Day 13 – Harlech Castle, Back to Oxford, On to Beachy Head

Our final day in Wales and our last Welsh castle...

Right behind the hotel we had been staying in was the Harlech Castle.  We packed up after breakfast and headed up the hill (again on super tiny, STEEP roads) to the main gate of the castle.  It too had been set with coastal access but the shoreline has receded in the last several centuries and is now about a half mile away.  Harlech Castle had one of the nicest displays, showing who had built, manned and ruled the place during its history.  As with all these castles only the stonework was left but it wasn't hard to see the layout of the wooden structures within the walls and how life had taken place there.

After a quick stop in some shops in Harlech, including a 15-minute traffic gridlock in the tiny village streets, we retreated down the hill on a VERY steep road that left us a little uncertain; the sign said “40% grade, UNSUITABLE for motors.”  We made it though, with Jackie's sure hands on the steering wheel.  Then it was time for the long drive back to Oxford, through back roads and major motorways, ever vigilant for the ubiquitous roundabouts that had us going left around and around...  We arrived back in Oxford around 5 pm or so and said our goodbyes.  Then Pat and I left for the southern tip of England and Beachy Head, site of the tallest chalk cliffs in England.  

The drive down was relatively easy, although it took us around London via some very busy roads.  It was rush hour, after all.  The GPS we had borrowed from Bob and Jackie really didn't like the route we had chosen; it kept telling us to get off the motorway (M-routes, equivalent to our interstates) and onto various A-routes (equivalent to our 4-lanes but with a roundabout every mile or so – uggghhh!)  We opted to ignore the GPS and stay on the M-routes and were glad we did.  They were wide open and zipping along at 70 MPH.  We arrived at the Tiger Inn in Beachy Head at about 7:30 pm, still in time for a pint and dinner.  This was a long day on British highways – from north Wales to the English Channel – but we saw a lot and survived the trip unscathed.

Day 12 – Criccieth Castle, Caernarfon Castle, Beaumaris Castle

Criccieth Castle stands on an impressive bluff overlooking the bay.  As with yesterday's castles, we were admitted with our 3-day pass that we had bought for all castles under the management of CDW, a sort of Wales historical/preservation society.  We broke even at admission to our third castle and would pull ahead from there on.  This castle, as with the others, was part of a series that Edward I had used to lock down control of Wales for the English. 

Some of these castles never saw any real battles; Jackie and I learned during our tour of Caernarfon Castle that the only real attack to this massive fortress (where current Prince Charles was coronated Prince of Wales) came when the main walls were still under construction.  The Welsh villagers were so upset over being over-taxed to death to pay for this castle that they simply walked in and took over the place.  That apparently was the only attack that ever took place there even though they later completed the walls and installed some ingenious, for the time, shooting galleries for the archers to fend off anyone outside the walls.  Bob and Pat didn’t want to take the tour of this castle so they just wandered about looking at things on their own.

Beaumaris Castle was our last site for the day and it was the only one we saw that was surrounded by a moat full of water.  Cited as a beautifully symmetrical castle it was small and its walls were pretty well preserved.  As castle number three for the day, however, we were running out of steam so we headed back to the village of Harlech, a quick dinner in a pub then back to the hotel.

Day 11 – Llechwedd Slate Mine, Conwy Castle, Rhuddlan Castle, Dolwyddelan Castle

The day started with a heavy downpour of rain.  Many other days have had showers, but today it was looking like this would settle in and stay for a while.  The plan had been to head to the castles first, but instead we decided to go underground.  This part of Wales is extensively underlain with deposits of shale from which so many British roofs are made, and the Llechwedd Slate Mine was nearby with a public tour.  We headed out of Harlech (through some very tiny, very steep roads) into the hills to  see the mine.

When we got there we had two choices – a shallow mine tour on a small mine train or a deep mine tour that would involve walking out several staircases.  They told us that parts of the deep mine tour might be flooded, so that made our decision easy.  We toured a little of the mine village (done up to simulate what life might have been like in the heyday of the mine, when hundreds of laborers were involved in the blasting, digging, splitting and stacking of the slate) then took our tour.  We climbed into little cars, wearing hardhats, and rolled into the mine.  I couldn't help but think of the Donkey Kong video game that Matt and Chili had played so much - “Mine Cart Carnage” - where the mine cart careened off the track.  Inside the mine they had mannequins dressed in period costume (turn of the 20^th century) and tried to show us what it was like to blast the slate off the ceiling, chip it up then load the mine carts.  Most of the miners didn't last too long – silicosis was their fate.

