A Day Out in North Wales

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     The day was not what I really wanted it to be; however, by the end of the day I learned a lot of history, seen some amazing sites, and got close to an animal or two. Wales has such a diverse geography; we traveled through flatlands/plains, hit some small hills, saw the coastline, and traveled into (literally and figuratively) mountains. Yes, Wales is very different than Wisconsin…actually it might be easier to classify it like a mini US—without deserts that is.

     We began our adventure at 9:15am on campus. Peter the driver picked us up and took us through Chester and out to Wales. We passed over Old Dee Bridge from Chester into the city of Handbridge. Peter explained that its nicknamed “The Burning Town” because the townspeople of Chester would, in the old days, throw burning rubbish over the river to keep the Welsh out. Talk about hatred! The Duke of Westminster owns much of the land in the city of Chester now; he is the richest aristocrat in the United Kingdom with a fortune worth over $12 billion dollars! He is the chancellor of the university I attend, he owns a mile of prime city centre in London (think Parliament, Big Ben, and the Tower of London), and he owns Eaton Hall in Cheshire which sits on 11,000 acres of land.

     Once we got out of Chester and soon thereafter, England, we were in Welsh country! As we passed a church named Marble Church, Peter told us two stories about five black crosses and it was up to us to determine which story is true and which one is false. One story was set during the first world war and the second was set during the second world war. The correct story goes something like this: a camp of Canadians (England’s allies during the first war) were set to return home after five years of fighting when their ship had been re-commissioned to bring back troops from France. The Canadians were so upset that they started a riot with their English comrades. The fight spilled out from the mess hall and into the streets of the city, Bodelwyddan. The riot got so out of hand that 56 people died, including 5 women and an 11-year old girl. The riot did not stop until one brave Canadian realized how stupid the whole thing was, stood in the line of fire and set his weapon at his feet. An English soldier followed suit and the two men hugged in the battlefield of former allies. The riot ended as suddenly as it began. An inquest was held to decipher who was to blame for the causing the riot. After a long hearing, they found five Canadians responsible—the five that were found guilty just so happened to be dead. Their sentence was to be taken 1 mile out to sea and publicly dishonored by being dumped into the water. The priest of the town disagreed with the sentence and came up with a compromise: the five men would be buried with the other victims of the riot but the guilty men would have a black unnamed cross placed at the foot of their grave in a form of dishonorment.

     We traveled several minutes more (a total of about an hour from Chester) to the small quayside (seaside) town of Llandudno. I was surprised to see this in Wales because it seemed so English to me. Along the Promenade are rows upon rows of cream and pastel coloured Victorian buildings housing stores, hotels, restaurants, and bed and breakfasts. A beautiful beach and walkway completes the picturesque setting. As we rode into the city, Peter informed us that Tony Blair was only a few feet away from us inside a building on the waterfront for a speech he was to make in an hour or so. We continued on through the town to take a winding, sloping road up the Great Orme. Orme, in old Norse, is translated into ‘sea monster.’ Take a look at the picture I posted of the Great Orme…does it look like a sea monster to you? Look harder…think of an alligator…do you see it?

     In addition to being a great place to walk, hike and ski, the Great Orme was once used as a copper mine. Archeologists have been studying this site for years and they believe that it was used for mining even back as far as the Stone Age. Peter drove us to the top of the hill and we had great views of the coastline, the Irish Sea, and sheep. Sheep, by the way, is a huge industry in Wales; in fact, there are 2.98 million people living in Wales and there are more than three times that amount of sheep! 9 million sheep in one country! The sheep could rebel, demand their own wages, strike for equality of both black and white sheep…think of the possibilities of three sheep to every one person, it’s scary.

     Back to Llandudno…because we were at a very high point (on top of the alligator’s head), the wind was something fierce! I took a couple of quick photo snaps and raced back to the van. As we coasted down the road back into town, we saw on the side of one hill hundreds of white-grey rocks arranged to form names. Peter explained that it was local custom to spell out a lover’s name with the rocks.

     Peter dropped us off in front of the Grand Hotel in Llandudno but not before he told us that the ballroom on the ground floor (the basement to Americans) was used in the movie “Yanks” starring Richard Gere and Vanessa Redgrave in 1979. The film, apparently, was horrible, but nonetheless, Peter said, we can take pictures in the same ballroom Richard Gere was in. I decided to skip that trip through history and I headed out on the pier. The wind was much gentler here than up on the hill so I wandered with ease. The pier is an amazing 2,295 feet of wood and metal stretching out into the vast Irish Sea. I walked past little shops, some open, most closed. A candy shop was open, selling fudge and sweet rainbow sucker-sticks; another sold gaudy trinkets that reminded me of most of the shops in Wisconsin Dells. I walked further along the pier and found an old enclosed penny arcade; sounds of buzzing, whirring, shrills and squeaks emanated from the open door along with a barely audible “Hung Up” by Madonna playing over the noise of the games. At the very end of the pier was a lowered platform that held several fishermen and their equipment. I had seen a shop at the beginning of the pier that sold live bait (eels, lug worms) and fishing gear. Unfortunately I did not see anyone having any luck that morning so I turned back and headed down the other side of the pier—nearer to the Grand Hotel. This apparently is the children’s area since there were numerous rides and fair-like games. None of the rides were in operation—off-season strikes again—but just as I was about to turn back I caught an unusual sight…a stairway leading to…nowhere? It was quite interesting, especially with two seagulls perched on the top railing like guards.

