Day 14

Another day in Wales! – day 14. First I woke up at our farmhouse hostel in the middle of nowhere, and we were made some really good breakfast by the lady who lived there – Linda. We also had to greet her good morning in Welsh which is something like “borro da” – or that’s what it sounded like to me. After a very good breakfast and my first good cup of coffee so far this trip, we packed up and boarded the bus where we made a quick stop at the “ugly house” – which gets its name from squatters who had to quickly put their houses together in 1 night before the sun rose in order to claim the land – yet, the house was actually quite nice. From there we made our way to Conwy which is at the very north of Wales, and was a extremely nice city. The first thing we did there was go on a tour of the castle which was built by Edward Longshanks (aka Edward I of England after he conquered Wales). We also learned why the son of the monarchy in England is called the Prince of Wales. The story goes something like…after conquering Wales, the people of Wales were very unhappy and pleaded with Edward I to allow them to have a prince that was born in Wales, and didn’t speak of word of English. Surprisingly Edward agreed, and about a year later he held a huge event at Caernarfon Castle where he would select the Prince of Wales. On that day his wife had given birth to a son, so Edward presented the Welsh people with his newborn son as the Prince of Wales since he was born in Wales and didn’t speak a word of English. So, after Conwy Castle we went along the shore and visited the smallest house in Britain – and there was no doubt that it was the smallest house because it was so tiny. After that we got these sandwiches for lunch called baps, which were realllllllly tasty. We then got back on the bus and began a drive through Snowdonia National Park. After a bit of really nice scenery, we stopped and went on a short 30 minute hike/walk and saw some more really nice scenery. Following that we made a quick stop and saw Wales’ tallest mountain – Mt. Snowdon. From there we made another quick stop in the small town called Bedd Gellert – which was named after a heroic story about Llewellyn the Last’s dog named Gellert. The town seemed to be a sort of dog mecca since there were dogs all over the place hoping to be inspired by the heroic Gellert. The last stop we made was on the Isle of Anglesey in northwest Wales to visit the town with the 3rd longest name in the world. The town is called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch – really I’m not making that up even though it looks like I just tried to type with my elbows. In Welsh it apparently means The church of Mary in the hollow of the white hazel near the fierce whirlpool and the church of Tysilio by the red cave. Moving on, we made our way to the final destination for the day – Caernarfon (pronounced cuh-nar-vuhn). Upon arriving, we checked in at the hostel and then went on a short guided walking tour of the city and castle walls. We learned that there was a tunnel going from underneath the castle dungeon right to the basement in our hostel, and sure enough, afterwards we checked and we saw the barred of tunnel. After the tour a big tour of us (like 16) went to a little Thai restaurant (much to the surprise of the 2 waitresses there) and had some good food before walking around the city a bit more and before heading back to the hostel. At the hostel a smaller group of us went down in the basement and played a wild game of Pictionary, and then finally went to sleep around 2am. It was a really fun day.


conwy



conwy castle



me and conwy



the smallest house in britain!



waterfall during our walk in snowdonia national park



bedd gellert



mt.snowdon



Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch



caernarfon castle walls



caernarfon castle