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 16: Moving into Cardiff

With not much else to do in Newport, I had a relaxed morning in my hotel and then headed to the train station.  I knew I would be arriving in Cardiff earlier than I had told my next hotel, so I decided to wait for a later train.  The trains came so often, that waiting for three trains to go to Cardiff before boarding, I had only been in the station for about 20 minutes.  So I took the train and decided to have a long lunch in the station to arrive at my hotel at a more appropriate time.  I also decided to wait for the rain to lighten up a bit before walking the mile to my hotel.

It's hard to describe how excited I was to get to my hotel.  The walk to it, although a bit long with a  heavy suitcase, was through the center of Cardiff and I was really intrigued by the city.  But the thing that was the most exciting was the fact that I will be in my hotel for five consecutive nights.  No long haul to a hotel for a single night, a quick pack in the morning, and back on the train.  It feels like I am moving into this hotel.  This may become my new home.

After an hour or two of decompressing, I decided to wander towards Cardiff center.  I entered Sophia's Garden, a large, green park along the River Taff.  I walked right on the river bank, enjoying the quite of the setting.  I noticed what I believe is a grey heron fishing in the shallows.  As I worked to switch my camera lens to a longer zoom, the heron took off and I was able to capture some pictures of it flying and landing farther down the river.

I moved farther along the banks, trying to get closer so I could get more pictures of the bird.  As I walked, the poor heron began to be harassed by a flock of seagulls.  Before I was close enough to get photos, the gulls had chased the heron far down the river.

I crossed over a footbridge from Sophia's Garden to Bute Park, another part of Cardiff's "green lung."

I wandered aimlessly through the park, so I stumbled upon things, rather than knowing what I should be finding.  I saw the preserved layout of an old friary and a circle of standing stones, which I'm doubting are original.  Even in the rainy weather, the blooming flowers and the greenery reminded me of warmer seasons.

I angled my way towards Cardiff Castle and walked around the walls.  I'm already a big fan of the castle, and I've seen very little of it so far.  It has a dramatic, tall wall that is surrounded by a very proper moat.  I think the moat may be reformed and different from medieval times (certainly Roman times; the River Taff now runs a different course than it did in ancient times).  But still, it looks fantastic today!

  I got quite hungry pretty early in the evening so I started heading back towards my hotel and some restaurants in the area.  On my route back is the Animal Wall.  The wall was thought up in 1866, but not constructed until 1890.  The wall originally had nine animals climbing over the wall and six were added later.  They were renovated in 2010 and look fantastic.  It seems like the local zoo has had a massive escape and you'll see an elephant on Castle street at any second.

One last site I saw on my way back to my hotel was the Millennium Stadium.  It was built for the 1999 Rugby World Cup and has been used to host rugby and football matches, as well as concerts and large events.  I don't think the picture really does it justice, but it is a very interesting building! 

After my wandering, I stuffed myself with a gigantic calzone and had a quiet evening back at my hotel.  Excited to do more exploring tomorrow!

Fun Fact #16: Cardiff was named the capital of Wales in 1955.  Caernarfon was also considered for the capital city, but instead Cardiff was named and later became the seat for the National Assembly of Wales, now housed in a building called the Senedd.

Day 13: Spending an Afternoon at the Amphitheater

So today I managed to miss a bus while standing at a bus stop.  It's not entirely my fault, I swear!  After a relaxed morning in Llandovery, I found out that the bus would be a much more efficient and easier way to get to Carmarthen.  So I trotted across the street to the bus stop and stood by the stand, waiting for the bus and finishing a podcast.  The bus was a few minutes late, so I was trying to find something else to listen to.  As I looked back up, I watched my bus zoom by on the main road.  The bus stop was just off the main road, but the bus showed no intention of coming over to the stop.  I thought maybe it would come around on a loop, but alas, I was wrong.  It sped away...without me.

So I just headed the twenty steps to the train station and took a bit longer and a bit more complicated route to Carmarthen.  Both my guidebooks were pretty down on Carmarthen, just as they were about Holyhead, so I was a bit skeptical of what I'd find.  So far, I've been pleasantly surprised!  The town is definitely more developed than most of the towns I've stayed in, it is still charming.  Much of the history has been covered with larger stores and parking lots, but there are still nice side streets and a beautiful county office house.

