Day 7: Finding A Flat Fort

Today the weather in Caernarfon was much improved.  I woke up to sunny skies and a warm day.  After a nice breakfast in my B&B and a relaxed morning, I headed out of the main part of Caernarfon, towards the Roman fort Segontium.  The fort sits just outside the medieval part of Caernarfon on a slight rise near the Seiont River.  From the position, the fort would have had views of most of the countryside and out towards the Menai Strait and Anglesey.  Sadly for me, the visitor center at Segontium was closed, so I dove straight into the site.

The ruins are solely the foundations of the buildings in the fort and a few bits of the walls.  This made it quite difficult to get a sense of the fort initially: just an expanse of low-lying stones.  Also, with just a small pamphlet with a barebones information, it took me a few minutes of walking around to identify where I was with in the fort.  But once I got the lay of the land, things fell into place.  The majority of the structures were barracks for the Roman auxiliary troops stationed in Segontium.  Based on the number and size of barracks, it seemed that the fort, if fully manned, would host around 1,000 soldiers.  Other structures in the fort included storage buildings, troop headquarters, the commander's home, and a small bath complex.

The headquarters, part of which is shown above, contained the regimental shrine, offices, and a judgement hall.  Not all of the foundations of the headquarters were visible.  They disappear into a hedge and then into someone's (a very lucky someone) backyard.  Sadly, this is true for a lot of the site; there are structures over parts of the fort and a major road leading into Caernarfon cuts right through the fort, even overlapping with the via principalis for a ways.  It seemed that the room depicted above was a large, two-story hall, based on the slots in the floor to fit wooden columns.  It also could have been some sort of porticoed entrance or meeting room to the headquarters.  In a small room, towards one end of the headquarters, a strongroom had been added in the 3rd century CE. 

I was struck by how large the commander's house was, especially in comparison to the headquarters.  As I realized that I couldn't see the entire layout of the headquarters, I was less confused, but the commander's home still seemed far too large to be just a residence.  There were many rooms of varying size and a large courtyard of the building.  It seemed to be a building of quite importance.  Segontium was the most important fort in northern Wales, acting to control the region in conjunction with other forts, like Chester.  The size of the commander's house makes it seem like the fort would have also served a more administrative and political function in the area, possibly as way for the  Romans to establish greater control over locals or establish more of a Roman population in the area.

According to my little pamphlet, there was a civilian home within the fort at one point.  This seems odd to me, but I'm not certain of its abnormality.  It did seem to fall into the idea that Segontium served a more political function, especially if the building was home to an official in the province or someone of such importance.  The home was later converted into a bath complex, but not completed. This part of the fort was across the road leading into Caernarfon, surrounded by a wall and with a locked gate.  Despite seeing multiple locals hop the wall or gate, I decided to not test my luck.  I think there are things the Welsh locals can get away with more easily than an American tourist.  I settled for walking around the remains of the walls of the fort.  The site of the fort had been built up by the Romans and presumably a defensive ditch had also been dug around the fort.  Along the wall remains, I came across the base of one of the towers in the wall.  Along with this tower base, I was able to see the foundations of two of the four major gates of the fort.  It was very cool to see how the  gates perfectly aligned with the major Roman roads of the fort.

After wandering around the walls, I had seen what I could of the fort.  Still in the mood to walk around, I headed to a church a few dozen feet away from Segontium.  The church was closed, but the grounds were open so I walked around.  The church was surrounded by a graveyard, but quite a unique one.  I'm not sure why, if it was through lack of care or intentionally, but the entire graveyard was filled with wild grasses and flowers.  It was quite amazing to see; the stones stood, but the land had been reclaimed by nature.  It felt very appropriate for some reason.  I loved the contrast of the fixed, unmoving tombstones in the fields of waving grasses and blossoming flowers.

I came back to Caernarfon for a nice, quick lunch and decided to explore the exterior of the castle more.  Apparently, when it was originally constructed, the castle was banded with different colors (somewhat visible in the stones; look for a reddish tone) in a way similar to Roman forts.  I crossed the swing bridge over the harbor (after I saw it open and close for a tour boat) and walked along the coast.  I spent a relaxing while on a little, rocky beach skipping stones into the Menai Strait.

