Pictures for Beaumaris Castle and Bryn Celli Ddu

So blogger isn't my best friend right now. It loads all the pictures to the top of the post, and dragging them all the way to the bottom to arrange them is a huge pain and taking way too long. So here are the pictures for the rest of my "Conwy and such" post. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Arriving at Beaumaris - say hello to the puffin!
Beaumaris Castle
The multiple portcullises
View up a fireplace on the second floor

Bryn Celli Ddu

Me and Zoe toasting our Gold Top milk on top of the mound
The entrance to the chamber from the main room

Entrance to the chamber
End of the chamber, but not quite an exit...

York

Forgive me for taking so long to get up a new post.  I hope to have all the rest of my trip documented, with photos and everything, by the end of this week, because I start classes next week!

Thursday, August 6th we drove from Conwy to a hostel in York, which is in north-central England.  It has a long history, with a particularly important role as the center of Viking culture in Britain from 800-1000ish.  There used to be a large and prosperous abbey called St. Mary's, but Henry VIII closed it down in the 1530s.  The town suffered for a while, but it's gotten better.  Charles I used a building we walked past as his headquarters during the Civil War, and Cromwell used York as his center for government in the north of England.

After a short walking tour with our whole group, we split up according to what we wanted to see there.  I and a few other girls were all still exhausted from our hike the previous day, so we walked to a park and enjoyed the nice weather by taking a short nap and doing some journaling.  Then we went on a kind of self-guided tour around the Shambles, a little street that nowadays has lots of cute shops and historic plaques, but used to be the street where all the butcher shops were.  It was pretty cool.  We also stopped at Greggs for some pasties (of course) and just took it easy after our demanding few days.

In the evening, some of us met up with a group to do a "Ghost Tour".  If you know me, it was a pretty gutsy move, but it turned out to not be so bad.  It had more historical curiosities than really creepy tales, and The Ghost Detective (the guy giving our tour) was really funny.  We stopped at a few places that I thought were interesting.  One was where an old workhouse/orphanage used to be, and the guy who ran it was nasty scum and basically didn't take care of the kids like he was supposed to, and when they died he would lie to the government to keep getting the money to take care of them.  Well, he was a heavy drinker too, and one night thought he could hear the dead children laughing at him.  He went kinda berserk, and you can fill in the rest.  Anyway, that used to be in the slums of York, and now that area is really well cleaned up and pretty and suburban-looking.  Another story that interested me was about The Plague House, where a rich merchant and his family lived.  He and his wife caught the plague, and the town found out and quarantined the house.  However, their little girl was one of those few people who is immune to the plague, though the townspeople didn't know that, and she lived for weeks by herself in that house.  Sad story.  We ended the tour at the Roman column discovered in an excavation of the area in the early 1900s, which of course is placed in the center of the town, right next to York Minster.  What they didn't really think about was the fact that the column was upside down.  Whoops.

After the tour was over, we wandered back to the hostel, where I discovered that everyone in my room was already there and already asleep - at 9:30 pm.   Awesome.  I tried to get to bed somewhat early, too, because we had to get up early to catch the train to Edinburgh on Friday!

Pictures

It seems that the last few times I've come to an internet cafe, the pictures have had a really hard time uploading. I'm really sorry. I'll keep trying, but I have no idea if it will work while I'm here. You may have to wait until I get back to Provo in two weeks :(

Snowdonia

Wednesday we drove to a wool museum to see how one of Wales’ most prominent industries is run. It was small and a little old-fashioned, but had some cool stuff. We had fun quoting North and South to each other as we watched the big machines carding and spinning the wool, even though the machines would be a little different for cotton.

"I have seen hell, and it is white. It is snow white..."

Later that morning we stopped at an old slate quarry that had been turned into a museum. We watched a demonstration by an old slate worker as he split and dressed the slate. It was so cool! It reminded me a lot of the blacksmith’s shop in Nauvoo, and the guy was so funny! One girl in our group was celebrating her birthday that day, so he made her a little heart out of the slate and then asked everyone else in the group if they wanted one, too. Of course, we all said yes, so he said we could buy them in the gift shop. Haha.He almost cut off her hand...
After the slate museum we took a lunch break and then started the hike up Snowdon, the highest mountain in the United Kingdom. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make it to the top, but Tom seemed confident that we could make it. We partnered up so we could have someone with a similar pace, and started the ascent. Mount Snowdon is 1085 meters high, so it’s a pretty big climb. The first little bit was paved but really steep, and then it leveled out for a while. By that time we had lost the fast group in front of us and the slower group behind us, so it was just me and Elizabeth. We came across the “Halfway Café” and decided that it couldn’t be half way, it must be about 2/3 of the way, because we could see the summit and it wasn’t that far.

