On Tuesday, May 27th, we walked back down the hill (carrying our luggage) to the ferry dock. This ferry was actually a small ship and carried a lot of passengers and cars. Because we were walk-ons, we got to board first and had our pick of seating. We took comfortable chairs at the stern looking out the back windows. The inside was quite upscale compared to our NC ferries and had a shopping area (duty free), a kids area, a coffee shop/restaurant and a nice lounge.
The trip took three hours and we landed in Fishguard, Wales and picked up another rental car. Our plan was to head for Tenby, Wales, a seaside town that looked very attractive in pictures. When we got to the town, it was beautiful but, as it turned out, the schools in Wales were on holiday and, since the weather was pretty nice, the town was crammed with people and cars and it was a nightmare. I didn't have internet on my phone yet (I had just bought a UK SIM card and the internet hadn't kicked in yet) so I couldn't try to find us a place to stay. We drove around the streets slowly but didn't find anything and finally decided to get out of there and head up the road. About 4:30 we were getting pretty tired and irritable when we mistakenly turned into the driveway of an elderly Welsh couple. They were outside and we asked them if they knew of a place to stay in the area and they turned us on to a great restaurant/motel called "The Forge". Their food was great, the room was nice and reasonably priced and the lobby of the restaurant was filled with one of Bob's favorite things: anvils. He took a lot of pictures but I will spare you and only show you one:
The next day, we stopped in a little town and did laundry and then headed on to Caerphilly to see our first castle. When we got to the castle, there was a visitors center for the town right next to it and we went in to ask about accommodations in the area (I still had no internet). There was a very helpful lady who called around for us and found us accommodations at a lovely B&B called "The Rock". It was a little ways from Caerphilly which concerned us because we wanted to come back and see the castle there, but when we saw our B and B, we were really glad we'd chosen it. Paul, the owner, greeted us as we came in the door with "You must be the Thomases" and he and his wife were some of the nicest most helpful people we have met on the trip. They were a wealth of knowledge about things to see in the area and the B&B was in a beautiful old building and elegantly decorated.
After getting settled in, we drove back to Caerphilly to see the castle. This castle was built in the 13th century but much of the structure was still standing and is surrounded by a moat. We climbed a spiral staircase to get a view from the top and spent some time walking around the grounds and reading about how the castle was used in its time.
That evening we had a delicious dinner at The Rock and there was an excellent piano player improvising show tunes and classics - perfect! Went to bed planning to see more Welsh sites tomorrow.
The next day we first headed to Carleon, which housed the ruins of a Roman fort. There were several sites you could visit and we first went to the Roman baths which were a recreation of the baths at the time but were located in the site of the original baths and with much of the original structure and artifacts still present. There were interesting audio presentations explaining how the baths were used at the time. They said that when the baths were excavated, they found all kinds of artifacts located in the drains, including gems, hairpins and baby teeth!
We also went to the Roman Museum there which had lots more artifact that had been found on the site, including a stone coffin with the skeleton of a Roman soldier in it. You could see the skeleton (with skull intact) and there were artists' sketches of how they thought he would have looked.
When they excavated the ruins, they found an area that had been a garden and they were able to identify seeds they found there to determine what was planted. Then they planted this garden that they felt was very similar to the original one.
It was drizzling rain so we didn't see the other Roman sites but instead moved on and headed for the nearby town of Raglan which housed another castle, this one a little more modern than the one in Caerphilly. Raglan Castle was built in the 15th century and was more ornate and less primitive. The views from the top of the tower were beautiful.
Next we headed to the town of Abergavenny, where we found a pub that rented rooms upstairs, called The Farmers Arms. It was a great place to stay and the town of Abergavenny was lovely.
One reason we picked this town was that it was a close drive from the Llanthony Priory we had read about and really wanted to see. What we didn't know was that the short ride was almost all on a skinny, narrow road with bushes on both sides and without room for two cars to pass except where there are infrequent areas where you can pull over. The trip was pretty but harrowing. The Priory, however, was worth seeing and quite lovely. It was right next to a sheep farm and we enjoyed watching the sheep dogs herding the sheep.
On Friday, we headed out of Wales and passed into England. First we were headed for Kidderminster. Our bartender at The Rock had told us about a steam railroad that we could take out of there for a three hour ride on the steam powered train down to Bridgnorth and back. We got to the train station in plenty of time and found ourselves in an old fashioned compartment. All the conductors were dressed in period costumes and the decor was from the 1940's. The views out the windows were beautiful and we went through 5 stations and got off at Bridgnorth (the end of the line). We had a beer in the pub at the Bridgnorth station, then got on the train and traveled back. It was really fun and a great break for Bob from the stress of driving on the left, shifting with his left hand and going through the constant "roundabouts".
After our train ride, we headed for Dudley where we were planning to spend a day or two doing some research on Bob's family history, then meet our friends in Wolverhampton (the next town over) to begin our canal boat adventure.
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