Day trip time today! Weather was a bit better than yesterday, but I was hoping it would be ever clearer in Wales. Taking the train out to a walled town called Conwy today to explore it’s 14th century walls and castle. It’s only about an hour outside of Chester, along the North Coast of Wales, and is well worth the trip. I’ve actually been past it a number of times on the train to or from Llandudno, Holyhead and Llanberis, but never actually stopped there, so I figured it was time to fix that.
There is a station in Conwy itself, but not as many trains go that way, so it was easier to get a train to Llandudno Junction and walk. It’s only about 20 mins walk or so, and you get a great view of the castle as you approach over the bridges. Luckily for me, the weather was much better out on the coast, although the wind was a bit cold!
Got my ticket for the castle and then hiked up to the entrance – like all good castles it’s built on the top of a large chunk of rock, which makes assaulting it even more of a problem. Amazingly, the castle and the town walls were build in only 4 years, between 1283 and 1287. It would be an amazing achievement to build something that big and solid today, never mind with the technology and tools they had in the 13th century. It’s amazing that it’s still standing too, and although the walls of the castle are still there, that’s about it. Still, it gives you a good idea of what life would have been like in that day and age. On a more personal note, I have a photo that one of my relatives took in 1949, looking over the suspension bridge designed by Thomas Telford and built in 1826, and I was able to get a photo today from almost the same vantage point, which is pretty cool.
After the castle I wandered down through the small winding streets to a house called Plas Mawr (Welsh for ‘Great Hall’), once the home of Robert Wynn, who lived there in the late 1500’s. The house was finished around 1585, and is considered among the finest surviving examples of Elizabethan architecture. After Robert died there was a fair bit of wrangling over the state of his will, which meant that the house stayed in it’s original configuration for many years. It was eventually used as a school and cheap tenements, and has survived to this day, giving us a fascinating view into life in the time when Elizabeth I was Queen. It wasn’t easy though – when Cadw (the Welsh heritage department) came into possession of the property in 1993, it required 42 months of restoration work and over £3 million to bring it back to how it looked in 1665 and get it into a condition suitable for display to tourists. It was worth it though. The included audio tour is fantastic as well, guiding you through the house as they prepare to host a dinner – you can take as long as you like in each room, and the guide gives you the option of learning more about certain parts of the room if you wish, or moving on straight away.
By this time I was getting hungry, so I headed down the road to a fish and chip shop and had a great meal. I probably should have waited though, as the next thing on my list was to walk the town walls, which are extensive and involve quite a bit of a climb to the highest part, so doing it after lunch wasn’t the smartest idea I’ve had. Ah well, I survived, and the view from the walls is very nice. You can also see parts of the original layout of the town, as the gatehouses still provide access to the inner part of the town, it’s just that it’s cars that are passing through them now instead of people, horses and wagons.
After walking around as much of the walls as is open, which took me back to the Castle, I headed back across the bridge to Llandudno Junction to catch the train back to Chester. What I should have done then is sat down and typed all of this up (and sorted the many, many photos I’d taken) but the next few days were going to be a bit hectic, so I wanted to get some logistical things sorted out – on Thursday I take the train to Inverness, then Friday through Sunday is a three day tour of the Orkneys with Rabbie’s Tours, and Monday is my flight to Amsterdam. I’m not sure whether I’ll have much in the way of an internet connection in the Orkneys, so I wanted to get as much of that sorted as I could while I still could. Thus the lateness of this blog. Apologies!
Tomorrow is my last day in Chester, and then I’m off on the road again, so we’ll see how things go.
