of what was best about the earlier ages, Isengard became corrupted by time and greed.


Isengard, by Rob Alexander
By now we've reached the end of the Greenway, so as we continue our tour, we'll strike east across the plains of Rohan and intersect the River Anduin just above the Argonath.

The Argonath, by Ted Nasmith
The Argonath, from
the official LotR movie site
The Falls of Rauros, by Ted Nasmith

Upon great pedestals founded in the deep waters stood two great kings of stone: still with blurred eyes and crannied brows they frowned upon the North. The left hand of each was raised palm outwards in gesture of warning; in each right hand there was an axe; upon each head there was a crumbling helm and crown. Great power and majesty they still wore, the silent wardens of a long-vanished kingdom. --FotR, "The Great River"

The "two great kings" are Isildur and Anárion, sons of Elendil and heroes of both Númenor and Middle-earth. Their statues mark the Northern border of Gondor.

On next stop on a strict southeasterly course would be Minas Tirith, but let's save that for last, and instead cross the Anduin to visit some places that were built by Númenorians but overtaken by the forces of Sauron.

The chief city of the southern realm was Osgiliath, through the midst of which the Great River flowed; and the Númenorians built there a great bridge, upon which there were towers and houses of stone wonderful to behold, and tall ships came up out of the sea to the quays of the city. Other strong places they built also upon either hand: Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Rising Moon, eastward upon a shoulder of the Mountains of Shadow as a threat to Mordor; and to the westward Minas Anor, the Tower of the Setting Sun, at the feet of Mount Mindolluin, as a shield against the wild men of the dales. Minas Ithil was the house of Isildur, and in Minas Anor the house of Anárion, but they shared the realm between them and their thrones were set side by side in the Great Hall of Osgiliath. --The Silmarillion, "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"

When Minas Ithil was captured by the Witch King, it became the dread Minas Morgul. Minas Anor, on the other hand, became Minas Tirith.


The Ruins of Osgiliath,
by Alan Lee
It [Cirith Ungol] was indeed one of the works of Gondor long ago, an eastern outpost of the defences of Ithilien, made when after the Last Alliance, Men of Westernesse kept watch on the evil land of Sauron where his creatures still lurked. But as with Narchost and Carchost, the Towers of the Teeth, so here too the vigilance had failed, and treachery had yielded up the Tower to the Lord of the Ringwraiths, and now for long years it had been held by evil things. --RotK, "The Tower of Cirith Ungol"

The Tower of Cirith Ungol,
by Alan Lee
Minas Morgul,
by Alan Lee

The Black Gate,
by Alan Lee

Minas Tirirth, by John Howe



Minas Tirith, by Alan Lee

 At last we're ready to re-cross Anduin via the bridge at Osgiliath and visit the pinnacle of Númenorian achievement in Middle-earth: mighty Minas Tirith.

For the fashion of Minas Tirith was such that it was built on seven levels, each delved into the hill, and about each was set a wall, and in each wall was a gate. But the gates were not set in a line: the Great Gate in the City Wall was at the east point of the circuit, but the next faced south, and the third half north, and so to and fro upwards; so that the paved way that climbed towards the Citadel turned first this way and then that across the face of the hill. And each time that it passed the line of the Great Gate it went through an arched tunnel, piercing a vast pier of rock whose out-thrust bulk divided in two all the circles of the City save the first. For partly in the primeval shaping of the hill, partly by the mighty craft and labour of old, there stood up from the rear of the wide court behind the Gate a towering bastion of stone, its edge sharp as a ship-keep facing east. Up it rose, even to the level of the topmost circle, and there was crowned by a battlement; so that those in the Citadel might, like mariners in a mountainous ship, look from its peak sheer down upon the Gate seven hundred feet below. The entrance to the Citadel also looked eastward, but was delved in the heart of the rock; thence a long lamp-lit slope ran up to the seventh gate. Thus men reached at last the High Court and the Place of the Fountain before the feet of the White Tower: tall and shapely, fifty fathoms from its base to the pinnacle, where the banner of the Stewards floated a thousand feet above the plain. --trotK, "Minas Tirith"


an image from TV New Zealand,
with thanks to theonering.net
Minas Tirith, by Roger Garland
One of the few Númenorian remnants to survive the Third Age intact, Minas Tirith was never conquered by Sauron's armies. In fact, it survived a devastating attack during the War of the Ring, and it was here that the Witch King himself was defeated by Éowyn, a woman of Rohan.
Éowyn and the Nazgûl, by David Wyatt
Full-size versions of these pictures are on display at Rolozo Tolkien and the official LotR movie site.