Day 18: Getting a Cuppa

Today my plan was to explore more of Cardiff center and visit the National Museum Cardiff.  I walked into the center of the city and headed over the civic areas.

The 194 foot clock tower of City Hall looks out over the whole city center.  Each clock face on the tower is 12 feet in diameter.

I had heard that there was a beautiful hall, open to the public in the City Hall so I went in to investigate.  I had to fight my way through a sea of Cardiff graduates and their families.  It seemed that the building was used to pick up caps, gowns, and hoods (and then later dropping them off).  It is also gorgeous, inside and out, so everyone wanted to take a picture next to some marble fixture.  I went up to the second floor and into the Marble Hall.  Here there are statues of famous figures from Welsh history.  The first one I walked up to happened to be the only woman, and the one that would interest me the most.  The statue depicts Boudica, a British tribal leader who lead a successful revolt against the Romans in 60 or 61 CE.  Although not actually Welsh, she is a representative of the British spirit and independence.

The National Museum is right next-door to City Hall, so I went in, hoping to find some Roman artifacts from around Wales.  Instead, I found a single piece of Roman art, which I understood to be from Rome herself.  That being said the Jenkins Vase is a gorgeous piece, depicting the story of Paris and Helen.  Other figures on the vase include Muses, like Polyhymnia show in thought above.

Though disappointed by the lack of research related pieces in the museum, I wandered through the other exhibits.  The museum has a great collection of art from around Europe, but with a lovely focus on Welsh and Welsh-inspired art.  A large portion of the museum is dedicated to Welsh ceramic arts.

It was very fun for me to see artistic depictions of some of the places I've been since coming to Wales.  Unsurprisingly, Caernarfon Castle is an extremely popular subject.  Can't say I saw that sort of Tuscan sky over the Castle while I was there though.  Other highlights to see were a depiction of South Stack on Holy Island and a view of the entrance of Cardiff Bay in the 1800s.

The art collection spans all eras of art since the 16th century, including French Impressionism.  I was excited to see La Parisienne by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.  It's such a beautiful painting, depicting French actress Henriette Henriot.  I was surprised to see it Wales, having no idea I would find such a famous French painting here!

The other portion of the National Museum is dedicated to natural history.  I (perhaps sadly) have much less patience for exhibits about rocks, minerals, and animals.  I think it has something to do with the language being designed to be accessible for young children.  I strolled rather quickly through the exhibits, just stopping to more closely examining things that caught my eye, like this beautiful piece of malachite.

This picture is mostly for my boyfriend, who adores foxes.  But they are truly beautiful animals and it was great to be able to see one in detail, especially since it could not run away!

Another image I had to include was this photo of an aye-aye's hand.  If you've never seen (or don't remember) what an aye-aye looks like, go Google it now.  The long middle fingers of this lemur are specially adapted for reaching into tunnels dug by bugs in trees and pulling out the insects.  Pretty terrifying, if you ask me.

After the museum visit, I explored the parish church of St. John the Baptist and then decided to have my first afternoon tea since coming to the U.K.  I went to Pettigrew Tea Rooms, a spot I had heard on a Buzzfeed list titled "16 Places All Tea Lovers Must Visit Before They Die."  I didn't get the full afternoon tea (which is quite a lot of food), but instead went for a classic cream tea.  This provided me with a lovely lavender tea, two schools, strawberry preserve, and clotted cream.  I was joined at my table by a French woman, who I assume now lives in Wales, and her Welsh friend, as the place had very limited seating.  We shared pleasant small talk about my research and travels and their experiences traveling Wales and abroad.

After finishing my tea, and waiting for a light rain to stop, I headed back to my hotel to have a relaxing evening.

Fun Fact #18: According to my tour on the sightseeing bus, the National Museum Cardiff has the largest collection of Impressionist (maybe French Impressionist) art outside of Paris, with works by Renoir, Monet, Manet, Rodin, Cezanne, Morisot, Degas, and others.

Day 17: Being the Ultimate Tourist

My plan for the day was to visit Cardiff Castle and the National Museum of Wales.  This was my first ultimate tourist move of the day: forgetting that the museum would probably be closed on a Monday. Luckily, I was warned by the owner of my hotel and he recommended the second bit tourist move of the day: go on the sightseeing bus tour.  I decided to follow his advice, since the day was grey and it was not going to be a fun day to walk around Cardiff.

Since the day was so rainy, I was stuck behind a wet window for my tour, which my camera did not appreciate.  The bus left from outside the castle and toured around the civic center of the city, where we saw a film crew shooting outside city hall.  Our guide believed it was either the crew of "Doctor Who" or "Sherlock," which are both centered in Cardiff.  It was also graduation from the University of Cardiff, so there were lots of caps and gowns strolling up and down the streets.  One of the photos I did get from the bus was this sort of Impressionistic picture of a graduate and his family walking down the street.