I walked lazily back, going along the promenade running alongside the Strait and the medieval walls. With not much left to explore, I headed back to my hotel.  I had a relatively uninteresting afternoon.  Caernarfon was my last reserved hotel, so the afternoon was spent trying to plan for the next coming days and running into many, many roadblocks.  It seems like I now have plan for the coming days, but I will update as I go!

I had a relaxed dinner and managed to finish "The City and the Pillar," which continued to be an amazing read and I'm excited to have finished such a good book, but sad it's over!  Hopefully I will continue to have good luck with books this summer!

Fun Fact #7: Gwynedd, the county in which Caernarfon is located, has the highest proportion of Welsh speakers in Wales.  The Caernarfon area also has a noticeable and distinct dialect, that is supposedly hard for even the Welsh speakers to understand.  I, who speaks and understands zero Welsh, was surprised to find that I could tell the Caernarfon dialect from other Welsh I've heard on this trip.

Day 6: Clambering Around Castles

Today I had a bit of a break day, which my feet definitely approved of.  I checked out of my B&B in Holyhead and headed to the train station.  Since there was not much to do, I got on the first train leaving, and one stop later, I was in Bangor.  Here I was to grab a bus to Caernarfon.  I realized that if I took the first bust that came along I would make it into Caernarfon over three hours before I could check into my new B&B.  I decided to wait.  I plopped down on a bench in the train station and read for about an hour and a half and it was truly a pleasure.

I'm currently reading "The City and the Pillar" by Gore Vidal.  The story follows a young man, Jim Willard, as he chases his best friend from high school (and lover for one night) around the world.  It's beautifully, if not starkly, written and a very engaging story.  It's particularly striking because it was first published in 1948 (although the ending was apparently reworked by Vidal in 1965), yet it tells a very frank and open story of a young man questioning his sexuality and entering a world very different from that of heteronormative society.  I've been devouring the book and will quite likely finish it tonight.

Eventually I decided to catch a bus and made it into Caernarfon still too early to check in.  So I abandoned my suitcase and decided there was no time like the present to explore the castle!  It was a gray day, with light rain/mist, so obviously the ideal conditions to climb lots of steep, stone staircases.

The castle has so much history that I cannot try to capture it in this post, nor do I think I fully understand it.  The present structure that stands today was built in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, as an English statement of power in Wales.  The first non-native Prince of Wales, and future king of England, Edward II, was born here, according to legend.  The castle was believed to be set up as possible royal seat for the English monarch when in Wales, but was probably not used for this purpose.  In its later history, the castle became the battleground for during multiple Welsh rebellions and the English Civil War.  In 1911, it was first used as the sight of the Prince of Wales's investiture and again in 1969, for the current Prince of Wales.

The castle is large, consisting of a fairly well preserved outer wall, dotted with towers.  The inner structures of the castle are destroyed, but the passages and rooms inside the towers and wall are there for the exploring.  I first made my way up the Granary Tower.  I followed the spiral staircase with a rope bannister (the design for all the tower staircases) up all the way to the top of the tower (the highest bit towards the left of the photo below).  Luckily, I was alone in the Granary Tower because I looked quite foolish.  The stairs were not pleasant to climb and then atop the tower I did a bizarre dance of trying to take pictures while simultaneously clinging to something that wasn't too close to the edge.  There was nothing of the sort so I sort of ran between the edge of the tower to take a picture, then towards the staircase, which was equally unpleasant, and back towards the edge.  After maybe a minute or so up there, I had had more than enough and retreated back down the tower.

I walked along the walls of the castle, which after the tower seemed barely off the ground, and explored the old rooms.  In one part of the castle, a thoroughly amusing and informative movie about the history of the castle played.  It isn't possible to walk the walls all the way around the castle, and wanting to see everything I could, I was constantly climbing down from the walls to read a sign, or climbing back up the walls to get to the next tower.  Above the main entrance to the castle, the unfinished King's Gate, I explored the Well Tower, which contains a 50' well within the walls, and the small chapel, directly above the entrance.  The chapel had a lovely window that would have looked over the medieval walled town and small inset with two basins in the stone for holy water.  I'm unsure if the chapel was finished, as it was towards the unfinished areas of the Gate.

