Short holiday
Well it was a short trip away, but I have to say it was fantastic.
I would highly recomend checking out some of these names in google to see the places and discover the stories.
We set off at 6am friday for the trip down to Wales. A long time after we had a quick detour to "yon place in wales with the huge name" Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch or LLanfair P G for short, then dropped the brother in law off in Caernarfon. After that it was let the TOM TOM autoplanner thingy direct us to Oswestry, now i've got to admit that the Welsh mountains and valleys are splendid to look at, but 'A road' my ass. It's an old coach road, it goes through the pass of Llanberis, which runs along the base of Mount Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales, fantastic views but for driving, lets never do that again, especially when there is a bus coming towards us, to the left, a wall made of flint and rock, to the right, well that'll be a great big f'ing mountain. Oh well.
After booking into our digs, we found dinner by recomendation a little bit down the road and were promptly in bed and asleep by about 10pm.
Saturday
Sat kicked off with jumping into the car and heading up into the nearby Valley, Llangollen. We parked the car in the village and wandered round taking a few pictures of the river and the bridge and the train station, a small shopping detour and then into one of the cafes to get a breakfast bap. With directions and fudge, it was up the valley a bit to a place called, Valle Crucis. A wonderful old ruined Abbey. Saved a red admiral from a web while we were there, not a bad mornings work given they are an endangered species.
Afterwards we drove round the hill in the distance could be seen Dinas Bran to take a walk up the canal and river to horseshoe falls, we'd been warned by at least two people already that it wasn't all that high, not that it mattered for us, it was a lovely day for a riverside walk, nice and romantic, though sweating profously (sp?) thanks to the heat did kinda ruin that romantic ideal.
Next up we drove back through Llangollen and up the hill to a place called Plas Newydd (not the one in Anglesey) the home of the Ladies of Llangollen, a fun trip in an old and bizzare house, the romantic tale that gives it the backdrop is well worth checking out. We figured it was about time for lunch though and headed off to Chirk Castle to park up have lunch and then wander round.
It's an old 13th century castle, Cromwell was in there at some point, and we met some interestign characters when I went running off into the dungeons as i'm want to do when visiting castles, find the highest point and the lowest point and go visit (despite my legs always wanting to turn to jelly when i'm right up the top of these things). The guys were some of the tour guides there to amuse the children and tell amusing/gory facts. I'm sure the woman can pass on some better details of this, as I was nattering to the guy about worst dungeons in the UK. He figures the eclesstial one at St Andrews, I reckoned the one at Stirling Castle.
It was there at Chirk that we saw the lunch chickens before eventually moving on to Whittington castle, which is pretty much a disapointment in comparison, but I think the restoration work had a lot to do with that, all scaffolding and the like. Though I did see one of the swans eggs, when it was getting up to sort a bit of the nest when we drove past, very cool. That was about it for saturday though, we crawled off to get dinner after that and were almost asleep by 8pm, very much not like us, but t obe fair we had done a hell of a lot by then.
Sunday
Another early start and another day of driving around the place, this time up the north coast of Wales, from Oswestry up to Chester and then west. First stop was Bodelwyddan It has a castle there which we really only saw from the road, the Marble church however is just stunning.
Next stop after that was Conwy, it's an old walled town complete with castle. It's impressive to say the least with it's positioning on the estuary. We stopped off for breakfast here, another breakfast bap in a tea shop, and for once I got a decent cuppa, none of that english crap (apologies, but I really hate earl grey) It was also in Conwy castle that the theiving seagull made it's appearance, it stole a little girls kitkat, it jumped onto the bench next to her snaffled it up then went over to the wall to watch her.
The next stop was Caernarfon castle, the setting for Chick's investiture as Prince of Wales, it also has some very high turrets that you can get into. Very nice, the other main attraction is the museum of the Royal Welch Fusiliers. It was also home to the black prince, Edward of Woodstock.
Finishing off the day though it was off to the rugby to pick up the brother in law again before the long drive home.
I know i've barely covered most of the stuff that we did while we were away, but that's the main bits. Any questions you know where to poke me, but seriously check some of the italicised names in google images for wonderful pictures.
