Wales Day One
Aug. 7th, 2019 06:26 pmI forgot to mention this. When I went with Mom to her appointment, I was looking out the window. Suddenly my eyes caught on the magazines. And there was that damn Angel anniversary Entertainment Weekly I looked all over for (and yes I shuffled it into my writing folder and made off with it). Mom got her new shoe today. It looks good.
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kiramaru7 wanted to see the Lucky Bog Cat. So click the link. It's a good pic of it.
Wales day one
We ran into unexpected problems with Gwestyr Bull (the hotel) For some reason the hotel only served breakfast for an hour but whatever. (though the hotel was old and kind of cool. I liked this one in spite of having to haul suitcases up three flights of stairs) So instead we headed into Llanfair¬pwllgwyngyll¬gogery¬chwyrn¬drobwll¬llan¬tysilio¬gogo¬goch to the big tourist trap shop, but it has great gifts for everyone, and breakfast was cheap and easy there. We took the perquisite photos at the train station before heading into Caernarfon to Caernarfon Castle.. This was built by Edward I and it’s a huge Norman castle built for a king. There were also a lot of the original walls around the city left where the Normans kept out the native Welsh. The town is medieval and has such cool buildings. There was a very tiny festival going on while we were there.
The castle was fantastic. We walked all over it. It has some incredible preservation work going on in it. It’ll never be the fairy princess types you see in France and Germany (which are later) but it’s much less of a ruin than many I’ve seen. I did take some video in the chapel where they had music playing. I wanted to go up the eagle tower. I made it half way up before bowing out. ELD made it to the top. Unfortunately, it was a two way VERY narrow spiral staircase and a) my legs are a bit not up to it and more important b) someone would have to slip past me going down (or up as I descended) and frankly it wasn’t safe for either of us and it was crowded. But other than that, it was a great time. They had a couple of really nice display. One was dedicated to Edward’s mother (nice to see a woman getting some credit) and another they called Game of Crowns which was laid out as a chess board with the kings depicted as chess pieces, the bigger ones being the better kings. I didn’t get time to spend with studying it before a huge busload of French tourists arrived and I couldn’t even move. Barely escaped the room.
As was walking around town. We went to more shops and had lunch at the Black Boy Inn. (perhaps should be renamed Jack’s inn or something as they gave his history which given the time period wasn’t particularly happy. Also DO click the link. There's lots of neat stuff there. Wish I had known they won awards for their ales. I would have had one. I don't usually drink for lunch). It was a nice bar. Oh, how I wanted to bring home the young bartender (bad CoM, you’re old enough to be his mom and HOW did that happen?). Had Welsh rarebit, ummm tasty.
From there we went to the Welsh slate museum. Okay I was meant to go to the infirmary there as part of my research but the dumb thing was only open a couple hours a day and we missed the window (and it’s ‘just a ten-minute walk’ straight up the side of a cliff). Since we paid to park and you weren’t getting that back we stayed for the museum. That’s fine. I come from a line of miners (coal), so it was worth looking around (as the museum is free, they get you on the parking). We then ranged through the Snowdonian mountain range and watched idiots trying to bring big ass tour buses up through them.
We ended up not having time to go to Bryn Celli Ddu today, so we went to Beddgelert which was the most adorable town, nothing but touristy shops and old, lovely hotels. Mary thought ELD and I would like to have dragons and she knew a shop. We did get them (not the puppet ones Mary thought we’d like mostly because I don’t like puppets and the wood wings looked like they’d get broken in luggage, even carry ons.
Mary had never been to our hotel for the evening, Carreg Bran. On the plus side, the food was good (not surprising as it’s a wedding venue) on the minus, it was up steps, then more steps, down a hall, down steps, down another hall and the beds are tiny and bad and there was obvious water damage in the bathroom leaving it a bit moldy. Best part was even though we went up the steps we were still at ground level and we went out on the side of the hill rather than do more steps with luggage the next day.
( I know you want to see the pictures! )
And
kiramaru7 wanted to see the Lucky Bog Cat. So click the link. It's a good pic of it.Wales day one
We ran into unexpected problems with Gwestyr Bull (the hotel) For some reason the hotel only served breakfast for an hour but whatever. (though the hotel was old and kind of cool. I liked this one in spite of having to haul suitcases up three flights of stairs) So instead we headed into Llanfair¬pwllgwyngyll¬gogery¬chwyrn¬drobwll¬llan¬tysilio¬gogo¬goch to the big tourist trap shop, but it has great gifts for everyone, and breakfast was cheap and easy there. We took the perquisite photos at the train station before heading into Caernarfon to Caernarfon Castle.. This was built by Edward I and it’s a huge Norman castle built for a king. There were also a lot of the original walls around the city left where the Normans kept out the native Welsh. The town is medieval and has such cool buildings. There was a very tiny festival going on while we were there.
The castle was fantastic. We walked all over it. It has some incredible preservation work going on in it. It’ll never be the fairy princess types you see in France and Germany (which are later) but it’s much less of a ruin than many I’ve seen. I did take some video in the chapel where they had music playing. I wanted to go up the eagle tower. I made it half way up before bowing out. ELD made it to the top. Unfortunately, it was a two way VERY narrow spiral staircase and a) my legs are a bit not up to it and more important b) someone would have to slip past me going down (or up as I descended) and frankly it wasn’t safe for either of us and it was crowded. But other than that, it was a great time. They had a couple of really nice display. One was dedicated to Edward’s mother (nice to see a woman getting some credit) and another they called Game of Crowns which was laid out as a chess board with the kings depicted as chess pieces, the bigger ones being the better kings. I didn’t get time to spend with studying it before a huge busload of French tourists arrived and I couldn’t even move. Barely escaped the room.
As was walking around town. We went to more shops and had lunch at the Black Boy Inn. (perhaps should be renamed Jack’s inn or something as they gave his history which given the time period wasn’t particularly happy. Also DO click the link. There's lots of neat stuff there. Wish I had known they won awards for their ales. I would have had one. I don't usually drink for lunch). It was a nice bar. Oh, how I wanted to bring home the young bartender (bad CoM, you’re old enough to be his mom and HOW did that happen?). Had Welsh rarebit, ummm tasty.
From there we went to the Welsh slate museum. Okay I was meant to go to the infirmary there as part of my research but the dumb thing was only open a couple hours a day and we missed the window (and it’s ‘just a ten-minute walk’ straight up the side of a cliff). Since we paid to park and you weren’t getting that back we stayed for the museum. That’s fine. I come from a line of miners (coal), so it was worth looking around (as the museum is free, they get you on the parking). We then ranged through the Snowdonian mountain range and watched idiots trying to bring big ass tour buses up through them.
We ended up not having time to go to Bryn Celli Ddu today, so we went to Beddgelert which was the most adorable town, nothing but touristy shops and old, lovely hotels. Mary thought ELD and I would like to have dragons and she knew a shop. We did get them (not the puppet ones Mary thought we’d like mostly because I don’t like puppets and the wood wings looked like they’d get broken in luggage, even carry ons.
Mary had never been to our hotel for the evening, Carreg Bran. On the plus side, the food was good (not surprising as it’s a wedding venue) on the minus, it was up steps, then more steps, down a hall, down steps, down another hall and the beds are tiny and bad and there was obvious water damage in the bathroom leaving it a bit moldy. Best part was even though we went up the steps we were still at ground level and we went out on the side of the hill rather than do more steps with luggage the next day.
( I know you want to see the pictures! )
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