Day 19: Turning to the Sylvan Wye

Today I went on tour of some amazing sites outside of Cardiff.  When doing research for this trip, my mother stumbled upon a company called See Wales Tours that runs trips from Cardiff, including one title Romans and Ruins.  The itinerary was a visit to the Roman amphitheater, baths, and museum in Caerleon, the Roman town in Caerwent, Tintern Abbey in Wye Valley, and Raglan Castle.

I met the group outside the National Museum Cardiff at 9:00 and we were soon heading out of Cardiff.  Our first stop was the the amphitheater at Caerleon.  Unlike the two other amphitheaters I've seen on this trip, the whole circumference of the Caerleon theater is excavated.  This made it a really striking sight.  The ground level is about twelve to fifteen feet higher than in Roman times, so though the theater looks very low today, it would have been a very imposing fixture on the banks of the River Usk.  

One of the amphitheater's main features was a shrine to Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution.  There was a very similar shrine in the amphitheater at Chester, as Nemesis was closely connected to gladiatorial competitions.  The amphitheater at Caerleon is slightly smaller than the one in Chester, seating around 6,000 people.

From the amphitheater, we headed to the bath complex.  The complex was much larger than what is shown today.  Today, platforms take you around the full extent of the natatio (an open air swimming pool), part of the apodyteria (warmed changing rooms), and a small portion of the frigidarium (the cold room).

The lightly in the museum hosting the bath remains was not particularly conducive to photography, so I haven't included any photos.  That being said, the lighting did some very cool effects.  A project played videos of swimmers doing laps in the natatio, accompanied with the sounds of splashing and cannonballs, and red light played over the hypocaust that would have heated the apodyteria.  It was a sort of lovely effect, breathing some life into the ruins.  I think it's especially great with the large number of school trips we saw visiting the site.

The museum at Caerleon had a lot of great items, but I was surprised that it might not have been quite as extensive as the museum in Newport.  Still, I got see lovely collections of local and imported pottery, large inscribed stones, coins from throughout the occupation of Britain, and, of course, Roman military paraphernalia.

Caerleon was home to a Roman fort, built by the Legio II Augusta.  The first fort was built around the mid-70s CE and was occupied until the Legio II Augusta left Britain in around 290 CE.  Evidence left behind by the army included spearheads, like the bronze one seen above, arrow heads, a helmet, axe heads, and everything else needed to wage war and house an army.  It was also nice to see some artifacts from the Roman cavalry, which are not very commonly seen in Britain.  These artifacts probably came from a cavalry attachment to the legion.  One piece that they had seems to have been a nailed on horse shoe, but I've heard conflicting stories about when these were invented and came into use.  I'll have to investigate more!

The museum also had plenty of artifacts from the everyday life in a Roman town.  A great detail the exhibit included was a model of a Roman loaf of bread.  It's wonderful because it shows how Roman bakers marketed themselves.  With a stamp bearing his name, the baker imprinted the loaves of bread, so every bite reminded the buyer who had baked the delicious bread and maybe tipped off a few passersby as well!

The museum had a fair number of Roman inscriptions, ranging from commemorations of temple renovation to funerary markers for Roman veterans.  Now I have to feel bad for Julia Senica (maybe Seneca) and whomever paid for her tombstone to be engraved.  I don't think they did a very good job.  But it probably suggests that Julia Senica was from a rather poor family who could not afford one of the better engravers, and instead ended up with something that looks like my handwriting.

To my disappointment, we missed the barracks in Caerleon and headed out.  This disappointment continued as our next destination was announced as Tintern Abbey in the Wye Valley, rather than Caerwent, the other Roman site I was planning on visiting.  But I had planned an extra day in the Cardiff area if something like this occurred, and I was soon distracted by the beauty of the Wye Valley.

I think I quite literally lost my breath when I first saw Tintern Abbey from the van.  Huge, open stone arches in the middle of the beautiful valley landscape.  I was struck by the immense scale of the ruins and the haunting skeleton of the buildings.

Wandering through the abbey, I was pretty overwhelmed; I wanted to capture everything, but almost didn't know how to start.  Though the ruins are extensive, the most beautiful portion (in my opinion, and I suspect many others) is the ruined church.  The building in ruins today dates from the 13th century, although the abbey was founded in the 12th century.

Tintern Abbey was home to Cistercian Monks, who are also known as White Monks because of the color of their cucculas, robes worn over a habit.  Cistercians, like most monks it seems, rejected opulence and lived austere lives, so they did not dye their robes, leaving them the off-white color of a sheep.  Our tour guide, Adrian, did have a great point though: how could you live in such a magnificent, beautiful place, and not find it opulent?

Responding to a request from my mother, I had Adrian and some fellow travelers take photos of me throughout the day.

Like almost all abbeys and monasteries in the British Isles, the Dissolution destroyed any chance of Tintern's survival.  The abbeys valuables were sent to the crown, the about and monks were paid and sent off, and the lead from the abbey roof was sold, leading to the quick demise of the buildings.  Over the centuries, the abbey lay vacant and was slowly reused to building homes and farms around the area.

Tintern Abbey has inspired a great deal of amazing art, from painting to poetry.  J.M.W. Turner painted the ruins in 1795 and writers, such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Allen Ginsberg were inspired by visits.  Perhaps most notably, and the inspiration of this post's title, was William Wordsworth's poem "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey."  I recommend rereading it, as it is a beautiful, classic English Romantic poem.

Also, if, for any reason, you are traveling to Wales, make sure you go to Tintern Abbey.  I can't express, and I don't think my photos can either, how beautiful and fascinating it was.

