Our destination here is the walled city of Conwy. Our plan was to make it our base of operations for a couple of days and tour northern Wales. Entering the city you pass through the spectacular outer walls and past the base of the even more spectacular castle. These streets were NOT designed with cars in mind at all...they're medieval, twisty, narrow things. We found the B & B we were looking for...Gwynedd Guest House (below) actually located INSIDE the walls of the city with little problem. Seems we had arrived at a somewhat inopportune time. We just caught our landlady, a lovely person named Margaret, walking past on her way to a funeral. A beloved, local "colorful person" known to everyone as the "Queen of Conwy" had recently passed away and the funeral was about to take place. Margaret asked us to come back in a couple of hours and she would get us settled in then.

Becky and Awanna wandered around the narrow streets of town looking in shops while Daniel and I made the somewhat scary climb to the tops of the castle walls to see what could be seen. Once again I feel the need to comment on the British attitude about personal liability. Never, ever, in a million years would you be allowed to perform these sorts of death defying stunts (like climbing the walls of Conwy or perching yourself with only a low stone wall between you and certain death on the dome of St. Paul's in London or clambering down into the underground barrows in Avebury) here in the safe and sane, please-protect-us-from-ourselves, good old USA. The city walls of Conwy are completely missing in some parts, tumbled down into a jumble of rocks in others, minimal guard rails or safety barriers and the whole thing was wet and quite slippery. It would be VERY easy to fall the 20 to 30 feet down bouncing off the rocks and seriously hurt yourself. The British seem to feel if you're fool enough to risk your neck doing something stupid or simply don't take the proper precautions while doing it then just go right ahead but don't come crying to them about it. I find this sort of attitude quite refreshing and I heartily applaud them for it. Darwinian theory at work.

We returned to our B & B, checked in with Margaret and found both her and the rooms a delight. We first heard about her place in Rick Steve's Britain and Ireland 2001 book...amazingly we've never caught this man in a slip-up yet, his recommendations are always right on target! Margaret even did our laundry for us (we had found ourselves in need and I can't say I was looking forward to the washeteria scene again). When we packed home some of that nasty British "blood sausage" from our adventure while visiting a local butcher shop she took it from us and prepared it as part of our breakfast...and you just can't ask for better than that.

Below is a picture of Awanna doing her "exploding luggage" trick. We had come to that awkward point that takes place in all trips where the stuff you have no longer fits into the suitcases you arrived with. The back of the Fiat had become a large, mobile pile of everyone's loose stuff and had become damned unhandy to load and unload. We insisted that everyone must pare down to what could be included in one's original luggage...amazingly no one seemed to get rid of anything, everything just became a bit more compressed I guess. Oh well, at least things were a bit more manageable now.

It was now getting late so we headed back into town in search of food. After viewing the local statue to Llewellyn the Great (an ancient Welsh king and a noted ancestor to Awanna, Becky and Daniel) we found a fish and chip shop just closing so we ordered some "take away" (take out) and packed it down to the harbor's edge, inside the walls. We sat on a bench to watch the lights of the city and ate our supper just as the full moon broke from the clouds...the weather was quite mild now even in the twilight. Back to the Gwynedd and to bed. Life is good...it really is!

Saturday, March 10

Margaret filled us up with another of those huge, delicious FWB's.

Off to visit the castle! Rick Steves book recommends hiring a guide to see the castle and even named a specific guide to look for, Neville Hortop. Lucky day, Neville was on duty when we arrived first thing in the morning...and again, no disappointment here. We went on a dandy tour of the outer and inner castle with just the 4 of us and Neville (nattily adorned with beret and walking stick...see below) directing out attention here and there, telling us stories, both shouting at us and asking us pointed questions about "what would you do if you had to defend this castle against, blah, blah, blah..." to which we would rack our minds for answers while he thumped away at the castle's battlements (or our persons) with his walking stick! A real character, a true delight!

Tour done we loaded ourselves back into the Silver Streak (the Fiat) and headed out into the countryside to see what all this fuss about the Welsh countryside and Snowdonia was about. All I can say about that is, WOW!

