This past Monday was a bank holiday in the United Kingdom. I have not a clue as to what purpose they serve, but most people get the day off. To take advantage of the long weekend we jumped on a train from London Euston to North Wales. Our mission was to hike Mt. Snowdon (the UK's highest peak), visit a few castles (there are dozens in Wales), and fill our lungs with fresh air.
Our first night was spent in Llandudno, a coastal town, just a few miles from Conway. Conway is home to this amazing castle. Blessed with great weather we scrambled around the castle and climbed nearly every tower. The coast around Conway is quite shallow, so high and low tide are hard to miss. These boats will be floating when the tide comes back in just a few hours. Crab, lobster, and mussels are popular items to catch here in Conway.
The medieval walls around the town of Conway are still standing. Houses are built around and against the walls. You can walk on and around most of them. Pretty amazing that you get to park your car right under a medieval tower...
After walking around a bit, and visiting the smallest house in Britain (yes, its in Conway!), we headed to the Isle of Anglesey to visit another castle: Beaumaris. These guys live next door to the castle and have the best view - they must be happy cows!
We raced around the island to make it to our second B&B in Maentwrog in Snowdonia National Park. Hugely disappointing was the poor selection of food in Wales. I was looking forward to some rustic Welsh classics but everywhere we went was meat on a plate and a side of thick-cut fries. In Maentwrog, however, we were rewarded with a lovely fresh water wild trout and this beautiful view.
The trout was so great and its pink flesh perfectly cooked. It was sad to hear that all the large local fishing lakes the Welsh have fished for centuries have been bought up by large fisheries. Now the locals have to pay to fish on the lakes. We explored the gravestones after dinner - some were from the 1700s and mostly written in Welsh.
The next morning we got up and made our way to the base of Mt. Snowdon. We hiked the mountain and back in less than 4 hours. So much for the challenge of UK's largest mountain - but the Welsh seemed so proud of their own Mt. Everest I'll just leave it at that. With our speedy hike we had much of the day left to explore more ruins.
Behind a sheep farm, was Dolwyddelan Castle.
We were so surprised they let us climb all over it.
On the way down I had to stop for the sheep and their lambs. In Wales they say there are four sheep for every person. We drove past sheep farm after sheep farm and every sheep had at least one lamb. These sheep were back in the barn as it had just started to rain.
On our last day in Wales we visited one last castle - Caernarfon Castle. This castle is special because it is where the Princes of England are crowned Princes of Wales. The crowning of the Prince of Wales began centuries ago as a peace offering to the Welsh by the English King Edward for taking over their land. When (probably not anytime soon) Prince Charles becomes King he may choose to crown his son, William, as the Prince of Wales. It will be done at Caernarfon on the stone slab you see just above the first set of stairs.
I did pick up a local Welsh cookbook and hope to try some of the recipes soon. If I successfully execute any recipes I will share!