Perhaps the most striking, and best intact, part of the castle is Eagle Tower (below).  The tower is thought to have been the main residential part of the castle, designed for royalty (although probably inhabited by the King's representative in Wales).  The interior has been restored to some degree to show what the rooms might have looked like with wooden floors and plastered ceilings.  The bedchamber was massive, with two lovely windows, completed with staircases up to them and window seats designed to look out over the water.  Continuing up to the top of the tower, the views were equally stunning.  The tower looks out of the Menai Strait, which separates Anglesey from the rest of Wales.  It was possible to climb up one of the two towers added on to Eagle Tower, but I didn't feel any need to do that again.

As I was leaving the castle, it seemed like an acting troupe was setting up in the castle grounds.  They had a small stage setup in what seemed to be Juliet's balcony and rack of period costumes.  It certainly would make a striking scene!

As I wandered out of the castle, having successfully killed enough time to finally check into my B&B, I was struck by the colors playing in the arches of King's Gate.  It seems that from any angle, Caernarfon Castle is a beauty.

Fun Fact #6: The Romans are impossible to escape (not that I would ever want to!).  In Welsh mythology, Caernarfon was home to a Roman emperor named Macsen Wledig.  Clearly not a Roman name, but he was actually Magnus Maximus, a Western Roman Emperor from 383 to 388 CE.  The legend says that Magnus Maximus had a dream of a castle and a beautiful maiden.  He sent his men to find this place and this woman, and eventually they found both at Caernarfon.  He travelled there and married the woman, named Elen or Helen, immediately.  Accounts vary, some saying that he left and his power was encroached, forcing him to return and never leave, or that Elen refused to live in Rome so he ruled the Empire from Wales.  In reality, Magnus Maximus usurped power from the emperor Gratian and was given control of Britain and Gaul.  He ruled from Trier (in Gaul) before deciding to try his luck at taking Italy under his power as well.  His co-emperors did not approve, and Theodosius I defeated Magnus Maximus at the Battle of the Save and exiled him to the Italian Alps.  It seems pretty unlikely that Macsen Wledig and Elen had their happily ever after in Wales.

Day 5: Getting Lost...A Lot

Well today was a lot.  I'm expecting (and hoping) that today will be my most physically challenging of the trip.  Today I hiked from Holyhead, along the coast of Holy Island, to the top of Holyhead Mountain and down the other side to South Stack, a 206-year-old lighthouse, and then back again.  All said and done, I took over 30,000 steps today and walked almost 14 miles (thanks Fitbit!).

For the most part, I followed the Anglesey Coastal Path, which runs around most of Holy Island.  I do immediately have to say this was one of the day's biggest challenges.  The trail is marked, but not all too often, and there are hundreds (yes, hundreds) of offshoot trails from the main paths.  Some of these offshoot trails look bigger, more official, or easier than the path you are supposed to take.  This meant I spent a great deal of the day wandering on paths, hoping I was still heading in the right direction.  The views you get from any of these paths are amazing (one benefit of so many paths is you can almost always find a way to the coast or the cliffs for magnificent views).  I did not hike on the best day, with sporadic bits of rain, but the scenery was still striking.  Apparently from a clear day, you can see all the way to Ireland!

There are many things of note along the route, but the first really striking one for me was the old fog station.  It is apparently home to a local artist and I wish I had seen her walking around; I would have had so many questions for her.  The station is perched on a cliff over the sea and down a rather treacherous path.  It was a great place to try to imagine life on a relatively isolated island.

From there, I started my climb up to the summit of Holyhead Mountain, which began slowly.  I reached a lower crest and became very certain that I must be at the summit even though I could see a higher part of the mountain.  This was because I had reached a well laid out wall (a section pictured below) and the foundation of a rectangular building.  This seemed like it was the Roman watch tower I was meant to find at the summit!  I wandered around and took my notes rather confusedly before deciding that it must have been some later addition and the true Roman tower was up the mountain (I believe this is an old telegraph station, based on the route I was using, but an employee at the South Stack visitor center told me he thought it was Roman.  I'm guessing he was probably wrong.).