From about the Halfway Cafe, headed toward the summit in about the middle of the shot

Now I think it wasn’t even half way.

We're pretty sure that the hilltop ahead is where the summit is...It got really steep and rocky at that point, and we would only be able to go about 30 or 40 feet forward before we’d have to stop and rest again. I’ve never been so tired in my life. By the time we got to what we had thought was the summit, we could see that it was only about ¾ of the way, and we were dying. But we’d made it this far – we might as well make it to the top. So we kept pushing, but I didn’t have such nice things to say about Tom in the mean time.

At the top of that rounded hill, looking over to the REAL summit...

Finally, after 3 hours of steep climbing, we made it to the summit. It was beautiful, though the view was a little clouded over and we were freezing. We stopped in the little shop at the top and used the bathrooms, where I put my hands under the hand dryer like six times just to be able to feel them again. We each bought little “I hiked Snowdon” pins and some hot chocolate and ate some of the food we’d packed. Two other girls from our group got there about 30 minutes later and we rested with them, too. We stayed on top for about an hour total, dreading the climb down, but the four of us finally started. It only took us about 2 hours to get back down the mountain, and we were drained, but we had made it to the top and back! I actually had more energy at the bottom of the mountain than the top.

View on the way down, on a particularly steep partWe stopped at the sign on the way down to show our displeasure at the false advertisingTwo hours after we reached the bottom, my hands were still swollen

When we got back to the parking lot we found a plaque talking about the mountain and the hike and telling us that the route we had taken was the longest and most gradual climb to the summit. Hard to believe considering some of the inclines we braved, but when I saw that the trail up and back totaled 9 miles, I felt much better. However, if I had known how long it was beforehand, I probably wouldn’t have tried to go all the way. Nine miles uphill is really tough, especially if you’re as out of shape as I am.

So proud of ourselves!At the very top of Mount Snowdon!!!

But it was well worth it, even though my legs are still sore five days later : )

Conwy and Such

Tuesday started off by touring the local castle, built by Edward I, who was kind of a jerk. The castle is in ruins now, and is quite infested with pigeons. Tons of them. And they poop on everything, including Camilla. I almost got dropped on about six times, managing to be narrowly missed each time, but Camilla had worse luck. Yuck.


The next place was called Plas Mawr, a Great House built by a wealthy Welsh merchant in Elizabethan times. It was a really great house, and they had a funny audio tour that was supposed to be the guy who built it and his wife and their servants and stuff. Very historical fiction-y.Plas Mawr was right in Conwy with the castle, so we walked to them, but when we were done in town we got in the van and drove to Caernarfon Castle, where Charles was crowned Prince of Wales in 1969. It was wet and crowded and we had some really rude Russians in line ahead of us, so that kind of put a damper on the whole experience, but it was still cool.

We also stopped at a Roman fort in the area called Segontium, but it was closed by the time we got there, so we just jumped out of the van, snapped a few pictures, and left.

Then we drove to: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogoerychwyrndrobellllantisiliogogogoch. Coolest name ever. And no, I can’t pronounce it. I’ve been working on memorizing it, but we’ll see. It’s basically a big tourist trap, full of overpriced souvenirs and local crap, but hey, we’re tourists and it’s a cool name. There were several bus loads of elderly people there, though, which made the whole experience a little difficult. I was pretty sick of crowds by this point in the week, but it was only going to get worse.

Then we stopped at another castle built by the jerk Edward I that he never finished, called Beaumaris. The idea of having a castle there was to keep the Welsh in line, but I guess that’s the reason behind most of the castles in Wales. It was a pretty cool castle, with a moat and several portcullises for protection and tons of winding passages in the walls that are still standing. There were a ton of birds there, too – mostly waterfowl who lived in the moat – and they left their trademarks everywhere. Awesome.

Our last site of the day was a Neolithic/Bronze Age henge and burial mound called Bryn Celli Ddu. It’s rather small, but the tunnel and chamber under the hill were big enough to fit all 17 of us while we sang our song. But we got out pretty fast after that. The pasture land surrounding the site reminded me a lot of Grandpa Petersen’s farm in Pierce City. It was kind of weird to be thousands of miles away and yet feel so at home.