When we came out of the mine we headed to Conwy Castle, perhaps the best preserved of all Edward I's structures in Wales.  The city walls were largely intact and we hid from a passing shower next to them while we indulged in a fish and chips lunch.  Then we toured the castle overlooking the river.  The coastal castles were the norm because it was just too dangerous to supply them by land; all needed some kind of port so they could be stocked by ship.

The next castle we visited was Rhuddlan Castle, nearby but much smaller in size and more in ruins.  It had a curious moat and we were trying to figure out how they watered it.  Apparently not all moats held water, but the deep ditches offered the defenders inside the castle considerable strategic advantage over any outside attackers.  On the way back to our room, we tried to visit Dolwyddelan Castle but it was getting late and the ticket office had closed.  We looked at it on the hill above as the sun went down.  Finally we made it back to Harlech where we had an excellent meal at our hotel and, as was par for the course, a proper pint or two.

I've taken way too many photos of all the castles we saw and in the coming days I'll make sure and post them on my Flicker site.  I don't know if it comes through in these photos but we had so much fun with Bob and Jackie on this trip, they are great travel buddies.  Tomorrow: more castles, more rain, more funny photos...

Day 10 – Shrewsbury to Harlech via the Center for Alternative Technology, Meirion Woolery Mill, Castle y Bere

We got off to an early start and drove into Wales.  Suddenly everything changed – not in the way the countryside looked, but in the road signs!  Everything was written in both Welsh and English.  Or first stop was the Center for Alternative Technology, a former mine that was converted in the 1970’s into an environmental center.  It had a bit of a “commune” feel to it, with residents tending organic gardens, working the kitchen and running the water-powered inclined cable car.  The center featured alternative energy – sort of.  It displayed different types of insulation, green roofs, and solar panels but the wind energy diplay was bizarre; there were large pieces of turbines laying around and used as “sculpture.”  One blade formed a car bumper stop in the parking lot.  It was interesting though.

Our next stop was the Meirion Woolery Mill.  How could Pat pass that up?  Waste of time!  When we got there it was nothing more than a hyped-tourist store.  They told us “Oh.  There hasn’t been a woolen mill here for years!”  At least there was a very interesting structure - Pont Minllyn, a “pack horse” bridge.  While looking at this ancient structure two fighter jets screamed overhead – quite a technological contrast.

Finally, at the end of the day, we came to our first Welsh Castle - Castle y Bere.  This was mostly in ruins but we had the place to ourselves.  It commands a great view on top of a hill in a broad valley.  Wandering around the ruins it wasn’t hard to imagine the serfs in the fields below and the castle withstanding every attack – at least until they ran out of food, water or something else.

The rest of the day we spent on the road, arriving in Harlech at dinner time.  The inn was right below the massive Harlech Castle, which we would go see on another day…

Day 9 – Oxford to Shrewsbury, Through the Cotswolds

We got away at noon after a morning breakfast, a few loads of laundry and picking up the rental car.  We got a brand new 2010 Toyota Prius – a nice outcome since that is a car that we are considering purchasing the next time we need a car (which may be soon).  The four of us piled in with Jackie driving and off we went towards Wales, through the Cotswolds.

We drove through and stopped in several classic Cotswolds villages including Stow-on-the-Wold, Bourton-on-the-Water, Upper and Lower Slaughter and Chipping Campden.  Just the names alone bring images of British murder mysteries, Agatha Christie and knitters around every corner…

We ended that night at a Hampton Inn in Shrewsbury, in west central England.  It was a typical business-persons motel in a corporate park and in many ways it seemed like an American motel – spacious rooms, very quiet - but the one thing that was definitely different was the pub.  When we asked what time they closed the bartender simply said “we don’t.”  Nice.  We had a cold one before calling it a night.

The weather in England has been cold and wet.  We wear a sweater (jumper) most of the time and don’t go anywhere without our raincoats and umbrellas.  The showers never seem heavy enough to stop us from doing whatever we’ve planned on doing but it sure rains a lot in England.