I happened to pick one of the more obscure paths up to the summit and did my best imitation of a mountain goat, hopping up rocks, trying to reach the Roman ruins.  I was very impressed from my approach that anyone could have identified the jumbles of rocks as anything more than that, let alone the remnants of Roman occupation.  However, when I finally made it up to the summit, I saw more of what I was expecting: the base of a building at the highest point of the island.  There was clearer evidence of the a Roman wall on the other side of the summit.  The spot had commanding views all around, even on an overcast day.  The tower would have been able to watch out over the Irish Sea for raiders and look back towards Holy Island, Anglesey, and mainland Wales.  Nowadays, the summit gives a striking view of Holyhead and her harbor.

After descending the summit, which took longer than expected as one path I followed tried to have me scale down a 20' cliff, I turned towards South Stack.  I had been able to see the lighthouse a few times and it was beautiful from a distance.  The route there was more circuitous than it probably should have been, but as scattered raindrops fell, I reached the crest above the lighthouse.  There I came to a ruined structure, possibly a gun turret, and looked down at South Stack.

I had decided when I began the day, I was going to push myself and go out to the lighthouse.  Those who know me well (or maybe less than well), know that I struggle with anxiety, and long staircases (I know it's weird), as well as heights, can give me bad anxiety.  I knew I would find both of those at the South Stack; it's 400 steps down the cliff, then across an aluminum bridge over a rocky, rough channel, and then the stairs up the 135' tower.  After some confusion over where to get tickets and a stop to look for puffins at the RSPB observation area (no luck), I headed down the stairs.  They were not nearly as bad as I expected and soon I was at the bridge.  I started across slowly and then basically sprinted to the other end because I was getting the skeevies knowing there was nothing below the bridge but angry water.  I walked the path to the lighthouse and was quickly shepherded into a tour of the house, which consisted of being told to climb the tower.  The tower staircase was the epitome of what gives me anxiety: a small, narrow, spiral staircase built into the wall with no support beneath.  Since there were people following me (and because we were heading up), I took a few deep breaths and made it up to the top.  The view was again impressive and it was very cool to see the glass that magnifies the beam rotating around a lightbulb.  A cheery guide spouted off some facts about the lighthouse.

Unfortunately, I missed most of what he said because bad luck had befallen me.  I noticed that a cushion from one of my earbuds had fallen off and had probably fallen into a grate at the top of the lighthouse.  Now this is no disaster, but a true annoyance to me.  In the immediate sense, I had picked out songs to help keep me calm when dealing with the stairs, and in the longer sense, I was using music to keep me entertained on my long walks and train rides.  I knew it would be hard to find a way to replace the bud, so I fruitlessly tried to find my missing cushion.  No luck and I took the stairs back down (which was much worse than going up).

I headed back to the visitors center, grabbed a quick lunch, and then tried to head back towards Holyhead.  Tried being the operative word.  I tried to take many trails that led nowhere.  One advantage of all these mistakes was that I was able to see the ancient huts near South Stack.  They date from as early as the Iron Age (around 500 BCE) to the post-Roman period.  The huts were small farmsteads, with homes and areas for livestock.  There's also evidence of farming going on around the huts.  It is believed that though there are eight farmsteads, only one or two were occupied at a time.  There was also one hut complex that was much larger than the rest.  This one consisted of two circular buildings, a small, closet-like building, and a walled yard.  The huts were quite fun to wander through and the knowledge that they were probably occupied simultaneously as the Roman watchtower brought new ideas of native and Roman interaction.

Eventually I found a path heading the way I wanted, around the non-coastal side of Holyhead Mountain.  As I was rounding the mountain, I kept hearing voices but there were no others on the paths around me.  Finally I spotted four men climbing the cliffs of Holyhead Mountain.  I was distracted by this for quite sometime, both fascinated and terrified that someone would fall.  I moved on once I saw the man pictured below safely reach the top of the cliff he was scaling.

Coming around the other side of Holyhead Mountain, I got a closer look at the Roman walls...I think. I already had doubts about the extent of the walls that were "Roman" and they were made worse by taking this route.  I soon found that there were many other walls around Holyhead Mountain, presumably from old or current grazing areas.  I wandered through these, trying to angle back towards the town of Holyhead and my B&B, but never knowing if I was really heading the right way.  I found a path heading back towards town area and started down it carefully.  Then I stopped.  I was at an impasse...with four horses.

