Spain

Back in July 1993 my wife and I visited Spain for about 3 weeks. It was my first trip to Europe. What surprised me most about Spain is how mountainous it is. The mountains aren’t particularly high, but there are lots of them. The first part of our trip we tour-cycled, and in case you … Continue reading →

Llandudno and Conwy Castle

Llandudno is a scenic seaside town to the North of Conwy with many Victorian buildings. To get to there, we walked to the Conwy visitor center and jumped on the double decker tour bus. It was a fine day, with a few clouds and about 20 degrees Celsius. We got off the bus when we … Continue reading →

Caernarfon – Monday July 2, 2007

Caernarfon is another medieval walled town with an imposing castle, also built by King Edward at about the same time as Conwy in the 1280’s. The castle was quite a work of defensive engineering with numerous arrow slits, towers, portcullises and murder holes. One of the rooms inside one of the castle towers was set … Continue reading →

Conwy – Sunday July 1, 2007

Conwy is a medieval walled town in North Wales. At the eastern edge of the town near the river is Conwy Castle. Its an impressive 13th century bastion built for King Edward the 1st. The walls surrounding the town are essentially a large triangle shape that run along the river, south west for 450 M … Continue reading →

Blaenavon – Thursday June 28, 2007

Today we visited the Big Pit Coal mine and Iron Works in Blaenavon. We visited the mine first and the underground tour was guided by a former miner named ‘Bill’ with an unmistakable Welsh accent. We had to wear hard hats along with a heavy belt which carried a battery for the torch (or flashlight … Continue reading →

Llanthony – Wednesday June 27, 2007

We left the cottage after lunch with our rain gear on because it was intermittent rain. We walked down to Llanthony Priory just a short distance from the cottage. The Priory dates from the 11th century. It had huge arches at the transcept and in places it was reinforced with brick as there was huge … Continue reading →

Caerleon – Haunt of the Romans – Tuesday June 26th, 2007

Caerleon was quite an interesting little town. It had some crenallated walls from medieval times and many quaint old buildings. A priory had been turned into a restaurant and meeting hall for weddings or parties. There were also a number of old English Tudor era buildings. We had a bit of a surprise when a … Continue reading →

Off to Wales – Monday June 25th, 2007

On our trip from Stirling to south Wales today, we were going to see a surprising amount of rain. The drive took all day, not arriving in Llanthony until about 9:00 PM that evening. Once we loaded the car, we made our way to the M9 south west towards Glasgow, but ran into a traffic … Continue reading →