Day 8 – Hadrian's Wall Hike and back to Oxford via Train

We left the Twice-Brewed Inn after a somewhat fitful night before.  We just happened to be there on the night of the “pub quiz,”  a rowdy, music filled night of follies where patrons compete for admittedly worthless prizes, but have a lot of fun nonetheless.  That all ended about midnight and through the middle of it Pat chatted online with her brothers Bob and Mike at the beach in North Carolina.  At one point Bob said “I can't quite make out what you're saying but I hear something – that was the music from the pub below up.  We had fun trading vacation barbs, but I'm still betting that we are having more fun here in Britain!

After a hearty English breakfast, we drove our rental car north to the Housesteads site and left it there.  We caught the Hadrian's Wall bus – yes, there really is such a thing – south to the Once Brewed Visitor's Center and began our hike up to Steel Rigg, our entry point for Hadrian's Wall.  We started in a slight drizzle and a cool wind, which fortunately (due to Pat's careful planning) was at our backs.  As we climbed up the steep, rocky slope to the wall the sun came out partially and we intermittently had our jackets on and off throughout the hike.

We traveled by foot for three miles over a route made famous by Roman emperors and soldiers almost 2,000 years ago.  The wall through this section was mostly intact, and every Roman mile (slightly less than a statute mile) we came across a “mile castle” which would have housed several soldiers.  The views of the valley below, including too many sheep to count and at least four beautiful lochs at the base of the cliffs were spectacular.  We also passed by the symmetrical sycamore tree in the pass made famous in a 1991 Robin Hood movie with Kevin Costner.  This hike was everything we had hoped it would be and more.  The people along the trail were friendly; some were day hikers like us while others were through-hikers enjoying a longer route.  We ended at the Housesteads fort and returned easily to our car.

From there we drove back to Penrith to return the rental car and get on the train.  The back road route that we picked took us through a beautiful, high mountain pass with fantastic scenery.  Once there we visited the Penrith Castle before settling in for the four hour train ride back to Oxford.  Back at our home base with Jackie and Bob, we found time for one quick pub ale in the Trinity College beer cellar before calling it a night.

I keep meaning to mention that I'm posting even more photos at my flicker site...can't put too many more images here so I've put the rest in an England set on my flicker page.

Day 7 – Friar's Crag, Castlerigg Stone Circle, Aira Force and Housesteads Roman Fort

As we woke up this morning (to another big English breakfast) we were pleased to see that the rain had let up a bit and there were a few patches of blue sky. We walked over to Friar's Crag for a final overlook of the Derwentwater then walked back through town center in Keswick. We picked up some Cornish Pasties for lunch and a few sweets in the bakery. As we were pulling out of town we stopped one more time at the Castlerigg Stone Circle since it was dry; while the view was grand we had to share the place with about 20 or 30 others but that was ok. We traded couples' photos with another couple then headed off to our next stop.

“Force” is another word for waterfall. The Aira Force flows from a deep slot into another nearby lake – Ullswater. We drove to the parking spot and took a nice, non-rainy hike uphill about a half mile to see the 70-foot force. It was really spilling quite a bit of dark, tannin-stained water from all the recent rain. The wind and spray at the bottom was very strong. At both the bottom and the top, the view is fantastic from old stone bridges. After the hike, we parked near Ullswater and enjoyed our pasties – meat and vegetable pies encased in a thick crusty shell. Supposedly, these were the lunches of Cornish miners who could eat them with dirty hands then throw out the nasty crust they had used to hold them. I ate a little of my crust but it truly was just a “handle” - dry and tasteless. The rest of the pasty was delicious though!

After a quick hour up the highway we arrived in Once Brewed (yes, that's the name of the town) at the Twice Brewed Inn. There we got a small room over the pub with the water closets and showers down the hall (I'm hoping it's not too busy tomorrow morning...). The view out the window was of Hadrian's Wall, built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the second century. This wall extends 74 miles across Britain, from west to east. It is just south of the England-Scotland border but not by much. Pat and I had always wanted to walk the whole thing but on this trip we'll settle for a 2.5 mile walk on one of the prettiest sections.

At the eastern end of where we'll hike we visited the Housestead Fort ruins. Built and occupied from the middle second through fourth centuries AD, the ruins lie along a hillside just north of Hadrian's Wall. The foundations and some really amazing features still remain, after almost two millennia. Surrounding the fort are treeless hillsides and pastures filled with nothing but stone-walled paddocks, lambs and ewes. As I write this here (before the pub turned up the music, that is) all I can hear is an occasional car passing by along with lots of bleating and baa-ing. Knitter's paradise!