Grazing right next to my path home, were four horses - two stallions and two mares.  I've never known horses to be aggressive or territorial, but because it seemed like it might be two males and their mates, I decided to be cautious and wait for the horses to move on.  That didn't quite go as planned.  Three of the horses took a lot of interest in me, coming up to the small wall that I was standing by.  The one pictured below let me pet his muzzle, but another just seemed annoyed I didn't have any sugar for him.  After around ten minutes of the horses looking at me like I was a fool (I was probably being one), they eventually moved farther down their field and I calmly, but quickly, crossed the pasture.  After another twenty or so minutes, I finally made it back to my room and collapsed into bed, with aching feet.

Fun Fact #5: In the 1800s, a young man working at South Stack was so worried about his sick mother that he crossed back to the mainland in a storm...on a rope using his hands and feet.  There was no bridge at that time and as his friends cheered him on, he scrambled across to the other side, over churning water and through pouring rain.  Just to check on his mother.  No son can top that.

Day 4: Island Hopping (Welsh Style)

I had a quite morning in Prestatyn, doing a bit of research on trains and catching up on some videos (I hadn't left much to do in Prestatyn before my train).  I caught the hour and a half long train ride to Holyhead.  Holyhead is the largest town on Holy Island, a small island off the coast of Anglesey, a relatively large island off northwestern Wales.  I was surprised to learn that a. Holyhead is the largest town in the county of Anglesey with only 11,500 people and b. Holyhead has 84% of the island's 13,700 population.  To get to my new destination, I had to pass through Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, more commonly known as Llanfairpwll or Llanfair PG.  It has the distinct honor of having the second longest place name in the world and the longest place name in Europe.

Both guidebooks I've been using were pretty down on Holyhead, but I wanted to keep an open mind.  So far, I've had a mixed experience.  Holyhead is a transition town.  It used to be the major access point between Ireland and Britain, with ferries going back and forth.  With the rise of affordable airfare, this travel died down and so did Holyhead.  I think this has made the community somewhat wary of visitors, though they still have many come through on the ferries.  As I walked through the town I got many stares, presumably as I was obviously a tourist (big backpack, camera around my neck, constantly checking signs and my phone, etc.).  The stares were neither friendly nor hostile, but (with a few exceptions) it's the iciest experience I've had on the trip so far.

There's not terribly much to see in Holyhead.  I went straight to see St Cybi's Church, also known as Caer Gybi (Cybi's Fort).  The small church is built within the walls of a small Roman fort.  The Roman fort, whose Latin name is unknown, is fairly unique as it was a three walled fort; the fourth wall of the fort was the sea.  Though the sea has retreated since Roman times, it used to come to the bottom of the ledge on which the church sits.  The fort walls were also built down to the water, creating a protected harbor.  The fort had a series of towers along the walls, presumably with parapets and ramparts running between them.  It is thought that the fort was built in the 4th century to help deal with Irish raiders.  This means it may have been linked to the Roman watchtower on top of Holyhead Mountain (where I'm headed tomorrow!).  It is possible that the watchtower could have warned Roman naval forces, who then motivated from this fort to deal with the coming barbarians.

After visiting Caer Gybi, I walked around Holyhead more.  I quickly learned that there is a Royal Air Force station nearby because I saw six or eight military jets fly over and had a startling experience when a Sea King, a search and rescue helicopter, flew very low overhead.  Unfortunately, the Maritime Museum, one of the few things to do in Holyhead, had already closed for the day, so I wandered to the Ucheldre Centre, an art gallery and performance space housed in an old chapel.  From there I wandered along the coast and spotted an interesting way the teens of Holyhead entertain themselves: jumping off a 25 or 30 foot pier.  I watched these kids jump off over and over again and I was not the only spectator.  Can't say I was tempted to join them.

I had a nice dinner at a hotel near my B&B and tried a strawberry and lime cider that was delicious.  Then I headed back to my room for a quiet evening.  I'm hoping to head to bed on the earlier side as I have a long day of walking tomorrow.  I'm going up Holyhead Mountain (which is not a mountain, but a 720 foot hill) and from there go to South Stack, which is on the other side of the island, but home to a spectacular lighthouse.  Hopefully it will be a fun day!  But it will require well rested feet.

Fun Fact #4: Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, trained and flew search and rescue helicopters out of RAF Valley (the station on Anglesey), making him the first British royal to live in Wales since Henry VII.