     Moving on, we gathered into the bus and headed to the city of Conwy, about ten minutes drive from Llandudno. The town is similar to Chester in that it is surrounded by city walls; these walls, however, are not as old as Chester’s. Conwy castle began its construction in 1283 under King Edward I (the infamous king in “Braveheart”). I bought a book from the gift shop that had all the history and information about the castle in it and I read through some of it but it was too boring to finish. Seriously I don’t think much happened at the castle because the book mostly just describes the building of it, how it fell into disrepair, how it was fixed up several times, then finally became a historic landmark. The book also pointed out some facts and unique features to the castle but honestly, it’s too boring to repeat here. So I’m going to only recount my own viewing of the castle.

     We started off as a group going through the castle together but we quickly dispersed—the guys already inside the castle and the girls still outside taking pictures. Tickets cost 4 pounds to explore the castle, which, in my opinion, is a little expensive…and that was the discounted student price! I passed through the gift store and onto the wooden boardwalk twisting around up to the castle. The day was overcast and gloomy…not a good day for taking pictures of the castle. I got to the castle entrance and was surprised to see how green the grass was inside; I shouldn’t have been surprised since it rains all the time in Wales—or so I’m told. It’s probably like Florida—rains for a couple minutes everyday then turns sun-shiny for the rest of the day. Unfortunately for me, the day would not turn sunny. I turned around and snapped some pictures of the harbor before entering the castle. The tide was out so most of the boats were beached whales. The castle walls extended through the car park and continuously around the city. I could just see the outline of the farthest walls, dark looming stone against the lightly coloured houses of Conwy.

     The castle is huge—gargantuan; it has 8 towers and was originally white. What a magnificent sight that must have been—to see this beautifully bright white castle shining in the distance. I climbed up and down dark staircases, staircases barely long enough for my foot to fit on the step, staircases that were wet and cold, staircases that were horribly uneven and staircases with only a coarse rope winding around for support. I explored every tower and even got enough courage to get up to the top of a turret—which is extremely high. Looking into the courtyard, the footpath looks very castle-y, right? Well on closer look--that is--walking on the path proves that it is not the best footpath to walk on. Why? The stones are not nicely laid out at all; they’re rocky, horribly uneven and completely dangerous. This is what my 4 pounds gets me? A twisted ankle, a broken leg, back problems? I’ll pass. I stayed away from the treacherous rock path for the rest of my visit.

     Luckily we arrived at a time before all the tour buses begin to arrive…well that’s what Peter said but this is the off-season so would there really be a lot of tour buses? I explored the towers, peeked through the arrow slits in the stairwells, I dodged seagull poop and rain puddles, took a ton of pictures, and after I felt I spent my 4 pounds worth (the rest of my tour group had already left) I made my way into the gift shop. They had the usual things for children; knights’ swords, princess’ dresses and tiaras, plastic armor, fake bows and arrows, and row upon row of colourful picture books about the castle and the princes and kings, queens and princesses who lived there. I bypassed by these toys with only a small hesitation to buy my brother a suit of armor and a sword. The “adult” section of the gift shop was more interesting; there were real quills and ink wells to buy, books on Welsh, Roman, Georgian, Victorian and Celtic cooking (mostly fish and seafood recipes), postcards, beautiful Celtic and Welsh silver and gold jewelry, Welsh wooden love spoons, books on Conwy and the castle, bookmarks, Conwy castle coasters, stationary, thimbles, you name it. After making some purchases I headed out to the town of Conwy. Walking down the main street was like walking down the main street of Wisconsin Dells in the wintertime; one out of every five shops was open, including restaurants, hairstylists and grocery stores. I popped in and out of some of the retail stores that were still open but found nothing to bring home. I continued on up another street and finally made a circle of the downtown. I could see the bus waiting but I still had about ten minutes before I was due back. Just as my luck would have it, I was stopped right in front of Conwy visitor’s centre! I went inside and found a culmination of all the closed souvenir shops in the downtown in this one building! I bought a bunch of things—my favourite being clotted cream fudge…it is delicious! You haven’t lived until you have tried clotted cream fudge…and if you eat too much of it you won’t live at all!