After checking into my hotel, I decided to make my way to the only surviving part of the Roman settlement in Carmarthen: the amphitheater.  The remains are a bit outside the center of town and as I made my way there, I was distracted by a church.  The church, St. Peter's, apparently marked one end of where the Roman fort would have been.

Walking into the church, the first thing I saw was a Roman altar sitting in the entryway.  The altar had been found on the main Roman road through the town, but was brought to the church.  I thought it was an interesting mixing of religions, a pagan altar in a Christian church.

The church was lovely on the inside, with a nave and a parallel southern aisle, which were both lined with beautiful, carved wooden pews.  The red tiling, along with the red hue in the wood, gave a rich color and light to the building.  I was intrigued by the sort of parallel structure of the church.  It seemed a bit odd, as some of those in the southern aisle would certainly not be able to see the altar or possible the pulpit.

But the southern aisle has its own treasure: the tomb of the Richard III's killer.  According to some sources, including Welsh poet Guto'r Glyn, Rhys ap Thomas struck down Richard III in the Battle of Bosworth Field.  It is (of course) unclear if he was actually the one to do the deal, but it is very clear that Henry Tudor was very pleased with Thomas's service in the War of the Roses.  Following the end of the war and the crowning of Henry VII, Thomas was named Constable and Lieutenant of Breconshire, Chamberlain of Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire, Seneschall and Chancellor of Haverfordwest, Rouse and Builth, Justiciar of South Wales, Governor of all Wales, a member of the Privy Councillor, and a Knight of the Garter.  Certainly an unexpected piece of history (or legend) to stumble upon!

I continued down the road to the Roman amphitheater.  The amphitheater is one of only four known in Wales.  It is slightly smaller than the one in Chester and could have seated around 5,000 people.  The amphitheater is a much narrower oval shape than others I've seen, including the one in Chester.  The amphitheater was placed just outside the Roman town, called Moridunum, and along the Roman road that connected the settlement to forts in the area, like the one just outside Llandovery.

The amphitheater is the only part of Roman settlement that is visible above ground; the entire remains of the town and fort are covered by the modern town.  In the 70s CE, the site was first developed to hold a large fort, but this was soon reduced in size.  By the mid 2nd century, the fort was abandoned, but the settlement around it developed into the town, Moridunum.  In the 3rd century, the fort was reoccupied and the town was thriving, becoming one of the largest settlements in Wales.  It also seems to have been a pretty good example of a Roman and native amalgamation, maybe similar to what occurred in Wroxeter.

After absorbing the remains of the amphitheater, I followed a map to the promise of another information sign about Roman's in the area.  This brought me to the remains of Carmarthen Castle.  The remains are just behind the county offices and only a wall, towers, and a gate still stand.  

I was able to go up on to the walls of the castle and up to the top of the castle gate.  It took me a while to track down the flag flying, but I believe I've found it.  It seems to be the flag of the princely House of Dinefwr, a royal house in Wales founded in 854 CE, and the Kingdom of Deheubarth, a kingdom in southern Wales from 920-1197 CE.  The flag was inherited as the arms of the Talbot family, which (if I understand correctly) have been the Earls of Shrewsbury since 1442 to present day.

Though most of the castle is gone, and even half the gate is gone, the parts that remain are quite striking.  The gate consisted of path leading between two towers.  It would have been defended with a portcullis and a machicolation seen here.  A machicolation is a defensive feature of many castles which allowed defenders to drop objects on enemies at the gate from above.  Smaller holes that served the same function were called murder holes.

In a small courtyard by the castle remains, there was another informational panel about the Roman town and the surrounding area (I've already shared some of the better facts found there).  Sadly, that concluded my tour of Roman Carmarthen.  All the other secrets are trapped underground!  (Or in museums not in Carmarthen)

Fun Fact #13:  Legend tells that Merlin, of Arthurian lore, was born in a cave outside Carmarthen.  In fitting with this, there as an oak tree in the town called Merlin's Oak.  The tree was actually planted in celebration of Charles II's return to the throne in 1659 or 1660, but still came with this prophecy: "When Merlin's Oak shall tumble down,/Then shall fall Carmarthen town."  Sadly, the tree died in the mid-19th century and was eventually removed in the 1970s.  Luckily, the town still stands!