Snowdonia is all about stunning, make-you-gasp views, lovely people, quaint towns and waterfalls (see picture of Becky below at the Swallow Falls). Unfortunately most off-road site seeing was out of the question because of the epidemic but we could see enough from the road to understand the area's attraction. We visited the town of Beddgelert where we picked up a nifty, brass fox door knocker similar to several we'd seen around Conwy. We also stopped at the Trefiew Woolen Mills where we bought some wool place mats woven at the site on ancient looms.

Out of the mountains and down to the west coast to visit the town of Portmeirion. Portmeirion is best known as the filming location of the cult TV show, The Prisoner. I won't go into a lot of negative, what-a-rip-off sort of stuff here but the bottom line is that it's expensive and pretty much a waste of one's time. See picture below for me doing furtive "Prisoner" moves at the location.

Down the road we went to Anglesey but now it's getting dark and we make a VERY quick tour. I'm getting a creepy "we're-part-of-a-horror-movie-in-a-small-isolated-town-and-where-the-hell-are-all-the-people-anyway" kinda vibe so we headed back towards home, picking up some sandwich fixin's on the Conwy's High Street along the way (baps, lunch meats, mayo,and fresh cress...the cress turned out to have been grown in the plastic container in real dirt...and ended up throwing it away!), to our snug little B & B safe inside the walls of Conwy.

Sunday, March 11

Up early, lovely FWB's...Becky and Awanna are now in full mutiny! They had had enough of FB's of any sort! Margaret, the perfect hostess, offered them an alternative of croissants, yogurt and fresh fruit compote. Margaret is spoiling them rotten...now they will be unmanageable for the rest of the trip :-(

We needed to check out...England's was calling us again. We asked Margaret for the bill and quickly noticed what appeared to be some kind of mistake. She had only charged us 71 pounds for the 2 days for all 4 of us and that included her washing our dirty clothing! No mistake, Wales is a poor country and your money just goes a long way...what a deal! Do stop by the Gwynedd Guest House if you ever find yourselves in the Conwy area...you will not be disappointed.

Back on the road...all gear VERY NEATLY stored in the back of the Streak. It was about 9 in the morning and we headed east towards Jolly Olde England through the area known as the Welsh Marches (the Welsh/English border area). Lots of newborn lambs appearing now...somewhat cheering, kind of a "circle of life" thing what with so many sheep being slaughtered daily because of "the disease."

We drove to Coalbrookdale where in 1709 Abraham Darby first smelted iron using coke as a fuel bringing about...THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION! We found a parking spot on the banks of the Severn River and took off to view Iron Bridge. Lots of fisherpersons along the banks (see photo above). It's different than fishing in the U.S. These people would pack in an inordinate amount of crap and pile it about them as they fished (no one seemed to be catching anything but I guess that was probably not really the point) and at first glance create quite an eyesore. On second glance one begins to realize the method in their madness and can begin to see the beauty of these camps that they've created...all the comforts of home...like a mini-holiday.

After a short walk we came to the breathtaking Iron Bridge itself. Built in 1779 it was the first cast iron bridge ever built...and it still stands today in fine fettle. The secret to their success was that they incredibly overbuilt it using the iron beams as they would have done were it made of wood. This created a majorly strong and long lasting structure.

After a spot of lunch at the local tea shop Daniel and the womenfolk grabbed some "99's" (ice cream with a stick of Cabdury flake) for dessert. We loaded back into the Silver Streak and pointed her west pausing for a short walk-about in Shrewsbury where most everything was closed (it being a Sunday). Checking the map we realized that we now had two options 1) driving on a bit longer and trying to find a place to spend the night in an area we were not really prepared to sightsee in and to possibly be faced with another of those "endlessly driving about looking for a stable in which to sleep" things or 2) just "go for it" all the way back to London and spend the extra day there (making it a 250 mile day with lots of stops along the way for sightseeing...a very long haul). Unanimous vote...Daniel hunkered down behind the wheel, headed us towards the nearest "M" road and speed limits be damned we headed off for a final day in LONDON!