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| Caerphilly Castle |
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| BBC was filming a drama at Caerphilly. (sadly, Benedict Cumberbatch was not seen) |
As a rule, the food will always be better outside of the United States no matter where you go. I've never been disappointed.
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| newer Cardiff Castle seen from the park |
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| Cardiff Castle |
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| the shadow of Chepstow Castle on the River Wye |
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| Tintern Abbey chapel |
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| Pembroke Castle, mostly surrounded by water |
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| town of Pembroke |
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| this power station (?) was a hideous scar on the Pembrokeshire countryside |
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| no matter where you went, it dominated the horizon. |
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| Saint David's Bishop's Palace has an interesting mix of classical and gothic style |
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| the purple/red and green/teal rocks used in building the palace were the same as found on the Pembrokeshire coast |
Sent from my Imperial De Luxe 5
Wales looks like a fascinating place to visit. Once again, there is that contrast in time between Europe and the so youthful USA. Tintern Abby is fascinating. I try to imagine the generations of families whose hand labor supported its beautiful construction, now all a ruin.
ReplyDeleteThere are many things to like about both the new and the old sides, and I'll have to say the in-between ground like Iceland, itself a very old country, but with a more modern feel partly due to having such a low population, is what I prefer best of all.
DeleteThere is indeed a rush of emotions and thoughts when you're in a place like that. Tintern, especially, I think is well-suited to a ruin with the lovely grass growing inside and everything.
Very nice! Sadly I never went to the islands myself yet, but it has been on my list for ages. Seeing these pictures makes me remember why.
ReplyDeleteI'm always curious how castles and old churches *get* to be ruins. The natural inclination is to assume that a large living area like that would be constantly in use and thus always in decent repair, especially when there are so many people living around it. Baffling but beautiful. (:
ReplyDeleteThe reasons are complicated and numerous, and unfortunately we have that Oliver Cromwell to thank for a lot of the damage to British castles (as if we needed another reason to dislike him). I'll go into more detail on this subject in the next Wales post.
DeleteI never visited this part of Wales but I had many family caravan holidays in Conwy as a child, so looking forward to part 2. I'm sure its changed since I last visited!
ReplyDelete"caravan-site" holidays I should add, staying in a stationary caravan. :)
DeleteAh, the wasteland of northeast wales. Thankfully Conwy's on the far, less waste, side of it. I don't know how it was back then, but now it seems there's more space devoted to caravan parks than actual cities and nature by Abergele and Rhyl.
DeleteI'm okay with that, though. The people who would actually appreciate Pembroke and Ynys Môn have more space to themselves!
You and Speculator (La Vie Graphite) have convinced me I must see Wales someday.
ReplyDeleteThanks for directing me to that blog, some very impressive photographs. We had to pack so many things in that we didn't have too much time to spend in the wilder parts of the country, and now I'm wishing we had!
DeleteAs well as being home to the UK whaling fleet, Milford Haven also has a deep-water harbour which makes a great landfall for crude oil. That's an oil refinery interrupting the view. I like the pasty theory, it would make sense as any travel more than a few hundred years ago would have been by sea. But if that's the case, why no Swedish pasty?
ReplyDelete