Day 12: Mining for (Roman) Gold

So this morning began with a bit of a struggle.  I had called some taxi services yesterday to get estimates of how much it would cost me to go to the Dolaucothi Mines from Llandovery and had settled on a company.  When I called them this morning to get a lift, thinking who would be using a cab on Wednesday morning, I found that they had no cars available.  I scrambled and called a few other companies and eventually found one that could send a car over.  The trip had already gotten more expensive.

While I was making these calls and waiting for my taxi, there was a constant barrage of weird sounds coming from outside.  The noise was coming from an even odder collection of cars.  The Garbage Run, a car rally starting from the Netherlands, was rolling through tiny, old Llandovery.  The Garbage Run is a rally to show that even old, beaten-up cars can do rallies that are thousands of miles long.  The cars are generally all older model cars that have been seriously personalized.  I saw everything from a car with a tent on top of it to a car shaped like Olaf from Frozen.  I watched a car with a paddleboat glued to it's roof try to fit into a parking spot for about ten minutes.  In all this chaos, my taxi arrived.

My taxi driver was a very sweet man and we had a lovely chat about local culture and Welsh accents as we drove the twenty-five minutes to the mines.  As he dropped me off, he warned me that there would not be taxis until the late afternoon, as they worked school runs.  I'm assuming this meant that schools had hired the taxis to act as buses to bring the students back home to the towns and villages that were farther away from the school.

I arrived at the mines and found out that there would be a Roman tour of the mines about an hour and forty-five minutes after I arrived or a Victorian era tour about an hour earlier.  Clearly, I decided to wait around for the Roman tour.  In the meantime, I wandered around the mining buildings and machines.  The contraption below is called a headframe and was used to lower and raise an elevator into a shaft below.  The shaft below this headframe was 500' deep.  This was not the deepest shaft dug in these mines; I noticed one marked on the map as being 1000' deep.  Now most of the shafts are covered and sealed. 

Most of the machinery around the site is from the 1930s era.  There were three (possibly four) main periods of activity at this mine.  The first was the Romans who began working here in the 1st century CE.  It is possible that the mines had been worked by the natives as early as the Bronze Age, but there is no physical evidence for this.  After the Romans, the mines weren't worked again until the Victorian period.  The were finally worked again between 1933 and 1938 for the final time.

The buildings around the site contain the machinery and tools needed to operate a mine in the 1930s. These included things like giant winches to operate elevators in shafts, generators to create compressed air to power the tools underground, and ventilation controls.  This machine above controlled the flow of compressed air from the generators to three chambers underground.  It was fascinating to look at all the levers and dials on these machines.  It made me realize just how little I know about anything having to do with mining, which ended up being the theme of the day.

They also had a few troughs set up to allow you to try to pan for gold.  When I purchased my ticket, I was given a small plastic bag for any gold I might find while panning.  Gold mining in Wales is not at all like the gold mining in the western United States.  The gold here is not in nugget form, but rather dust.  The dust is trapped in other stones, mainly quartz.  Therefore, the panning process would have been extremely tedious, working to reach the very finest particles.  I gave up rather quickly, perfectly happy to leave without any specks of gold.

Finally it was time for my tour and a group of eight followed our guide, Emyr, around the site.  One of the first things he showed us was a model of a very clever Roman device.  In the 1930s, when working on a shaft 160' below ground, a miner accidentally discovered a massive mining gallery.  It was from the Roman period.  Not only were they shocked to find a Roman mine so deep underground, they were also shocked by it's size (it was nicked named the "Cathedral" because it was so large).  In this gallery, they found evidence of Roman scaffolding and tools, including a curved piece of wood.  Eventually, using examples from other Roman mines in the Mediterranean, they discovered that it was part of the Romans' system of keeping water out of the work site.  They used a series of water wheels that were able to collect water and then poor it into a higher trough, which would then lead to another wheel.  Through a long series of these wheels, the Romans were able to bring water up to the surface level by level.  Emyr demonstrated how this worked with the model they have which is only built to about half scale; the actual water wheels would have been around 12' in diameter.

From the demonstration we walked up the from the bottom of the valley we had been in.  I should say former valley.  The site of the 1930s mining buildings is actually the bottom of the Romans' largest open cast mine.  The bottom is much higher than it would have been in Roman times as it has been partially filled in by natural causes and was used as the waste dump from the Victorian era mines.  The size and scale of this open cast mine is pretty hard to describe and capture with a camera.  It would have been massive.

