North Wales 4/18 - 4/22

Kari by a lake somewhere in Wales.

Once we had put the deposit down on our apartment, we decided to jump in the car and head out for a long weekend. We chose north Wales because we had recently seen a Rick Steves program about the castles there, and thought it seemed interesting.

It was only about a 2.5 hour drive to our first stop of Llangollen, which is a town on the banks of a beautiful river. We stayed in a great B&B, which was an old house built by a ship's captain in the 1850's. Here is the river as viewed from the bridge:

The next day, we continued northward towards Caernarfon, our first castle destination. On the way, we passed into Snowdonia national park, which has gorgeous, craggy peaks and lush farm valleys.

There is a railway on the way to Caernarfon called the Snowdon Railway that takes visitors up the side of the mountain, and has done so since Victorian times. The railway is near the town of Llanberis, a huge destination for hikers, as the town is smack in the middle of the Snowdonia park.

We decided to stop and take the train ride. We had a spectacular sunny day and as you can see, the views from the top were tremendous (as are the models!):


The train only went 3/4 way up the mountain as they were working on the station at the very top, but it was still really cool (and cold).
We booked a B&B in Llanberis for 2 nights, and the next day, took the bus into Caernarfon to see the castle. It is one of several castles in the north of Wales built by King Edward of England back in the 1200's. He built a bunch of them all over the coast. We spent over 3 hours in the castle as most of it is open and you can walk around on your own. They had some really interesting displays about the history of the castle and the town as well.

Once we got back to Llanberis, we still had a few hours in the afternoon, so we went just across the river to the National Slate Museum. Wales is famous for its slate and at one time provided most of the slate tiles for roofing to almost all of the UK and Europe. We missed the last slate splitting demonstration of the day, but it was still very interesting. They even had a 50' high water wheel, which had been used for turning the machinery. It was a completely self-sufficient outfit: they made everything--all the tools, iron, etc.-- on site.

The next day, we left Llanberis and drove along the north coast to another castle called Rhuddlan. It was a ruin, but very interesting as we were the only people there and had the place to ourselves to walk around. We had a picnic lunch there as well.

Artistic photos of Rhuddlan Castle.








We ended up for our last night in a B&B outside a small village called Maesbury Marsh, near the bigger town of Oswestry. We stayed in an 1850's brick farmhouse, Ashfield House, which was really nice. We had a short 10-minute walk to a pub that served one of the best meals we've ever had here. It was fancy pub food, definitely the quality of a night out in an SF restaurant, but in this tiny, timber-framed pub right on the canal. It was fantastic.