Wales

A side trip to Conwy Castle

One of John's City Cat colleagues had scolded him when saying that we were to do a Castles Tour of Scotland. According to him the castles in Wales are much superior. Well, we looked at the map, it would only be a moderately enormous detour from Liverpool to Susan (near Cambridge) via north Wales, so of course we had to see one. To compare and contrast you understand. And my word, he might be right!

Leaving Liverpool quite early we set off towards Conwy Castle in north Wales. Some miles away from our destination we caught sight of a castle on a hillside. It looked huge and amazing and exciting, but we have no idea where or what it was (John: oh yes we do - Ruddlan Castle - I checked). Sadly we whizzed past without finding anywhere to pull over and admire it. (John: for Barb admire means take lots of photographs - lets be clear on this!).

There was no mistaking Conwy Castle though. The approach to the town of Conwy comprises three adjacent bridges - rail, pedestrian and road - leading up to a stunningly imposing castle with turrets and towers and a huge high wall all around the perimeter of the town. The Thomas Telford designed pedestrian, once traffic, bridge looks like a drawbridge over a moat and another (wrought iron tube by Robert Stephenson, a precursor to his Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait) carries the mainline railway to Holyhead. Now THIS is a castle!!

Road, Telford walking bridge and the rail bridge

We parked up and headed towards stairs that took us to the top of the perimeter wall and then we walked along there until we reached the castle entrance.

This castle really has the WOW factor. Not only is it huge but it is resonably intact for a structure that was built back in the 1200s by King Edward I. He was a prolific builder of castles and during his reign he had at least half a dozen major castles built concurrently. This was all whilst fighting some major battles too! It is mind boggling to think how they could've completed this major piece of architecture including a large perimeter wall in just four years - it would be an enormous undertaking today, though would probably cost somewhat more than the £15,000 Edward had to fork out.

John inside the castle

Barb walks the battlements

Looking down on the castle from one of the towers

It's big!!

We enjoyed it very much! We also enjoyed driving through Wales. It is very pretty countryside. Very mountainous too, so we were winding our way through hills and valleys frequently being overtaken by motorcyclists who were having a ball zooming round all the curves.

Conwy township

We tried to stop for lunch in Llangollen. If you try to pronounce that name the Welsh way it sounds like you're hoiking up a lot of phlegm. It's a much prettier place than it sounds. In fact it's beautiful. Unfortunately it was also very busy on a Sunday lunchtime and we were stuck in a jam of traffic and there was no parking to be found. We escaped as best we could on the wrong road, but managed eventually to find our way to the one we wanted.

Once we passed from Wales into the English Midlands it was motorway all the way back to Susan's and we got back in time for tea.