We continued up the side of the large open cast mine and onto the rise above it.  The landscape here was greatly varied, due to many smaller open cast mines and their dump sites adding dips and hills to the land.  We came across the first Roman drift mine, but could not enter due to unsafe conditions.  We went to the second drift mine (a drift mine is a horizontal mine as opposed to a shaft which goes down) and entered the Roman mine.  The mine was surprisingly beautiful made.  The walls had been worked very precisely, creating a neat corridor with well angled corners leading to the ceiling.  It had clearly been done with painstaking care (which raises many questions as to why).  It was possible to still see some of the pick marks left from Roman tools.

It is estimated that the Romans moved out some half a million tons of stone and collected between three quarters to thirty-five tons tons of gold (we joked about how wide a range that is).  In the mine, we were able to see some galleries in which the Romans followed veins of quartz.  It is believed that the Romans used slave labor for work in these mines, and the presence of a fort nearby means that it might have also used convict labor.  There is a theory that the mine was so large it would have required more than just local slaves and the mine would have drawn slaves from other parts of the Empire.  We saw one drift mine and evidence of many open cast mines, just a small fraction of the site, and I can believe that they would need to bring in extra man power.

There were some interesting features in the main gallery of the mine we visited.  The gallery was a large open space, but would have had many rooms spreading out from it, leading to other galleries.  These have since been filled in, which leaves some aspects of the mine a mystery.  Emyr also pointed out to us some markings that were very exciting...initially.  Carved into the wall were an "IIX" and "IX," presumably some sort of Roman numbering system.  If these were truly Roman, the mistaken IIX for eight (instead of VIII) could have been easily explained away as a mistake by a local slave or possibly even by a miner working upside down (I'm not so sure about this theory).  The distance between the two markers is also roughly a cubit.  However, the two numbers appear on different levels of shale, which seems odd for something being used for an exact measurement.  Therefore it seems somewhat likely that these were added in the 19th or 20th century by Victorian or Cardiff University pranksters.

After leaving the drift mine, we passed by remains of more small open cast mine and evidence of a complex water system that the Romans used for ground sluicing.  This technique allowed them to wash away upper layers of shale to find the quartz veins below.  To do this, the Romans had to build an aqueduct six miles upstream and channel the water into holding tanks.  In a single day, the sluicing system could have used two million tons of water.  It is also likely that this system was adapted to be part of the processing of the quartz.  After this explanation, we headed back down the hill and to the base of the Romans' large open cast mine.

Here, I ran into another problem.  My tour had come to an end and there were not going to be any available taxes from almost two hours.  I had also exhausted most everything I wanted to know about the site.  So I put on my most innocent face and asked a woman from my tour if she happened to be heading in the area of Llandovery.  After consulting a map, it happened that she was heading that way and offered me a ride.  She was absolutely lovely and we swapped travel stories, mostly about getting lost in inconvenient places.  By 3:30 I was already back at my hotel.

After taking a break for a snack and to listen to some podcasts, I decided I would try to go find the Roman fort site outside Llandovery after all.  It was only supposed to be about a mile outside town and I didn't have much else to do.  I made my way down the road, and after a few minutes of confusion, found the church that was meant to be near the site.  There was nothing remotely fort-like about the setting.  There was the church with a graveyard, a residential neighborhood, and a big pasture.  There was a walking sign pointing to the pasture, so I thought maybe I'd find something at the bottom of it.  As I was going I read a bit more about the Roman fort, called Alabum, and found out that I was standing at the site and there was really nothing left of it, just bits of evidence found by various vicars of the church.  I was a bit disappointed, but easily distracted as I made more horse friends.

Fun Fact #12:  I learned a great deal of facts about gold today and I think rather than doing one fun fact I will share quite a few in a list!

1. Welsh gold is the most valuable gold in the world.  This has to do with both its rarity and the fact that the last gold mine in Wales shut down in 1999.

2. Gold is one of the ten rarest elements on Earth.

3. A lump of gold the size of a matchbox could be hammered out into the size of a tennis court.

5. An ounce of gold could be made into a wire fifty miles long.

6. Romans used gold in their dentistry, including making gold wires to hold teeth in places.  (I'm imagining golden braces.)

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 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.