And just to screw up a perfect new years resolution where I promised to be better about posting here... I wrote this whole thing up, felt all accomplished... decided I'd add in the pics later ... then forgot about it for a week. So here it is... Sorry.
So just
We started the Wales adventure when Robyn and Whit reunited with us on their way back from a slower tour around Scotland and the northern part of England.
With Kristin working till 7 pm, we prepped ourselves for food and drink as soon as she got home. We enjoyed two rounds of a new game we received from Amy and Jonny, called Anomia, and somehow managed a 3 way tie among 4 players in the second round. Once we were a bit more imbibed, we also broke out Cards Against Humanity, and proved that Robyn is the most horrible of us all.
Friday morning, after a hearty breakfast of streaky bacon and eggs, we made our way towards Wales. At some point the previous night, Whitney stumbled upon a list of strange place names in the UK.... we couldn't believe we were going to be driving right by one, so we made a coffee stop in Shrewsbury, and snapped this picture.
The village was quite a quaint town, and had many remarkably old buildings. I think this one dates back to the 1500's. The moss on the roof wasn't too thick, but I do wonder what ruler they had used to make the beams plumb.... As you see below, the walls are all bowing, and the wood beams sagging in small ways. All in all it was an awfully quaint town.
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| Time for us to take the ever so typical UK photo together. Kris got one of these in Covent Garden, but that one smelled far too much like urine to join her. |
Onward, we made our way to Pistyll Rhaeadr, the tallest waterfall in Wales, and one of the Seven wonders of Wales. The waterfall is over 40 m tall.I think our favourite part was the keyhole made between the first and second stage by the erosion of the water.
The roadway to get to Pistyll Rhaeadr was something else too... no more than 4 feet wider than our tiny Micra, for both directions of travel! Anytime you came upon another car in the opposite direction, one of you had to back up or drive forward into a small 'passing' nook, and let the other pass, before continuing on your way.
We made our next stop around Lake Vyrnwy, a man made lake created following construction of quite an elegant looking stone dam in 1880. The dam is 45 m high, 37 m thick at the base, and runs 355 m long. The dam also provided the only source of electricity for the area until 1960 when other sources were brought in on new wires.
I was captivated by the dam, but my other 3 companions liked the castle on the lake.
The tower is actually the straining tower, which filters out mater in the water, before it enters the aqueduct and travels 109 km to Liverpool, where in addition to providing fresh water for the town of Liverpool, it is also the water used in the production of Bombay Sapphire Gin.
As a result of our remarkably short days, our last stop of the day was at Swallow Falls or Rhaeadr Ewynnol. We tried to get a couple of shots, but the light was awfully difficult, and the camera unhelpful, so these are the best we have.
We spent our night in Llandudno, a lovely little town on the north coast of Wales. On this trip, we learned a few things about the Welsh language, first is that the Ll phoneme sounds something akin to coughing or clearing your throat. It's almost like the ch in couch, but a bit harsher. We were also told that Llan - means church, so all of the tiny towns we traveled through with Llan as the prefix to their name are named after the church in the town. This will be better explained at the end of our next day.
We found a great Indian restaurant for dinner, and I ordered a gruellingly hot dish (still good, but had me sweating in my seat), while everyone else had delicious, and more mild options.
Our next morning, we set off early to find a hiking route that Whitney had heard about while researching. The hike was about 3 miles around Llyn Idwal, a lake nestled in between the mountains of Snowdonia. As happened often the previous day, we arrived just as the rain started in earnest. Luckily we all were quite well equipped with at least water resistant if not water proof outer layers, so we soldiered on. The benefit of being foolish, nothings going to stop us tourists, is nobody else wanted to hike at that point, so we have some great shots from around the lake, and captured them without anyone else nearby.
We found a couple of great lookout points along the highway to snap photos of the mountain and valley.
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| This is not one of them. In car selfie with a DSLR... |
Our next stretch break was at Beddgelert, the town sits at the confluence of the Colwyn and Glaslyn Rivers. The main bridge in the town is made of bricks, and probably dates before all of our lives.
We had 2 more stops before the end of our day. The first was en-route to the second. We bypassed the 'new' bridge, in favour of the older one.
The older bridge, was constructed in 1826 by Thomas Telford, and is the first suspension bridge constructed in the UK.
Our last destination, believe it or not, is one that I have been waiting to visit since I was about 8 years old. For Christmas that year, I received a book with 'fun and unbelievable facts'. I remember reading that book from cover to cover, and one of the facts in that book was the longest town name in the world (Apparently now recognized as only the second longest). When I realized we were here, and going to be traveling nearby, I just had to add it to our destination list. It's a small town on the Island of Anglesey, who's name translates to "Saint Mary's Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel Near the Rapid Whirlpool of LLantysilio of the Red Cave".
The train platform itself is only actually about 3 times the length of the sign, and is the shortest platform in the UK... Trains won't stop here unless specifically requested. The nearby shop does have the full name written on everything you can imagine, although Robyn and I were more interested in the Scotch selections ;).
If you feel like trying out your Welsh pronunciation, here it is:
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
One pronunciation:
Llanfair PG
Or our preferred, is this guy:
Weatherman
I think the best part is the coy smile he cracks when he know he nailed it.
The next day we had to make a quick exit to get back in time for everyone to get ready for work the next day. We made a quick stopoff back at Swallow Falls for a few better photos in the daylight before returning home.
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