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We're back with another installment of the
Adventures of Will & Bri! This time our adventures included two friends: Heather, an American from Philadelphia and Andy, an Englishman from...England! Both of them are teachers at the same school as us. Heather teaches Math and Andy teaches P.E. Since it was a long weekend, we decided to avoid doing any work and go on a road trip to North Wales!
Wales is a neighbouring country to England. We chose Wales as our destination for this long weekend because of our recent passport fiasco and the fact that we are not required to show our passports when crossing into the country. We hired a car on Friday night (Bri was the chauffeur) and made the 4 hour trek to our hotel in North Wales. We arrived at our Traveloge just outside of Bangor shortly after midnight. Being exhausted from a long day of work and a long drive, we promptly checked into our rooms and got a good night's sleep to prepare for the next day's adventures.
Good morning! We woke up to glorious sunshine on Saturday morning and enjoyed a mediocre breakfast at Little Chef in our hotel. Desination #1: Snowdon Mountain
Railway in Llanberis, located in the region of Snowdonia. Snowdonia is a national park, world-famous for its mountainous landscape and many castles. The Mountain Railway is the only rack and pinion railway in the UK and travels to the summit of Mount Snowdon, Wales' highest mountain. However, despite the wonderful sunshine, the train was only going 3/4 of the way up the mountain due to poor visibility at the summit. The scenery was absolutely stunning! Destination #2: Visit to Bangor. After our trip up Mount Snowdon, we hopped back into the car and drove to the city centre in Bangor. We spent a few hours walking around the city and found our way to the water's edge (Menai Strait) where we walked along the pier and watched some kids crabbing. After this, we made our way back to the hotel to ask reception for any dinner reccommendations (not that the Little Chef wasn't decent...we just wanted something a little bit more classy!). The person at reception reccommended a pub called the
Vaynol Arms about 3 miles down the road. What a good reccommendation it was! The food was really fantastic and such great quality. Will says it was the best
rack of lamb he has ever had in his life and Bri's salmon was to die for!
Our second day in Wales consisted of castle-hopping! We first visited
Caernarfon Castle. This castle was built by King Edward I, starting in 1283. It was built not only as a military stronghold but also as a seat of government and a royal palace. The Investiture of Prince Charles took place on July 1, 1969 on the grounds of Caernarfon Castle. Prince Charles was crowned by his mother, Queen Elizabeth, in a televised ceremony and gave his replies and speech in both Welsh and English. The second castle we visited was
Penrhyn Castle. The castle, built in the early 19th century for the prosperous Pennant family, is surrounded by beautiful flowers and trees and stunning views over Snowdonia. The interior of the castle is very elaborate, filled with rich furnishings and tapestries. Lastly, in the evening, we crossed the Menai Bridge in Bangor to visit the Isle of Anglesey. We parked the car and walked around the grounds of
Beaumaris Castle. The building of this castle began in 1295. It was the last castle built by King Edward I as part of
his campaign to conquer North Wales. However, it was never completed as money and supplies ran out before the fortifications reached their full height. After visiting the castle we had dinner at the Neptune Café. We all ordered fish and chips as this seemed to be the café's signature dish, but the portions were
massive! Will was the only one who actually finished his entire meal! Then, it was back to the hotel for the evening where we just chilled out in Heather & Andy's room over some tea and coffee and a super-boring game of Snooker on the television.
Sadly, the final day arrived and we had to start our drive home. We left the hotel shortly after 9:00am to try and avoid the holiday traffic jams. Our drive was pretty smooth until we reached the A41, approximately 18 miles from Aylesbury. We were stuck in stop-and-go traffic for about 20 minutes but eventually made it home! Now, unfortunately, it's time to go back to work tomorrow. But, there are only 3 more weeks until the next half-term break!
Ciao for now!
Love, Will & Bri
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