     We left the castled city of Conwy and commenced our journey to Snowdonia National Park, the second largest national park in England and Wales covering over 800 miles of beautiful mountainous terrain. Peter said there was only one way to see Snowdonia and that was the Busy Bus Tour complete with the soundtrack to Indiana Jones. So as we passed humongous mountains, rocky cliffs and waterfalls, images of Harrison Ford kicking Nazi butt floated through my head. So amidst the shrill trumpeting of the Indiana Jones theme I watched the landscape pass by in a blurred rain-soaked afternoon. (And as a P.S. as I was writing this the very same theme song came on Radio AOL just as I finished typing this last part…what a weird coincidence! But on another note, I think the theme to Jurassic Park would’ve been more effective. J)

     We passed two huge hills (no, not mountains) made completely out of slate. According to Peter when miners dug slate out of the mountains it was fragile enough to break. Those broken pieces weren’t worth anything so the miners began throwing the fragments into a meadow, which, decades later turned into a ten storey-high hill of slate. Driving along some of the roads there was fences erected with wire; on closer inspection the slabs of what we all thought was wood turned out to be slate. Originally there were 126 working slate mines in the area and since the invention of a machine that could produce slate in mere seconds rather than the Earth that takes about 2 million years and now there is only 6 working slate mines.

     The clouds were low in the sky and we weren’t able to see the top of most of the mountains. The area is a breeding ground for people who love the outdoors…we even saw a bunch of tents! Who in their right mind would camp in February?!?! The wind was pretty strong but the rain made it worse. Peter gave us all nice big umbrellas to use for our ½ kilometer walk to the bus. This was our chance to take as many pictures as we liked of Snowdonia. I braved the cold and rain and took a ton of pictures and some videos. Almost back by the bus we discovered some wild ponies! Two brown ones and one black one; we weren’t sure if they would bite or not but they seemed friendly enough and one even walked up to me so I pet it. They were sopping wet nevertheless they were cute! They looked a little tubby—like Maggie!

     Piling back into the bus, we traveled a bit further into the park and found some fields of sheep. In the beginning of the tour, Peter told us to keep our eyes open for black sheep and if we see one on the right, shout out “Black sheep starboard!” and if we see one on the left, we shout “Black sheep port!” One of the French girls called it out first and we stopped to look for the black sheep in the field. Peter took a group photo and we each took pictures of the countryside. I noticed low hanging clouds pushing through the trees and snapped a picture of that. Back in the bus we headed down a muddy and steep road where we all saw an abundance of black sheep. Peter explained that this was a black sheep holding farm; black sheep are like freaks of nature, only 1 in every 2,000 sheep born is black. They aren’t able to use their wool or their meat so the black sheep are used for petting zoos and touring schools. As we passed through the holding area we saw two beautiful peacocks sitting on a jeep! I never would’ve thought there would be peacocks in Wales but there they were.

     We left Snowdonia National Park and continued on our journey towards Swallow Falls, or, Conwy Falls, since the river is the river Conwy. We stopped in a small mountain-like town of Betws y Coed (pronounced, or Peter’s pronunciation, as Bet-is-y-qoyd); herds of hikers and backpackers crowded the streets and outdoorsy stores. I took a few photos of the small falls there and we made our way to the big falls. We took a high road and could look down on the falls; however, the view was severely restricted by tree limbs. The falls looked pretty intense and I guess there is so much water rushing through there that a man-made fish tunnel had to be built so that fish were able to swim upstream.

     It was at this point that Peter told us (and drove us past the bed and breakfast where a famous author stayed) that the novelist J.R.R. Tolkien stayed for a summer and drew from his surroundings inspiration for his books. We carried on down the road and saw the United Kingdom’s ugliest house. Apparently it is down for a world record for being ugly; I wasn’t able to snap a picture of it since we didn’t get out of the bus but it was not that ugly, let me tell you. Made of stone, the small cottage sits just off the main road. Peter explained that it is considered ugly because it has no symmetry and the stones were piled on one another—no mud, cement or other agent was used to fill in the cracks.

     For our last stop of the day, we ended with a walk along a canal near the town of Llangollen. Peter drove the bus around to the end and told us to pass through the kissing gate, continue down the gravel path following the canal on the left side and walk over the canal bridge to the car park. A kissing gate, for those who don’t know (and I didn’t, I had to look it up on wikipedia), is a gate that is meant for only humans to pass through. Originally, someone would pass through the gate and then hold the gate closed until their boyfriend/girlfriend /wife/husband/child /parent kissed them and then they were let through. Once I got through the gate I walked along a canal filled with houseboats; some boats had potted plants on the top and some didn’t. I found out later that if a boat has a plant on the roof then that means that someone is living in it or has it rented. I followed the group as we came to the bridge; it was originally used and built as an aqueduct in 1795. The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is 124 feet high and made of cast iron and stone. It was quite an experience walking on a path with an iron railing to the right and a canal on the left and no barrier beyond that.

     We were ushered back into the bus and we rode back home with Peter quizzing us about what we learned throughout the day. I got back to my room at around 5:30pm and shared some of my delicious fudge with my room mates. I fell asleep at 9:30pm, what a day!