Day Five (Across the Irish Sea to Wales)

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No ghosts and no breakfast again. But we were up early in order to head out to the docks for our ferry ride over to Wales. James was in a big hurry to beat the anticipated rush hour. We had already said goodbye to our Irish bus driver Patrick after our city tour the previous day. Today we had a new driver and bigger bus to take us to the docks. It was a good thing we had more room because everyone was now lugging a handful of new shopping bags.

Because there was NO traffic on the roads this morning we arrived at the dockyard terminal much too early . As we pulled up to the front of the terminal I was amazed by the size of our ferry, Ulysses. It was as big as an aircraft carrier and looked to be the tallest ship I've ever seen.

We were forced to wait a little over an hour for boarding, but once they started letting people on board we got on quickly and easily. The concourse of the ship was much prettier than our Greek cruise ship and ultra-modern.

Our hotel this evening would be at The Hand Hotel in Llangollen, Wales

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Photos

The arrival concourse aboard Ulysses
Unlike the Greek cruise ship we had been on just 7 days before, this ship had an elevator that worked so we were able to pull our luggage around easily. While some of the kids in our group sat in this area and watched everyone's bags, Gail, her Mom and I walked around this deck visiting the pub, the restaurants, the big store, the movie theater and the game room.

Passing through the bar
At 9:00 in the morning I wasn't really in the mood to have a drink in the bar nor was anyone else. Actually, the ship was pretty empty everywhere we went. We still had a few Euro left over from Ireland and since we were no heading to the UK where pounds are the currency, we felt an urgency to spend those last few Euro. In the big shop we grabbed some candy, of course and a couple sodas. When we got to the theater area Gail decided she was going to suntan/rest so she headed off for the top deck. I stood outside and watched our very rapid progress as we pulled out of Dublin harbor and headed into the Irish Sea.
I finally found a nice quiet area with reclining chairs where I took a nice one hour nap once we got underway.

Artsy Fartsy
After our naps we walked over to the restaurant where we spent our last few Euro on lunch. Gail had cake and I ate a sandwich. Before we knew it the announcement was being made that we were arriving in Holyhead, Wales. I snapped this peering out of one of the portholes.

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
The port town of Holyhead isn't exactly a tourist hotbed. As soon as we met up with our new, and much smaller bus, we took a one hour ride South. The terrain we passed through was about as dull and unexciting as the wheatfields of Iowa. Not only did we have a new bus, but we also now had an English bus driver, Mark. Just when I was about to fall asleep on the bus we pulled into our first stop in Wales - Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. The town is famous for one thing - the fact that it is the longest place name in the World. The building we are about to enter is a gigantic souvenir shop plumb full of items with that long name on it. It's actually a pretty nice store with excellent clean toilets and lots of food items. At this point I already felt like I had too much to bring home and we were only a couple days into the trip.

The legend of Thomas Telford
After leaving Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch we headed further South toward the tip of the Island of Anglesey. We had done this exact same detour on our previous trip in 2002 but I had found Wales more to my liking than Ireland and was looking forward to the upcoming stop. We were headed for Beaumaris Castle. Our route took us along the treacherous tidal strait that separates Anglesey from the rest of the Welsh mainland. One of the greatest engineering feats of the 19th Century was Thomas Telford's Bridge across the Menai Strait. This was one of over 1000 bridges Telford designed. In the next few days we would learn that Telford seemed to have a hand in every bridge and building we passed throughout Northern England and Scotland.

Beaumaris, Wales
This is a tiny little town that I greatly enjoyed the last time we took a trip through Wales. It seems very "English" and laid-back despite the dual tourist lures of being a seaside town and home to a magnificent castle.

Beaumaris Castle
Built by the infamous Edward the First, this is one of the best preserved Medieval castles in the World. When Edward was trying to hold on to the territory he had won from the Welsh he decided to build a series of castles to protect his officials and troops. Beaumaris never became the powerful center of power that Edward expected mainly because he was soon off to more battles up North with the Scots. Because of his continued belligerence his treasury was unable to support both his armies and dreams of building fortifications across all of Britain.

The moat
Beaumaris castle faces Garth Celyn on the opposite shore of the narrow Menai Strait and was constructed here, together with Conwy castle and Caernarfon castle at either end of the Menai Strait, to control the shipping traffic in the area. It is an easily defendable site, but by the time the castle was nearing completion, funds were cut off and the project was never completed. Nevertheless, it is still seen as the most sophisticated and architecturally symetrical castles ever built.

Dockside Gate
This was not intended to be the main gate of the castle. That would've been on the North side of the castle but it was never completed. This entrance borders the docks where merchants would have to stop to pay tolls. If they had any nasty intentions toward the castle's inhabitants this gate offered a number of surprises for any invader. Just above the entrance are the "murder holes" where hot oil could be poured down on the intruders. If they somehow got past this an attacker would still have to face eleven more defenses before getting to the center of the castle. They'd need to fight through the barbican, another series of "murder holes," three portcullises and a few more heavy wooden doors. Anybody too bloodied or too tired to carry on would face infillading fire from almost all directions if he paused between the inner and outer walls.

Tower in the Keep
Inside the castle walls things look a little more weathered by the years. This was one of the towers that stood in the residential center of the castle complex.

The North wall
Looking from the top of the keep to toward the North you can see just how much open land the castle defenders could cover. I do wonder about that hill in the distance, the one with all the trees. Seems like a perfect spot to set-up ones' trebuchet and catapaults.

Looking to the South
It's easy to see that the castle defenders had a pretty nice view of the harbor and any enemies that might try to sail toward them. I just wonder how often this part of Wales gets as clear a day as this.

The inner Bailey
This was the very heart of the castle. The apartments that could have been built in this section (but never were) would have been extravagant for that period in history. It is believed that Edward had plans to use this castle as one of his primary homes.

Atop the Southern Gate
Gail, her Mom and I spent a lot of time traipsing around the castle walls. I noticed that sections we had been able to climb on a few years before were now sectioned off. Even so, the supposed "safe" sections must be pretty dicey in wet or freezing weather.

The local post office
When we felt we had seen pretty much everything we could see inside the castle, we still found ourselves with time on our hands. We took a leisurely walk through Beaumaris and spotted this post office on one of the side streets.

Yecccch
Just around the next corner I ran into this tribute to the color "mulberry".

Down to the harbor
After doing the obligatory tour of each souvenir shop we passed, we headed down toward Beaumaris harbor. As I was in Ireland, I was once again surprised to see so few people take advantage of the lovely weather to go sailing or fishing.

High tide
On our previous visit most of these same boats were laying askew on top of mud flats.

I have no idea what this building is
Our walk on this very hot day took us out on a wooden pier extending into the harbor. A nice breeze gave us some relief from the hear, but a nice big bottle of Fanta worked even better. I searched the internet trying to figure out what this building is, but to no avail. My guess is that it is/was some sort of royal/government structure.

Heading over Telford's Menai Strait's Bridge
After a little more souvenir shopping we returned to the bus. It was almost 4:00 when we left Beaumaris headed toward our hotel on the Welsh mainland. To get there we had to go over this famous old bridge. I took this shot to show just how narrow the Starit is and why having Beaumaris Castle positioned where it was was so vital. The castle sits at the tip of the green area on the left side.

Everybody hold your breath
It may be a little hard to see in this picture but the width of the bridge towers was barely enough to let us pass through. Poor Mark earned his paycheck getting us through here without a scratch.