Day 6 – Derwent Water, the Catbells and the Honister Pass

We started the day with a “proper” English breakfast, cooked by Richard and served by Linda at the B&B. We had fruit, rolls, toast, jam, butter, coffee, orange juice, ham (bacon, they called it), sausage, eggs and a stewed tomato. We passed on the cereal, milk, yogurt, beans and mushrooms but we could have had them if we wanted! After breakfast, Linda talked us out of hiking the Catbells, a ridgeline hike that climbs hundreds of feet above the lake but is very slippery. Also, the clouds had mostly obscured the tops of the fells (mountains) and so we figured if you can't see up from down, you wouldn't be able to see the views of “down” from up! Good logic, so we thought. We opted to ride the Keswick Launch around the lower part of the lake then disembark for the hike along the lower shoulder of the Catbells. It was not as big a hike but was judged to be “doable” in the clouds and predicted light rain. The launch, by the way, is a beautiful wooden boat, about 50' overall length, for ferrying passengers on the hour-long, seven-stop route around the lake.

We disembarked at the only stop available – after weeks of drought the region was now seeing floods and the landing spot we wanted was underwater! Oh well – but it made for a longer and by the time we got back – much wetter walk. We hiked around the NW edge of the lake and stopped in for a coffee and scone at a small cafe at a boat rental along the lake. The scone – which we ate with clotted cream and jam (yum) – was fantastic and the stop gave us a much needed reprieve from the rain which was by now a pretty steady downpour. Apparently there are three kinds of British rains – umbrella rain, raincoat rain and then umbrella AND raincoat rain. This was the latter!

As we walked back to Keswick though the outskirt streets we noted that nowhere in this Northern Lakes region did we see McDonald's or other commercial chain stores or restaurants. Keswick has not been “Americanized” and still retains a lot of genuine English character. We commented several times that we really felt like we were in the England that we had read about and seen on TV, rather than some watered-down version of it. Interesting! We made it back to our room by mid-afternoon after about a four-mile walk around the western and northern sides of the lake.

After drying out for 30 minutes or so back in our room, we took the car for a round-trip around the lake, over Honister Pass. We got a bumpy start as some of the roads became one-lane and we were already having a rough time being on the left. When the buses and trucks (lorries) came zooming up it was bit scary, but we managed. The pass itself was amazing – rain by now was pouring down in sheets and the road was very steep. We passed the Honister Slate Mine at the top of the pass then descended along with major rivulets of water into the small town of Buttermere. We took a different mountain pass home and found massive waterfalls pouring out of the hillsides – truly beautiful but photography was almost impossible due to the downpour.

We made it back to Keswick then rounded our day out with a bowl of “Hungarian Goulash” and pints of ale at the Dog and Gun pub. Sleep was no problem that night...

Day 5 – Travel to North Lakes District

We hopped back on the train for a four hour ride from Oxford to Penrith, in the North Lakes District. Two people made us want to go there: Rick Steves and Beth Daniels. Rick is our favorite European travel writer (of PBS fame) and Beth is our friend from church and Pat's knitting group. When we told her we were going to England she shared with us a book she had from many years ago, hikes and walks in the North Lakes District. It was a small, hand-written and hand-illustrated book that we thought reflected a simple time and place. I'm happy to report that once we got there, it was like stepping back in time and it probably wasn't much different from how Beth saw it.

But...moving back, we had to get from Penrith to Keswick along Derwent Water (the lake) so we rented a car. Driving on the left is SO MUCH FUN and a SIMPLE thing to do...HAH!...but really, don't try this at home! We managed to navigate to Keswick thanks to good luck and Bif's GPS (thanks for that) and found our B&B very easily. Linda (proprietor) met us and welcomed us with more information about the area and its walks than we could possibly absorb. We finished the evening with a quick, rain-soaked walk to see the Castlerigg Stone Circle, one of Britain's oldest and we had it almost completely to ourselves. Then we came back into town, ate a quick pizza (nice – even with a British sausage on it) then called it a night.

Day 4 – Stonehenge, Avebury Stone Circle & Bath

Just an aside: not only do Brits drive on the other side of the road but people walk that way, escalators are laid out the reverse of ours and the hot and cold taps are switched around. If that doesn't keep you confused enough, sometimes these “rules” don't hold (except the driving part...)