Eisteddfod

That’s pronounced I-steth-vod. It’s basically a county fair on steroids, and Welsh-ified. It’s a country-wide celebration of all things Welsh, so everyone speaks Welsh, all the signs are in Welsh, they sell hand-crafted Welsh stuff, and the central event is “the crowning of the bard,” a contest of Welsh poetry that’s pretty serious stuff. They have one every year, switching off between Northern and Southern Wales, since they have pretty distinct subcultures. This year it was in Bala in Northern Wales, about a three hour drive from Cardiff. We got in and just walked around, watching the Welsh speakers from our program converse with the natives and looking at the little booths and picking up free stuff from who ever was giving it out. I got like 10 pens from universities and women’s organizations and community projects and stuff. The water treatment plant even gave us flash drives and mousepads! It was super cool.

The big pink tent where they hold all the events

I also bought a new shoulder bag since mine is basically shredding, and bought a few other small souvenirs. I helped Diana pick out a musical instrument for her dad and leafed through some music books they had of Welsh folk songs and stuff. It was a great day, but pretty tiring, so when we got to the hostel in Conwy, I decided to just settle in and go to bed. Conwy’s hostel was even nicer than the one in Penzance – we only had four in each room, and had a bathroom right in our room! Believe me, that’s a real rarity in hostels. The beds were comfy and the views in the cafeteria were incredible. Out one window you could see the whole town laid out, and out the other was the wild Northern Welsh countryside, with rolling green hills and trees. It was pretty amazing. I decided I’d just stay there and never go home, but of course Tom said they wouldn’t let me. We stayed there Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights, so we really got to enjoy it and the beautiful little town it was in. Conwy is definitely one of my favorite places.


The views out of the hostel windows...

Cornwall

Thursday we got up early and drove down to Cornwall, the extreme southwest of England. We started the day at Tintagel Castle, rumored site of King Arthur’s conception, but now it’s only ruins. It sits right on the shore of the Atlantic – simply beautiful! Hopefully the pictures will help you get the idea. We climbed all over the rocks and explored a little tunnel, though we couldn’t explore “Merlin’s Cave” because it’s a tidal cave and our trip was during high tide, so it was too dangerous.

Ocean viewThe Atlantic!
The group on the hike up to the castleThe "tunnel" we followed for like 20 feetSo happy to be here!
By the time we hiked back to town, I was starving, so some of us popped into a pasty shop to get traditional Cornish pasties. Mmmm, so good! They’re full of steak, potatoes, and onions, so basically a Sunday dinner in a big flaky pastry shell. We’d had several pasties before – there are Greggs all over Britain – but how often do you get to eat a Cornish pasty in Cornwall? Once in a lifetime : )

Me and Zoe enjoying the best pasties EVER!
We spent the rest of the afternoon at St. Ives, a little beach town totally geared toward tourists. The day was pretty nice, even if we weren’t tempted to swim, so we climbed around on the rocks, waded in the water, and walked through a bunch of little art shops in town. It was so warm that I actually got a little sunburned! I didn’t even know that was possible here!

Wading on the beachclimbing on the rocks
In the last few hours of daylight we went to some Neolithic sites that were basically some rocks in fields : ) Lanyon Quoit and Men an Tol were pretty cool, and we had fun getting some pictures. The hikes out to the sites were particularly fun, considering that they were covered in slugs and Camilla cannot stand slugs. She actually thought they were make-believe creatures before this trip. Forgive her, she’s from Las Vegas, so she kind of freaked when she found one in our house the second week…

I work out... at Lanyon Quoit!One of Tom's better - but less executable - ideasMen an Tol. They're about waist-high, so not spectacular
We checked into our youth hostel in Penzance to find that it had been completely remodeled. It was so nice! We had five of us in each room, and the beds were way more comfortable than ours at home. It was clean, quiet, and served a really mean hot breakfast. I wanted to stay there forever!

Friday we got up and drove to St. Michael’s Mount, a tidal peninsula not far from Penzance. We arrived at high tide, so we had to take the boat out to the island. There’s a big castle on top of the mountain, and the family who owned it in the 1600s still lives there! Weird. We walked up the path and got some gorgeous views of the ocean and the island and the castle itself. We got to tour most of the house, though not the part that the family lives in, obviously. They wouldn’t allow photography inside the building, but I got some great shots of the outside and the view and such. It was a cloudy day, but barely sprinkled, so we were pretty thankful. At the end of our visit it was still high tide, so we got back on a boat and went to the mainland. When we got back in the car, it started raining pretty hard, so we only stopped to look at one more Neolithic site, Hurler’s stones, and then booked it home. We had planned to visit Exeter Cathedral, but we were all pretty tired, and some girls wanted to get home as early as possible to get to a YSA dance in Merthyr Tydfil that night.

View of the island from the shoreGetting into the boat The castle!On one of the turretsView from the top. Such a pretty coastline! Can you imagine looking out your window everyday and seeing that?
I was sad to leave Cornwall, but happy to get home to some internet access : )