After having lunch at the Tintern Abbey Mill Craft Center, we headed out of the Wye Valley and towards Raglan Castle.  Raglan Castle is one of the youngest castles in Wales, being built in the mid-1400s.  The castle has a wonderful main gateway, called the White Gate.  It would have been a dominating sight from throughout the countryside.

I've also been struck by the Welsh countryside throughout my trip.  It often reminds me of the Tuscan hills, especially the farmland around Raglan Castle.  I feel like this view from a window in the castle could easily be looking at the Italian countryside.

There is also a Norman style motte and keep built next to the castle.  Apparently I was feeling a bit masochistic, and decided to climb to the top of the keep.  It gave great views of the main castle and the countryside.  I have lots of great facts about the castle, but to be completely honest I'm too tired right now decide which to share.  So ask me another time!

After our Raglan Castle, we made our way back to Cardiff, fighting through some traffic, but getting back to Cardiff Castle in about forty-five minutes.  I then had a quiet evening, dominated by processing and editing my 500+ photos from the day!  A pretty amazing day, especially for one of my final ones in Wales!

Fun Fact #19: Did you know that both garderobes and wardrobes are derived from medieval toilets?  A garderobe was a small hole, providing an exit for detritus from the castle.  This detritus included human waste, as castle residents would go to the bathroom by these holes and then it would be washed out.  Now, you would be very right to ask how clothes got combined with toilets.  Folks in medieval times theorized that the garderobes smelled so badly that it would pretty much scare off anything.  So, if they hung there clothes near the garderobes, all the fleas and lice that bothered them would scurry out of their garments.  I wonder how this worked.  It seems like all the smell might just attract more bugs...  Either way, I'm sure we're all very happy that garderobes and wardrobes are sonly for clothes now!

Day 15: Making it to the Museum

Leaving Port Talbot, I headed to the "Pittsburgh of Wales," Newport.  People are really enjoying telling me what American equivalent I'm headed to next.  Again, I disagree, although I have never been to Pittsburgh either.  Newport reminds me of want-to-be Boston in a lot of ways.  It has a nice stretch along the River Usk that they are trying to develop into a center of arts and culture, but the process seems to be going slow.  There is a lot of construction and renovation happening around the city.  So the city really seems like a work in progress.

Traveling so much has made me lose sense of time.  I rarely know what day of the week it is, which almost became a major problem.  I was planning on heading to the Newport Museum, the point of my visit, tomorrow.  As I was walking to my hotel, I had a vague memory that today was Saturday and that most museums are closed on Sundays (you know, like most things).  So I thought to check the times on the museum, and turns out it is closed on Sundays.  It would have been horrible to miss another museum.

So I headed out towards the museum (and managed to get lost in the midst of the construction).  Once I found the museum, I was surprised to find a trove of Roman artifacts.  The museum contains many pieces from the excavations in Caerleon and Caerwent, two sites outside Cardiff that I will be seeing in the next few days.  The prehistoric and Roman room was well divided into different cases, such as ones dedicated to the region in the Iron Age and the Bronze Age.  Once it became more focused on the Roman occupation, the cases focused on Roman religion, domestic life, jewelry, the army, etc.  Here are just a few selections of the many interesting things from the museum.

This dish is from what is known as Caerleon ware.  The ware was produced in the Caerleon area and shows influence from other Roman pottery, such as the famous Samian ware.  Some of the pieces were even meant to imitate the Samian ware from Gaul, suggesting that the citizens of Caerleon wanted a cheaper, easier to get alternative to importing more pottery. 

There was also another style of local pottery, presumably more of a common, everyday pottery.  It was grey, rather than the preferred red tones found in Samian or Caerleon ware.

Another wonderful piece of the collection was a Roman glass urn with human remains still inside.  In the 1st and 2nd centuries, cremation was the main mode of Roman burial.  This changed later (and varied around the Empire), leading to many beautiful sarcophagi, but it is very cool to see the remains of a Roman, around 2,000 years later.  Or maybe I just find that cool...

The museum also had a beautiful collection of jewelry and clothing items, like this penannular brooch.  These brooches are a great example of Roman and Celtic fashions coming together.  They became particular popular in Roman Britain during the 3rd and 4th centuries, often adding images of animals to the brooches (not quite visible in this photo).

There were also some lovely fragments of frescoes discovered in Caerleon.  Most, like this depiction of a male figure, were done sometime in the 4th century, but there is evidence that there were earlier frescoes in some places that had been plastered over.

There is a great deal of evidence in this museum of the mixing of native British and Roman cultures.  Here is a depiction of a Celtic mother goddess found in a Roman home in Caerwent.  She seems to have been worshipped as a fertility goddess.  Other similar Celtic depictions included a male statue and an antefix tile with the depiction of a Celtic feline goddess (although this is not entirely certain).

A final, special gem was this Roman tile with a paw print in it.  It is very fun to imagine the ancient craftsmen making this tile and then watching a favorite dog run across it, ruining the tile.  It's wonderful when little bits like this survive in history!

After seeing the museum, I went a walk along the River Usk.  Below you can see the Riverfront Center, which houses a gallery and a performance space, and a pedestrian footbridge.  There is a nice walk running along the river itself.

My hotel, along with a many residential neighborhoods of Newport, lay across the River Usk.

A detail of the pedestrian footbridge.

Fun Fact #15: So this fact may not be quite a fact.  Like most museum displays, sources aren't cited, but the Newport Museum had a display titled "What money was worth at Caerwent in AD 122?"  I'm not quite sure where this information was derived, but here's what things cost in Caerwent 1,893 years ago!

Annual pay of a Roman legionary: 300 denarii

Half liter of wine: 1 as

Cloak: 5 denarii and 2 asses

Slave boy: 600 denarii

Loaf of bread: 2 asses

(Roman currency is confusing and variable, so for simplicity sake, at this time an as would have been worth 1/16th of a denarius)