Tuesday 27th May a circular drive around the North of Wales

Tuesday 27^th .   A rather wet and grey day, but we were headed to Conwys.  It is on the northern coast, in line with Liverpool.  There stands an immense castle.  The biggest I think we have seen.  Edward I built 13 castles around the north of Wales to withstand attack from the Welshmen.

Well it did no good, cause eventually they won the battle!  Conwys cost 430 pounds to construct in 1300.  Like all of them it was an extravagance, probably cause he could!  He visited 3 times, and eventually the castle fell into disrepair.  Now it makes a fortune as a tourist attraction. 

It is a quaint town, with a harbour and supports fishing.  If our meal the night before is any indication, it is a great fishing industry.

I had problems again with my internet connection and spoke to someone in London who had no idea what a tablet was, I got annoyed and ended up hanging up.   We are a phone company we don’t support data packages he said.  Well it worked fine before we topped up!

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And our room at the B&B while having wifi, overall, was not possible in our ground floor room.  My photos are taken on the camera phone and I have to wait for a wifi connection to upload to the "cloud".  My tablet photos were also taking days to upload, and I have spent some time on the google question forum about that.  Most people with a Nexus phone are having the same problem.  Can you get an answer from Google, no!  So I just have to persevere with getting the photos to upload to the blog.   Hence some days an update is not possible.

A walk around the Conwys castle and the town gives great photo opportunities.  Lots of interesting spots to point the camera.  

Unfortunately the only inhabitants nowdays are the birds, nice place for a nest I guess!

Sea gull and her nest

I decided to try to find a phone shop, only there were none in Conwy, but John’s data on his phone told us there was one in Colwyn Bay. Before we set off however, we visited the quay and found the Smallest House in the World.  Believe me it is small inside. An elderly couple used to live in it, and you use a trapdoor to climb up to the bedroom floor.  Have no idea how they got the bed in!   Shows how spoilt we have become over the years, the whole of the ground floor would fit into a laundry room, in modern homes.

Up the trapdoor to the bedroom 

The space is between this row of houses and the castle wall

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I tried the phone company again and got a person who actually asked some questions, turns out it was as I expected we bought the wrong plan in our top up.  Colwyn Bay had a Carphone store so we followed the highway 5 miles up the road.  A rather old and a bit tired township, but with the internet sorted, a new plan in place we headed up the highway to Anglesey.

But first I checked whether Thomas Mudge had a pocketwatch in this display 

 The freeway travels through tunnels and parallel to the Menai Straights, which separates the island of Anglesea with Wales.  Mind you I had a bit of a preconceived idea of what Anglesea would be like.  Given that Prince William and Kate lived there, I thought of small, not a lot of people and a village atmosphere.  Wrong, it is just like any other place, but to get to it you have to cross one of two bridges.

Menai Straights they made the cattle swim across this before the bridge was built by Telford it is a suspension bridge

Fancy fish trap

Mt Snowdon behind the clouds

Britannicia Bridge

The cattle are its biggest earner

  

The first is another Thomas Telford design, a suspension bridge built 1820’s.  Before the bridge was built the farmer’s had to swim their cattle to the mainland, not an easy task if you could see the width of water. 

A second bridge, the Britannicia Bridge was also built to cater for the trains.  There is a small island in the middle of the water, and it is a fish corral.

We had a quick stop at the town that has the longest name inf the world, lucky for you I have photographed the meaning, as it is a sure tongue twister.

We then drove to Caernarfon, home of the Caernarfon Castle, where all the Prince of Wales are invested, including Prince Charles.  Don’t know which part of the castle that happened in, cause it is another ruined building.  has a different design than Conwys, the towers are different, but it is one huge building.  There were 13 castles built in the ring to protect Wales, some never were completed.

Line up for icecreams!  We joined in

Popular spot opposite the castle the roads are narrow

School holidays and some clear weather is a recipe for lots of tourists, and this place didn’t miss out on its share.  Added to that, the people were sitting on the creek banks fishing for crabs, and we joined the line at the ice cream shop!

We took the circular route back to Betws-y-Coed via Porthmadog and Penrhyndeudraeth, once again lovely countryside, small towns with stone houses and slate roofs, and then we drove past mountains of slate.  It turns out the slate mine left the inferior slate where we saw it!   Literally mountains of the stuff.  

John thought this was Snowdonia, but even if it isn't the whole thing must look fantastic in the Winter

Mountains of slate with pink flowers maybe gorse?

We chose a Bistro in town for a meal, in a lovely stone hotel, which seemed popular with the many families. But we got lamb roast!  

An old oak tree

Posting our picture cards to some special people

Back home and an early night as we have to have the early 7.00am breakfast before driving to Holyhead for the ferry to Ireland.