As we drove through the city, I learned about the history of Cardiff.  The city was really made by three men, the Marquesses of Bute.  They were responsible for the boom and importance of Welsh coal and controlled most of the mineral rights in Southern Wales.  This made them the wealthiest family in the world, making in excess of £5 billion a year, in todays money.  The boom of the coal industry and the wealth in the city allowed for the expansion of the city, the growth of the port, and the boom in population.

The city had a huge decline after World War I and the reduction in the use of coal.  The city began to diversify and went through many renovations.  The bay was turned into a new center for Cardiff, and Wales, bringing together culture, leisure, and work.  The bay has a great deal of restaurants, a beautiful concert hall, and the seat of Welsh government.  The picture above shows the old Pierhead Building reflected in the glass of the Senedd, the National Assembly building.

I had a nice lunch of fish and chips down in the bay and then caught the sightseeing bus again.  It dropped me off right outside the castle and the only Roman ruins visible in Cardiff.  In the walls of the castle battlements, there are still some portions of the Roman wall visible.  The Roman fort was first developed in around 55 CE, but these stones are from the fourth rebuilding of the fort, in the mid-3rd century CE.  The Roman fort is supposed to have followed the layout of the current castle battlements and portions are rebuilt to look Roman (see the picture below and the picture of the gate from yesterday's post).

Once inside the battlements, the Norman keep dominates the castle green.  The first Norman keep, and the motte below it, were built in the 11th century, but replaced by this stone shell keep in the 12th century.  A shell keep means that walls were not actually the walls of the keep, but rather high walls surrounding interior buildings and protecting them.  I went up into the keep and you could see the remains of a massive chimney, presumably for the great room, and many holes in the walls for where timber supports would have gone.  I decided that there wasn't much need to climb all the way to the highest point on the tower.

The later castle within the walls was significantly remodeled over the centuries, turning into the Gothic Revival building seen today.  The Marquesses of Bute did a great deal of updating to the castle, first making it into a Georgian home and then adding the Gothic Revival features.  The castle was the home to four Marquesses of Bute, but was then given to the city of Cardiff after the death of the fourth Marquess in 1947.

The interior of the castle is open to the public, although to see all the rooms you have to be on a guided tour.  As I was walking through, I stumbled across a few tour groups and learned some interesting facts.  To create the banquet hall (below) the third Marquess destroyed seven bedrooms on the second floor of the castle to create a massive hall.  The room is decorated with the history of his family, whom are descended from the kings of Scotland.  The space is also available for events for weddings.  Only £500...an hour.

There are many different themed rooms in the home, including a gorgeous "Arab Room" with beautiful muqarnas, ornamented vaults, on the ceiling.  They reminded me a great deal of the many muqarnas I saw while visiting the Arab parts of Palermo, Sicily.

Beneath the banquet hall, there is a beautiful, ornate library.  There is actually a wonderful spiral staircase (which is closed to the public) leading directly from the banquet hall to the library.  Just in case you needed a quick study snack!

Another wonderful feature of Cardiff Castle is the clock tower.  I'm not entirely sure why, but the tower, which was built in 1868, is covered in depictions of Roman deities.  On the four sides, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury, and Luna are depicted.  Maybe it was a nod to the Roman fort that once stood on the castle site or maybe it has some other allegorical meaning, but I still appreciated the Classical references.

After the castle, I retreated back to my hotel to escape the rain for a few hours.  I went back into Cardiff center for dinner (it involved smoked mozzarella and there are few things better in this world).  I decided to wander after dinner, which ended up with me getting locked in Bute Park.  After slipping through a gate, I decided it was a sign to head back to my hotel for the night.

Fun Fact #16: In the 19th century, many of the wives of the Cardiff dock workers had jobs with a potato company.  This meant that the women, known as potato lasses, were unloading hundred pound sacks of potatoes from the ships.  They were strong and apparently quite boisterous.  The headlines were filled with stories of the potato lasses getting in bar fights and pushing around their husbands.  They were certainly not to be messed with!

Day 11: Returning to Wales

When I woke up this morning, I only had one thing left on my to do list for Shrewsbury: visit the abbey.  I checked out of my hotel and left my bag before heading down Wyle Cop, across the river, and to the abbey.  The abbey is constructed with the same red stone as Shrewsbury castle and it is a very lovely color.  I had heard that there was something peculiar about the abbey's clock, so I investigated before I went into the building.  For some strange reason, the clock does not use the tradition Roman numeral X for ten.  Instead, it uses an f, so twelve because fII and nine become If.  I don't know why this happened, but it makes for an interesting clock.

