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Published: November 15th 2008
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Wales
gardens at Penhryn castle FINALLY I am about to tour a bit of the country I will be living in the next couple of months. I am very excited to see Wales, and I’ll be very honest I do not know much about it considering I am studying here. I was happy to know where in the UK it’s located before I left - pretty sure Tecwyn will make sure we know a lot more than that before we leave. The best way to learn is to go visit and see history first-hand. The list of sites in Wales we saw are:
Sep. 14th visit Penhryn Castle
Sep. 15th Snowdonia - including devil’s kitchen, the Ugly House, St. Winifred’s Well, Swallow Falls, Slate Mines,
Sep. 16th Chester
First, Penhryn Castle history… it was owned by Lord Penhryn who made his living off the slate mines. In fact his entire castle is made completely out of slate. Who knew slate could be so pretty, especially when you see it just about everywhere you look in Wales. We got some wonderful little audio guides to listen to… and quickly shut them off because they were too annoying. Whoever thought of audio guides
Wales
view from Penhryn castle had a good idea, but it’s like an audio book - when the voice tells you to “turn the page” it makes sense. This audio contraption liked to jump from the kitchen to the bedroom while you were still in the main living quarters. Needless to say, I quickly stopped listening to mine and tried to sneak pictures. After our entertaining tour we took a walk through the gardens, and witnessed what Tecwyn meant by the castle being a sore issue with the community members. A part of the garden had been burned down during the summer. It wasn’t anything big, but it did play into how Lord Penhryn wasn’t well liked within the city or the slate miners. But, we’ll learn more about that tomorrow.
The next day was quite the scenic view of northern Wales. Our first stop was out for some fresh air at Devil’s Kitchen, in Snowdonia (Snowdonia is a national park that we happen to be living in… perfect!). Here Tecwyn told us some folklore about King Arthur and showed us the lake where Excalibur lies waiting for someone to retrieve it and lead Wales to freedom. It, of course, was a bit misty,
Wales
Penhryn castle but we’re getting used to that. It made the hike out pretty spectacular. Everything is so much greener than green, it’s weird to see such a stark color (sorry, colour). I like it. From there we hopped back onto our bus and headed out to the Ugly House. It was more of a history topic for Tecwyn to share with us than to visit so here’s what I learned. Back in the day (I’m horrible with dates… hence why I am not a history major) people were allowed to own land in Wales for free, under some guidelines. They had to construct a house in 24 hours and have smoke coming through the chimney. Once this was accomplished then they could stand with their back against the outside wall and throw and ax as far as then could. Where it landed marked the radius of their land. The Ugly House we visited was one of the last remaining of these one room, quick designed houses. It wasn’t really set up for tourists to go in, we tried and were quickly shooed out the door. We did go exploring in the woods behind the house. Our five minute stop quickly turned
Wales
Paulie, Nalan, Alicia, me, Hass, Drew into about 15 and Tecwyn was left running his hands over his bald head trying to get us back on the bus.
The bus rides are not too bad because we can still look at the country side. At first we were enjoying looking at the mountains, and then we noticed there are sheep…. Everywhere! Even all the way on top of the mountain those little white dots are sheep. They seem to almost pimple the scenery (in a good way). Absolutely amazing that sheep just roam free and aren’t penned up on a farm, they literally have miles and acres of land to just eat away (which is why they are trying to introduce cattle into the farm scene because the sheep eat everything). From there we went to Swallow Falls (here tecwyn taught us how to get in without paying!). It was really pretty, and really lame you would have to pay to see a bunch of waterfalls. This time there wasn’t anywhere to go explore which meant we were back on schedule.
We had a slightly strict schedule because of our tours booked in the slate mines. Yippee skippy we get to go tour dark,
Wales
the Penhryn Castle cold, freezing, wet, mines to look at some more slate! (and the British think American’s can’t be sarcastic.) The first tour was a bit hokey and touristy with old store mannequins dressed up as slate miners as we followed lights and a bodiless voice around. Then next was interesting because it was led by old miners, or men whose fathers were miners. They actually showed us more than just the mine, but how people used to live. It starts to make sense why a community of poor miners would hate a man who makes riches off their work while they starve.
Oh yea, we visited St. Winifred’s well (she’s a welsh saint). Pretty interesting story, and again we were told all about it in an audio tour. I stopped listening to mine. Instead I just walked around and read everything. This proved to be much more interesting and informative. The story goes that St. Winifred died defending her chastity. The villain cut off her head and it rolled down a hill. Where it stopped rolling a spring began to form, her uncle (another saint) sewed her head back onto her body and she was miraculously healed. That spring is
Wales
there were some unusual plants in the garden... and people (Paulie, Nalan) rumored to be holy water, and those who come to the well are healed. There are numerous crutches in the museum (not really a museum, but I don’t know what to call it) of people who have come to the well and then left after being healed, not needing their crutches anymore. (eh, I like our other stops better, even the slate mine - but that’s a personal choice.)
The next day was our big adventure in Chester. It’s quite a big city, and a tourist attraction in Northern Wales. It has a lot of Roman influence and Georgian style buildings. There’s an old Roman wall that used to surround the city, inside the wall’s are a unique set of two story outdoor shops. We had some time to wonder around and find food before our tour of the cathedral. Anything with the status of city means it has a cathedral (Bangor has a cathedral too). Our tour of the cathedral was actually really good, and surprisingly it was lead by an audio tour. Finally I got to know a little bit about what I am looking at. I don’t follow the Catholic faith, but I do enjoy the
Wales
view of wales... with rain clouds in view beauty of the cathedrals - even if I don’t understand any of it. After that we had a personal guide of Chester. He was not funny, and he did not want to give us a tour, so we equally did not want to get a tour from him. After all of that everybody else left for Bangor. Alicia, Kiley, Hass, Nalan, Drew, Paulie, and I stayed until our night train to Scotland. What better way to wait for a train then to find some food and a good happy hour?! Which we did at a Mexican restaurant (who knew American's would be craving Mexican). Important lesson to learn if you order chips and salsa - You will get French fries and salsa… and we wondered why the waitress looked at us weird.
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