Saturday, September 24, 2016

Wales 2016 - Day 1

Today we're heading to Wales!  I've really been looking forward to this part of the trip, I've heard Wales is an awesome scenic place.

We start with Tintern Abbey, a 12th century Cistercian abbey ruin. This is another one of those things where you drive along and think "we should be able to see it now" and then Bam! it's right in front of you. The early morning light is perfect for some really good photos. Lots of the arches and walls are still standing and it's easy to picture what it must have looked like. The nice young woman in the gift shop sells me a 3day Explorer Pass which will save us on admission fees at most of the places we'll be visiting.  She's very helpful and friendly and helps me with Welsh pronunciation too.

Next we're off to Caerphilly to see the big moated castle there.  We find the car parking and get our "pay and display" ticket on the dash. We immediately notice that one of the castle towers looks to be in imminent danger of falling over. Cool!  Across the street, over the moat and into the castle we go. The man at the counter tells us to start with the great hall because there's a wedding in a just a little while and the great hall will be closed for that.  We take his advice and head into the hall, the chairs and flowers are set up for the wedding and I'm thinking it would be a pretty cool thing to be married in an old castle. We climb towers, up and down lots of narrow spiral stairs. They're making a movie here tomorrow and they have props already set up.  There's a dockside set of props to make it look like a market day. In the center courtyard there's a platform set up with a block! Like for chopping off someone's head! Yikes!

We return to the car park to find the local parking enforcement guy standing in front of our car with his little tablet device. Uh-oh! We ask him if we're ok cuz our ticket still shows an hour of time left and he says no, but then tells us he's just "pokin' at us". It turns out this guy is super funny and friendly and we have a nice conversation about his vacation to America about 5 years ago. When he finds out we're from California, he's jealous because in Wales they get 350 days of rain each year.

The next destination is Carreg Cennan, a ruined castle that sits high up on a hill out in the middle of nowhere.  Our car navigation is very faithful to take us the fastest route but her choice of roads is somewhat questionable.  We find ourselves on a "road" that is solid hedgerow on both sides of the car, so narrow that we pull the side mirrors in and stick our heads out the window to make sure we don't scrape anything.  At one point, it even becomes an unpaved road. Yep! Just muddy dirt and no end in sight. So stressful! Thankfully we finally reach a small but paved road and I wonder out loud "why couldn't we have taken this road in the first place?". We turn down another little road and get our first glimpse of the castle. Mike is always saying that a proper castle should sit atop a hill and this one certainly would fit that ideal.

We stop at the admission counter to show our Explorer pass and pick up a flashlight because this castle also has a cave! 😳 It's a bit of a hike up the hill, past the sheep and cattle, to reach the castle. Once inside there isn't a lot left of anything but the walls, but the view is fantastic. We tromp around a bit and look over the edge to the valley waaaayyyy down below us. Then we decide to check out the cave.  This is when it becomes less fun for me.  The passage was small, narrow, dark and spooky with an uneven rocky floor and the whole thing gave me the creeps. I couldn't wait to get back up into the light and fresh air! I don't know what the castle inhabitants used it for, and I don't want to know. We walk around the outside of the castle walls and take a few more photos and then head back down the hill, past the same sheep and cattle who didn't seem to care about us one bit.


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