The interior was beautiful and surprisingly light, especially the altar, with its golden reredos.  This abbey had a similar history to the old cathedral in Chester.  Both had been much larger before the Dissolution of the Monasteries and both were reduced to smaller parish churches, allowing the rest of the buildings to crumble.  The Shrewsbury Abbey went through many different stages, different layouts as certain parts of the abbey were left to decay and then, later, as restorations were made.  Even today, with many restorations and rebuilding, the church is much smaller than the original abbey would have been

The abbey has Norman beginnings, with the gifting of Shropshire to Roger de Montgomery by William the Conqueror.  In 1083, Roger de Montgomery publicly pledged to build an abbey in Shrewsbury and construction began.  In the 12th century, the abbey grew in importance after the abbot "found" the remains of a Welsh saint, Winifred, and brought them back to Shrewsbury Abbey.  This encouraged pilgrims to come to Shrewsbury and increased the popularity of the abbey.  During the 14th century, the abbey was expanded and renovated.

In 1540, the abbey was shut down and the abbot and monks were given sums of money and sent away.  The abbey shrank to a parish church and suffered neglect for about three centuries.  In the 1800s, more efforts, and maybe more importantly, more funds, were put into restoring the abbey to it's former beauty.

This stained glass window of Saint Winifred is one of the more recent additions to Shrewsbury Abbey, added in 1992.  According to legend, Saint Winifred had a pretty sad early life.  She was the daughter of a Welsh chieftain and at a young age decided she wanted to become a nun.  A suitor of hers did not like this idea and in a fit of rage, chopped of her head.  It rolled away and supposedly a healing spring sprouted from where it stopped.  Her uncle, a saint as well, Beuno, saw the event and asked God to strike the suitor down and the man promptly died.  Beuno then put Winifred's head back on her body and she came back to life.  She then went on to be an abbess and lived a long, happy life.  Her uncle, Beuno, is also credited with resurrection six other people.  All of this reinforces my absolute confusion with Christian mythology, claims that Christianity is a monotheistic religion, and why miracles today are way less interesting than miracles of the past. 

Shrewsbury Abbey was also home to quite a few stone coffins with effigies.  They included the supposed resting place of Roger de Montgomery, the founder of the abbey.  Others were in better shape and painted with a rich palette of colors.  I noticed that in a back corner of the church someone had placed a small flower into the hands of one of the effigies.  It was a sweet, simple gesture and very beautiful.

After visiting the abbey, I attempted to head out of Shrewsbury, but got an extra hour and a half in the  trains station due to train delays.  I almost missed the stop for Llandovery as I was wrapped up in an entertaining podcast and knitting.  But I made it!  My hotel was just across the road from the train station, so I was in my room in no time.  I then found out that the bus I needed to take for tomorrow's excursion (to the Dolaucothi gold mines) does not run on Wednesdays.  It seems I'll have to go by cab which is not ideal.

I wandered into Llandovery, partially to find food and partially to get the rest of my steps in for the day.  It's a small, quiet town, seemingly dominated by the large boarding school that it hosts.  The town center is focused around its town hall and small streets of shops run around it.

I also learned that just outside the town, in a smaller village area, there was another Roman fort.  I had remembered the name from my research before embarking on this trip.  I was tempted to try to walk out to the site, but a storm was beginning to head my way and if I recall correctly, the site isn't really excavated.  I decided to stay within a quick walking distance of my hotel, in case the skies opened up.

Like any good Welsh town, Llandovery has a castle.  The Normans constructed the castle in the 12th century, but it was soon capture by the Welsh.  It switched hands between Welsh and English for the next two centuries.  Like seemingly every castle in Wales, the castle was the sight of the battle between Welsh revolutionary, Owain Glyndŵr, and the English.  This battle in 1403 left the castle crumbling and it was never repaired.

On the same rise as the castle, a shining, silver statue stands, looking out over Llandovery.  The statue commemorates Llwelyn ap Gruffudd, the last Welsh sovereign ruler before Edward I's invasion of Wales.  Llwelyn fought to maintain control in Wales and prevent the English from conquering the territory.  He died in battle against the troops of Edward I.  

After touring the town, grabbing a bite to eat, and poking my head into the British boarding school, I made it back to my hotel, just as the raindrops started to fall.

Fun Fact #11: During the Dissolution of the Monasteries, cataloguing the worth of the monasteries and abbeys was very important so that Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII knew what value they were adding to the crown's estate.  This was some of the items listed for Shrewsbury Abbey: "some milk, chemise, couch and tomb of the Virgin bones, hair and vestments of apostles and martyrs, saints both male and female, bishops and confessors, a whole rochet of Thomas Becket, part of the rochet in which Thomas Becket was martyred, cloth stained with Thomas Becket's blood and brains, fragments of Thomas Becket's attire including his hair, collar, girdle, cowl, woolen, shirt and glove."  Sacred objects in a church...or the latest episode of Hoarders?