Day 18: Croeso Cymru!

Not sure why I am welcoming myself to Wales.  I do have a slightly treasonous theory that there is no actual Welsh language - they just take English words, subtract the vowels and insert double Ls, double Fs double Ds and Ws. eg the Welsh word for 'pardon' is 'pardwn'.  Just joshin' - we love Wales and were sorry to wave goodbye today as we returned to England.  Thank Dog we are now back in our splendid Shropshire pub for the night - it softens the blow to have this view out our tiny window:

That's the River Severn towards the right and in the distance to the left are snowcapped hills.  Truly!  There are also sheep in the brownish field but they seem to be invisible.  There are two delightful donkeys that live in the paddock to the left of the conifers but they had been put to bed when we took this pic at 5pm today (4am Tuesday, EDST).

Continuing our theme of visiting ancient monuments, today we gallivanted to north Wales to see the [insert adjective] Conwy Castle. Warning: history lesson imminent...

Edward 1, king of England from the 1270s, was sick of the Welsh upstarts thumbing their nose at his authority, so clouted them round the head in battle and then quickly built five castles in the north to show them who was running the show.
Conwy was one of these.


Grasshoppers, I know I say this about every place Geoff and I visit, but it was pretty damn special.  We were both gobsmacked by how imposing it still is over 800 years later.

    This pic on the left does not do it justice:  we were about four kilometres away when we first spotted it looming over everything nearby. 










The city walls are also pretty much intact.  Edward 1 (known as Long Shanks) made hordes of English people move to Wales and live inside the city walls.

I always enjoy a pic of an attractive car park and I'm sure you do too, but the point of this photo is actually the city wall, winding round the old city.  You can just see it still, in front of the hill.   

 

 

The pic below is of Geoffy waving from the top of the king's tower.  I only went as far as the level below.  It was a horribly steep, dark, wet, winding, narrow staircase with only a rope to hang on to,  and I have a gammy leg (albeit with a fetching limp) so do forgive my lack of bravado.       

This seagull pic may seem a non sequitur, but honestly north Wales seagulls are enormous - at least twice the size of Australian ones.  We were racking our brains for a size comparison and Geoff came up with "a small Jack Russell".   If I'd had my wits about me, I'd have put a 50 cent piece down beside young Salty here, before snapping this pic.  

En route to the King's Tower (right).  Edward 1 was reputedly 7 feet tall, hence the nick name "Long Shanks".   An elderly Welsh man told us this afternoon that Welsh soldiers in the 1300s averaged 4 feet 8 inches tall (less than 150 cms). Not sure if he was having a lend of us or not.   

 

 

 

I forget what this pic is - a wishing well?  It was a long haul up the stairs anyway!   So that's it for Wales then.  We miss it already.... 

  Tomorrow:  a brisk jog across the Midlands and then south to Cambridge, with some Roman roons on the way!

 

 

Today's badger count: One.  Total to date: 15