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Published: September 24th 2014
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Cyfarchion (greetings) from Wales
We have spent two days in Wales and had a thoroughly great time. On Monday we visited our dear friends Roy and Gwyneth who we met on our Mediterranean cruise last year. They live in Caerleon which is in the outskirts of the city of
Newport where the NATO meeting was held a couple of weeks ago. There were no helicopter gunships or tanks left over from the meeting thankfully!
Caerleon is a pretty village that is notable for being the site of a notable
Roman legionary
fortress,
Isca Augusta. The Wales
National Roman Legion Museum and
Roman Baths Museum are here. It blew me away to be standing in a place where the Romans lived and worked in 75 AD. Last time we stayed, it was raining all the time, but it was a pretty place on a sunny day.
After an enormous lunch (lucky I had my stretchy pants on) we waved goodbye to Roy and Gwyneth and headed for Cardiff. It’s a place we hadn‘t visited and had heard mixed things about: good and bad. We were pleasantly surprised about how lovely the city centre and bay area were.
We stayed at a B&B called Ty Rosa which is Welsh for ‘pink house’. I knew it was run by gay guys but I hadn’t realised that it was one of the top 10 gay and lesbian guest houses in Europe and the number 1 B&B in Cardiff. They advertise themselves in this way “From the moment you step over the threshold a warm Welsh welcome awaits whether you are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) or straight, as we are even hetero-friendly”.
The most outstanding feature of the place is the incredible breakfast. The breakfast menu is by far the best I have ever seen in a B&B and most restaurants. Peter sampled the Welsh fare, ordering the laver bread, cockles, bacon and poached eggs. Laverbread is a traditional
Welsh delicacy made from laver (seaweed). To make laverbread, the seaweed is boiled for several hours, then minced. gelatinous paste that results is coated with oatmeal prior to frying.
Traditionally it’s eaten with cockles which are small saltwater clam. It’s quite strange. Imagine fried seaweed laden with oats and tiny salty shellfish eaten with eggs and bacon! It’s obviously an acquired taste. Richard Burton has been quoted as
describing laverbread as "Welshman's
caviar"!!!. It was nice, but he didn’t finish his plate.. the next day was mackerel and poached eggs on a bagel. He polished off that one.
While we are on the subject of food, we have eaten Eccles cakes and welsh cakes both of which are yummy. I know you would be jealous Mam! An Eccles cake is a small, round cake filled with
currants and made from
flaky pastry with butter, Eccles cakes are named after the English town of
Eccles. James Birch is credited with being the first person to sell Eccles cakes in the town centre, in 1793. Fortunately ours were not left over from 1793!
Welsh cakes are like a scone. Only instead of baking them in the oven they are cooked on a griddle or in a frying pan, which gives them a golden brown outer crust, and a soft middle. I am saving Welsh Rarebit for next time.
We did all we could in Cardiff, from the shopping centre, to the market, the National Museum, the Castle, the boat trip down the Taff River to the old docks area, the Torchwood step, the closed (yes, closed for 8
weeks for refurbishment) Dr Who Experience. We even called into the Assembly to see the Welsh parliament in Session. And question time is still dominated by Dorothy Dixers.
Bit sad about the Dr Who experience but the rest of Cardiff more than made up for it. Even the weather was kind. We are off to Northern Ireland today to spend a few days with the Erwins. Hope the weather hold off a bit longer so we can have a traditional Northern Ireland BBQ with David. I hear he’s the best BBQer in NI. He did his apprenticeship in Australia!
love Sandy and pj xx
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