Jackie had planned a Saturday trip to Stonehenge for those students that wanted to go and she timed it so Chuck and I could be included. The bus ride was a breeze; we left early enough to avoid the incredible crowds that were surging in as we were leaving. Stonehenge is amazing and you get the chills just standing there. They're not sure why it was built but we do know it was a lot of work and all done by hand. Really impressive. It would be fun to be there on the summer solstice, if not to see the sun come through the arches at sunrise then at least to see all the wacky people celebrating!

Jackie had a nice picnic lunch for everyone that included sandwiches, crisps and fruit. The Brits put some pretty odd stuff on their sandwiches...

At any rate, we then walked around the stone circle at Avebury which is very, very large and well preserved, much bigger than Stonehenge. It is a much older circle but the standing rocks aren't carved and they don't form arches, they are just rolled into place and then stood up. A village and two roads pass right through it, so it is more of a “living” circle.

From there we went to Bath to tour the Roman Baths. The National Trust controls most of the historic sites in Britian and seems to do a pretty good job of controlling the flow of humanity. In most of the places we toured, you pay your admission and are given a hand-set that tells you about the things that you are seeing and walking by; these seem to pace the crowds and keep everyone moving at about the same rate. Everything we've seen has been well preserved when you consider the numbers of people that tour them everyday. Everything in England closes at 5pm. Bath was crowded in the extreme but standing on ruins over 2,000 years old makes it well worth the wait and crowds.

We returned back to Oxford around 8pm, tossed in two quick loads of laundry and called it a night.

Day 3 – Greenwich and the Prime Meridian

We took the tube to the high speed commuter Catamaran and rode that down the Thames to Greenwich, passing under the Tower Bridge. Upon our arrival in Greenwich we toured the National Maritime Museum; it has some really nice displays but it was packed with nannies and prams. 

From there we walked up the hill to the Royal Observatory and the prime meridian. As all tourists must do, we stood with one foot in the east and one in the west. The Observatory is laid out for touring through the complexities of accurate timekeeping for determining longitude. We saw several of the early chronometers and timepieces that were real accomplishments for their time, making accurate navigation possible.

 

 We then strolled back into town and found a pub where we had Bangers and Mash for dinner. Both Chuck and I thought is was an awesome meal. And people say you don't come to England for the food...

The weather so far has been cold enough to require a sweat shirt most of the time. It chooses to rain sporadically and seems like so far we have been indoors when it does.

We headed back under the river by elevated rail (?) and switched to the tube, ending up with our luggage at Paddington Station for the train trip out to Oxford. It was too crowded in the station to get a photo of Paddington Bear but his statue is there. This station is huge with tons of platforms; luckily we didn't lose Bob. To Chuck's delight the Great Western Paddington Station Band was playing on the platform and we stood and listened to them for awhile (Chuck's note: standing behind the band, I saw the euphonium player get the conductor's “evil eye” for a missed entrance. I unfortunately recognized that look from experience!) The train to Oxford was quick and efficient and Jackie was there to meet us on the platform when we arrived. At Trinity College of Oxford University, where Jackie is directing Georgetown University's summer program, we settled into our room on stairway 6. Jackie and Bob came into our room and we all sat there and visited until midnight.

Day 2 – London with Bob

We woke up fresh and ready to see some London. The first place we went was Westminster Abbey for the Verge tour which was great, really informative. I had read Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth before I left home and that really added to the tour. The priest that was doing the hourly prayers that week at theNo Abbey walked with our tour and I talked to him for a while and learned about the roles that the visiting monks, nuns and priests preform. 

No photos allowed inside!  Westminster Abbey is a functioning house of worship.  Inside, we passed the tombs of many famous scientists, composers, authors, statesmen and clerics.  Too many names to mention.

We left the Abby and walked up to Trafalgar Square past the Royal Horse guard, which did a changing of the guard right in front of us. That was neat but signs warned us to "watch out - horses bite and kick." We returned to the Abbey to hear a brass band preform a lunch time concert; Chuck was in his element.

We had lunch at a Fuller's Pub - meat pie and ale ...

 ...then we strolled past Buckingham Palace. I know the Queen wanted me to stop and say “hello” but there were menacing guards standing at all the gates, so I didn't poke my head in. 

We popped into a tube station and rode up to the British Museum, a really beautiful museum full of amazing treasures. We did a quick tour through Egypt, Asyria and Greece, seeing the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles.

That night Chuck and I had tickets to see the ceremony of the keys, this is when they lock up the Tower of London and all the Royal Jewels. That was just neat to see and I would recommend anyone heading over get tickets.