Personally, I find visiting anywhere is like a small dose, and just leaves a longing to go back. Which is why I suddenly dash off in the middle of the day and satisfy my need. Luckily I can disappear whenever I want, even if I get some strange looks at work :)

Hi Pilgrim, I carry places 'internally' strong visual images will float across my mind, and the 'sense' of the place will unfold. Ted Hughes captures it in his 'Thought Fox' "Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox ". Its a weird experience, photos capture the moment, words the history, but the mind, or sixth sense captures the atmosphere....
And if anyone does'nt believe in my 6th sense, note Nigel's reference to badgers, and guess what, who's flippin noisy hen got chased up the garden in the middle of last night by a badger? Of course it could be coincidence ;)... the hen survived, and the badger waddled off to do more dastardly deeds under cover of darkness..

I find that rarely can you have full knowledge of a site from one visit, most repay visiting at different times of year and under differing conditions - I have visited places over the years and then found a new aspect coming into focus because of, say, an approach from a slightly different direction. An the Old Ones like to be visited anyway, bringing them news from elsewhere or just a general chinwag.

Yes, but only to the extent that I want to be able to still 'carry it internally' when I'm not there. If that makes any sense.

Bearing in mind that I'm predominantly rock art fixated ( a product more of geography than anything else I hasten to add), I get mildly tetchy if I don't get up to the Till valley in Northumberland at least once every couple of months. Some sites like Ketley Crag draw me back again and again, but even when I'm not there, I still often find myself sitting at work staring vacantly northwards, picturing it in my mind's eye, and trying to imagine what it's like there at that particular moment. Are the badgers out, is there bracken yet, what lies beneath the turf a few yards away etc... I find it's easier to do that with ancient sites than with newer stuff, probably because of the sense of permanence and the general evocativeness of some of these places.

So I guess for me, it's not really as much about carrying it internally, as it is about trying to fix it externally. Or making a mental bridge between the two. Or summat. Maybe it's just about skiving off at work.

Sometimes it's the landscape that gets me as much as the monuments, the Burren in Co. Clare in spring, wild Donegal in winter, autumn in the Sperrins of Tyrone.

For me, I think the monuments condense not just the memories of the site but also the journey there and the landscapes wandered, into a single package that makes me want to visit at other times of the year, the day or the night. The changes of the seasons and the hours of the day mean less and less in modern life but they do make a huge difference to the experience of 'a visit' and tend to keep me in touch with whats real and whats 'fake-real'.