PS, Brains bitter is pishwater in a glass.
I would highly recomend checking out some of these names in google to see the places and discover the stories.
We set off at 6am friday for the trip down to Wales. A long time after we had a quick detour to "yon place in wales with the huge name" Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch or LLanfair P G for short, then dropped the brother in law off in Caernarfon. After that it was let the TOM TOM autoplanner thingy direct us to Oswestry, now i've got to admit that the Welsh mountains and valleys are splendid to look at, but 'A road' my ass. It's an old coach road, it goes through the pass of Llanberis, which runs along the base of Mount Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales, fantastic views but for driving, lets never do that again, especially when there is a bus coming towards us, to the left, a wall made of flint and rock, to the right, well that'll be a great big f'ing mountain. Oh well.
After booking into our digs, we found dinner by recomendation a little bit down the road and were promptly in bed and asleep by about 10pm.
Saturday
Sat kicked off with jumping into the car and heading up into the nearby Valley, Llangollen. We parked the car in the village and wandered round taking a few pictures of the river and the bridge and the train station, a small shopping detour and then into one of the cafes to get a breakfast bap. With directions and fudge, it was up the valley a bit to a place called, Valle Crucis. A wonderful old ruined Abbey. Saved a red admiral from a web while we were there, not a bad mornings work given they are an endangered species.
Afterwards we drove round the hill in the distance could be seen Dinas Bran to take a walk up the canal and river to horseshoe falls, we'd been warned by at least two people already that it wasn't all that high, not that it mattered for us, it was a lovely day for a riverside walk, nice and romantic, though sweating profously (sp?) thanks to the heat did kinda ruin that romantic ideal.
Next up we drove back through Llangollen and up the hill to a place called Plas Newydd (not the one in Anglesey) the home of the Ladies of Llangollen, a fun trip in an old and bizzare house, the romantic tale that gives it the backdrop is well worth checking out. We figured it was about time for lunch though and headed off to Chirk Castle to park up have lunch and then wander round.
It's an old 13th century castle, Cromwell was in there at some point, and we met some interestign characters when I went running off into the dungeons as i'm want to do when visiting castles, find the highest point and the lowest point and go visit (despite my legs always wanting to turn to jelly when i'm right up the top of these things). The guys were some of the tour guides there to amuse the children and tell amusing/gory facts. I'm sure the woman can pass on some better details of this, as I was nattering to the guy about worst dungeons in the UK. He figures the eclesstial one at St Andrews, I reckoned the one at Stirling Castle.
It was there at Chirk that we saw the lunch chickens before eventually moving on to Whittington castle, which is pretty much a disapointment in comparison, but I think the restoration work had a lot to do with that, all scaffolding and the like. Though I did see one of the swans eggs, when it was getting up to sort a bit of the nest when we drove past, very cool. That was about it for saturday though, we crawled off to get dinner after that and were almost asleep by 8pm, very much not like us, but t obe fair we had done a hell of a lot by then.
Sunday
Another early start and another day of driving around the place, this time up the north coast of Wales, from Oswestry up to Chester and then west. First stop was Bodelwyddan It has a castle there which we really only saw from the road, the Marble church however is just stunning.
Next stop after that was Conwy, it's an old walled town complete with castle. It's impressive to say the least with it's positioning on the estuary. We stopped off for breakfast here, another breakfast bap in a tea shop, and for once I got a decent cuppa, none of that english crap (apologies, but I really hate earl grey) It was also in Conwy castle that the theiving seagull made it's appearance, it stole a little girls kitkat, it jumped onto the bench next to her snaffled it up then went over to the wall to watch her.
The next stop was Caernarfon castle, the setting for Chick's investiture as Prince of Wales, it also has some very high turrets that you can get into. Very nice, the other main attraction is the museum of the Royal Welch Fusiliers. It was also home to the black prince, Edward of Woodstock.
Finishing off the day though it was off to the rugby to pick up the brother in law again before the long drive home.
I know i've barely covered most of the stuff that we did while we were away, but that's the main bits. Any questions you know where to poke me, but seriously check some of the italicised names in google images for wonderful pictures.
PS, Brains bitter is pishwater in a glass.