The Welsh Countryside

Our luck with the weather hadn't changed much - we arrived in Holyhead to heavy clouds, wind and some showers. We were all hoping for some improvement as our tour for the day was taking us to Snowdonia, in the centre of the country, and on a vintage train journey.

Holyhead is actually on the now rather famous island of Anglesey, made so by Prince William and Princess Catherine as they lived there while he served in the Search and Rescue Service. The islanders are very proud of the fact that they were able to maintain the couple's privacy while they were there, especially from nosy international reporters. Our tour guide told us that the locals enjoyed putting the reporters off: whenever they were asked for some details about William and Kate, they would ask 'Is that Smith or Cooper?' or something similar. The other local joke is that the Anglesey branch of the grocery store Waitrose became known as 'Kate-rose' because she shopped there and all the photographers lurked to get photos. As a result of the islanders' protection of their privacy, William and Kate still maintain ties on Anglesey and love to go back.

We set off under cloudy skies, hoping that taking the umbrella and raincoat would hold off any rain during the tour.

A quick leg-stretch and washroom stop in Caernarfon (AKA-Carnarvon) let us get a glimpse of the castle where the Prince of Wales is historically invested, although it sounds like there haven't been very many of them since there was a gap of about 300 years before Edward in the 1930s. This was the Edward who later became King Edward VIII and almost immediately abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson, giving us King George VI, Elizabeth's father. Prince Charles was invested as Prince of Wales by Queen Elizabeth in 1963, and the next one might just be Prince George if Charles decides to step aside for William when his time comes. Oddly enough it was our local guide who suggested Charles might step aside in favour of William.

Caernarfon Castle - the small balcony you can just see
on the right is where Prince Charles was presented
as the Prince of Wales

After another short drive we arrived at the town of Porthmadog, where our train journey would start. It is quite near Portmeirion, which is apparently quite well worth a visit because of its wonderful architecture, all designed by one Welshman to look like a southern Italian village. Porthmadog is a charming little town, and was originally a port from which slate from the Blaenau Ffestiniog quarries was shipped.

When the tide goes out around here, it really
goes out! Or maybe he just moored his
boat in the wrong place?

One of Porthmadog's more popular attractions is the Ffestiniog Steam Train. It runs through to the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, a 13 mile journey that takes about 1 1/4 hours. This narrow-gauge railway started running in 1836 to carry slate, and started taking passengers in 1865. The trains are all restored from that period, and much of the staff is made up of student volunteers who come from all over the world to work for the season. This little railroad is part of a "network" of steam train lines that connect with each other to form a 40 mile long journey for steam train buffs from all over the world.

In our coach, awaiting the arrival of the engine

Here it comes! It is a 'push me-pull you' style
engine with a chimney at each end. At the end of the
route they just move the engine and hook it back up
for the return journey

And off we go!

The train trip was very comfortable and scenic - except of course for all the trees. We were travelling inside Snowdonia National Park, where many of the trees had actually been planted in a reforestation project in the early 1900s, as many trees had been used to build ships for the British Navy during the many sea battles in the 1800s. Although it sounds like the name of a winter wonderland from a Disney movie, the Snowdonia National Park takes its name from Mount Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales, and located within the park. It just sounds funny when you hear the name!

A Welsh chapel and the view beyond

Slate hills left over from the quarry

Wales has a great history of mining slate, and the remains of that history dot much of the landscape. In order to yield 1 ton of usable slate, 10 tons had to be mined and the excess disposed of. These huge mountains of unusable slate are everywhere, and since they've been piling up since the 1830s, you can imagine how many there are and how high. Now they are looking for uses for this material and have recently started mixing it with the asphalt for roadways.

We took the train only one way and were picked up by our coaches to go for lunch in the town of Betws-y- Coed, at a local hotel. After lunch we drove back to Angelsey, with a couple of short diversions for photo ops and local curiosities.

This is the Ugly House, also known as a House of the Night - NO, not the kind you are probably thinking of. In the 1800s in rural Wales, if you could find a piece of land and, in the course of one night, build a house, with a fire in the fireplace by dawn, you could have both the house and the amount of land around it to the extent that you could throw an axe in all four directions. So it may not be the most picturesque little place, but it is still standing after all this time.

This is the first span bridge built in Wales. It is in another photo earlier in this post, and you can see the extent of the tidal difference in the Menai River when you compare them. Our driver actually took us across the bridge in our bus not long before we stopped - a feat in itself when you consider that the bridge was originally built to carry horsedrawn coaches and, although the road surface has been improved, they haven't done a thing with the rest of the structure.  Our mirrors just barely fit through, two inches to spare on each side. And each mirror assembly costs $3,000 to replace if he misjudges the sides!!!!

This little house in the middle of the Menai River was also in an earlier photo, and it is interesting just as much for the rocky area around it. This is actually a fisherman's house, but he doesn't have to take out a boat. The walkway surrounds a fish pond of sorts. The fish swim in during the high tidal periods and as the tide goes out they become trapped and the fisherman harvests them.

Our final photo stop was in the small town whose name is almost as long as the main street: Lllanfair....goch. This is the longest town name in the UK, and has quite a story to go with it. Apparently the man who owned the local post house, where the men riding with the mail would rest, eat and change horses, wasn't too happy when the first roadway to Cardiff didn't go through his town, which at that time had a rather pedestrian and forgettable name. He took his sons to the top of a local monument, commemorating a local military man who had been on the battlefield with Wellington at Waterloo, and identified everything that he could see in all directions. His plan was to change the town's name to make it a curiosity that people would want to visit. You can figure out what he saw by reading the translation. He would also be very pleased to know that this little town with nothing to speak of but an almost unpronounceable name now has over 1.5 million visitors a year. The locals, by the way, drop most of the middle letters so it sound more like 'Lanfairgoch'.

So ends our day in Wales. We're off to Scotland next. We'll see if the weather holds - the captain's forecasts haven't been too promising so far...