A Wales Tale – Part 3

 AKA – A Day of Really Old Stuff

Sunday morning brought intense pain in my legs from our super hike the day before, but it also brought with it sunshine.  We packed up our campsite, and headed into town for some breakfast .  On a side note, why must all English (or Welsh) breakfasts be entirely made up of meat?  Some of us are not excited by the idea of two different types of sausages, and bacon along with eggs, beans, mushrooms and tomatoes.

Gross!  Who wants to eat this  for breakfast?

Anyway, after breakfast, we decided to take a walk around the tarn (for you Americans, that’s a mountain lake or pool, formed in a cirque excavated by a glacier.) 

Our walk led us past the old slate quarry.  Closed in 1969, the quarry now is home to the Welsh National Slate Museum (free) and the Quarry Hospital Museum (free).  It’s also a popular destination for climbers who scale the slate faces.  

Not my idea of a good time, but whatever floats your boat I guess… 

In addition, the pool at the foot of the slate cliffs is popular with the diving set, although there’s not much down there to see.

Again, not my idea of a good time… 

After checking out the slate quarry, knowing that all Americans love castles, Sarka and Al took us over to see the remnants of Dolbadarn Castle.  Originally built in the early 13th century by the Princes of Gwynedd, not much remains of the castle besides one circular tower.  While I pretended to be unimpressed (mostly due to the fact that I had to walk my poor aching legs up a hill to see it), I still had a good time checking the castle remains out. 

After we visited the boring, tiny castle, we drove out to Anglesey to check out the seriously awesome Beaumaris Castle.  Anglesey is an Isle located in the north-west of Wales, just a short drive from the Snowdonia area.  It can be reached  by either the newer Britannia Bridge, or the extremely impressive Menai Bridge.  One of the first suspension bridges, Menai Bridge was built back in 1826, and still spans the divide between Anglesey and the mainland today. 

Snowdonia as seen from the coast of Anglesey 

While I love all castles, both great and small, Beaumaris Castle for two reasons.  1) The brochure referred to it as the most “technically perfect” castle in Wales and 2) it has a real moat.  I was intrigued by the fact that the castle was considered “technically perfect”, and my sister Mini-Deal is obsessed with moats, so I figured that Beaumaris Castle would be a great castle to visit.  (BTW, when I told Mini-Deal of the moat, she was disappointed that toothed creatures were not in there to eat invaders.  Guess you can’t please everyone)

I stole this aerial so readers could get a sense of the overall layout of the castle.

Begun in 1295 for Edward I’s campaign to conquer Wales, it was never finished as Edward I, being a typical English King, lost interest in Wales and turned his attention elsewhere instead (Scotland).  Regardless, it remains an excellent example of concentric castle building.  It really is an interesting example of castle architecture.  Upon doing some research, I found out that the castle gate features meurtrières (murder-holes), which are totally cool.  If I had realized they were there, or thought to look up, I would have taken a few photos.  For those of you not obsessed with castles like me, murder-holes are almost exactly what they sound like – holes in the ceiling through which to murder invaders.  In the case of castle defense, boiling oil was often poured through the holes to discourage the breaking down of the castle gates.

At this point, a great number of readers are probably suffering from exactly what the folks at Beaumaris Castle warned of: Warning: History Overload

They were also kind enough to warn of the following:

If you try and abduct a child, you will break your ankle, fall down the stairs and be attacked by killer seagulls.

  This sign was placed with the knowledge that Allister would be visiting

While Al climbed the walls (literally) and he and Kevin ran around in all the secret tunnels, I took the time to take a few pictures:

  

After the castle, we headed to our new campground, but not before stopping at a neolithic burial chamber on the way that Allister had heard of, Bryn Celli Ddu.  It consists of a mound at the center of a henge.  Not only is it a burial mound, but its also an ancient observatory that has been hypothesized to mark the summer solstice.  The coolest part for me was the carving on the center henge stone. 

 

We made our way to our campsite, had a barbeque, consisting entirely of meat.  Apparently the spicy pork steaks and spicy sausages were lovely, but I stuck to the burgers.  After dinner, we drove down to the beach and walked around a bit. Naturally, Sarka and I took photos while Kev and Al acted like monkeys in the sand dunes and took ridiculous photos.

That night, I froze my butt off even more than usual.  Come to find out, it had snowed overnight.  No wonder I was so cold…

    

Overall, I had a fantastic time in Wales.  I’d love to go back again and see more of the beautiful country.  I highly recommend a trip to anyone in that corner of the world.