Wales--Gwlad Y Ddraig (The Land of Dragons)

All right, we are gonna try doing this in a different way. Instead of giving you an account of our trip in a day-by-day manner, I am going to try to tell you what we did in three days by squishing it all in one post. So…be ready for a ton of pictures.

Our kids get two and a half weeks for spring break around Easter. So we, of course, had to use these days to go on some trips. When I first planned this trip to Wales, I was counting on much warmer weather, I must say. This year, spring did not come to England till just this week—April 15th. So the first week of April was still quite cold but we were incredibly lucky with the weather otherwise as it was very sunny the whole time!

So on April 5th, we set off for a long weekend in South Wales and Cardiff. The route we took to our first stop was a little over three hours, very easy and very pretty once we crossed over to Wales.

As soon as we entered Wales, we were greeted by this dude:

That is the flag of Wales. Although Wales is part of the UK, the people who live there proudly call themselves Welsh more than British. Their accents are a bit different, their landscape is different, and their language is different. Of course, all people in Wales also speak English, and not all Welsh people speak Welsh. Wales was united with what we now call England after Romans conquered this area, naming it Britannia. Famous King Arthur is believed to be Welsh. Prince Charles is the Prince of Wales, as you might know, and he is fluent in Welsh.

Okay, I got sidetracked. We got to Welsh-English border and right away started seeing all road signs written in both English and Welsh. ARAF—one word I remember—means SLOW.

These are pictures taken from internet, by the way.

Try reading these words!  I am sure there is a trick to pronouncing them.

Back to our trip. First Welsh stop was a castle in Chepstow. Yes, we like castles! This particular castle is a Norman castle, built in the 11th century to secure borders with Wales.

It is strategically positioned on a cliff side which also makes for a wonderful view nowadays.

I think I am creating a fear of heights…I was constantly worried that the kids will fall off these medieval stony balconies.

Kids (Robert included) loved walking through all the passageways up the stairwells, seeing the kitchen, the great hall and imagining what it was like to live a thousand years ago.

We spent about an hour at the castle, then grabbed a bite to eat in town. Chepstow is quite a cozy small town that I would love to visit again.

After Chepstow we drove to Cardiff, the capital of Wales. We did not really have a particular plan of what to do in Cardiff as I knew it was mostly a governmental center, a relatively new city, compared to others in the UK, that grew during the coal mining era into a major port. The kids wanted to take a boat, so we just hopped on the Aquabus that took us from the City Centre by Cardiff Castle to Cardiff Bay. The bay is made by Bristol Channel, by the way.

We did not have a plan of what to do at Cardiff Bay either (what? Lyana does not have a plan of what to do???) so we got some ice cream and walked around.

Robert is saying, “ I am so glad you don’t have a plan, maybe we could get some junk food.”

If you are a fan of Dr. Who show (we actually don’t watch it…yet), you’d enjoy this area more because they have something like a “Dr. Who” experience here in Cardiff. Instead, we walked over to the Pier Head. I did not know much about this building, but after watching a short documentary about it inside, we learned about its importance. It is unofficially called Baby Big Ben, was built over a hundred years ago and was named Cardiff Railway Company, basically an important building for all the coal transportation happening in the beginning of the century in Wales. It was very heavily bombed during WWII as it served the enemy as the aim for Cardiff.

We took a bus from Cardiff Bay back to Cardiff Castle. Decided not to go into the castle because we had less than an hour left before it was closing. We snapped this picture inside the castle’s territory and left to find dinner.

Cardiff centre had many shops and restaurants to choose from. We stumbled upon this curious sign across the street from the castle (the white one, not the green one):

Okay, I better hurry up! We left Cardiff after an uneventful dinner at an Italian place and drove about 15 minutes to the Bed & Breakfast where we were staying. The name of it was Plas Hen Country Guest House. Lovely house, with a lovely hostess, Helen. She made it possible for all of us to stay in one big room. The kids loved her dog Billy and cat Milly.

Shortly after we got there, since it was still light outside, we went for a walk to the lake nearby. Katya, the monkey found a tree to climb of course.

Mark decided to do show off some magic powers over the lake.

It was such a calm place. Just beautiful.

Robert looks a bit unsure about who exactly is leaning against him.

And that is how we ended our Friday.

Are you still with me? Man…blogging takes time….

On Saturday morning, we drove about an hour from our place to the West coast of Southern Wales, pass Swansea, all the way to Rossilli coast. This beach has been voted as one of the top 10 most beautiful beaches in the world.  We knew it was going to be our slow relaxing day, but we didn’t realize how truly beautiful this place is. 

This is a shot of the beach in the morning, before the tide started coming in.

The plan was to hike across the causeway to the Worm’s Head, an island in high tide and a semi-island in low tide, so to speak. When we got to the visitor’s center, they told us that we had only an hour before the tide would start coming back in and that it wouldn’t give us enough time to cross and come back. The other option was to wait till about 7 pm that night till the tide goes out. Ha! No thank you, it was only 11 or so then. The walk to the causeway was about 15-20 minutes.  

This is Worm’s Head in the distance.

And this is the rocky path to take to get to the island. Most of it gets covered with water. We decided against crossing it since we had kids in tow and it was better to play it safe.

Mark enjoyed hiking and playing in the rocks too.

Alex is sitting in the area which would be covered by water within an hour, watching the water coming in.

Robert pondering the meaning of life sitting on what looks like a very steep cliff, for real it’s a comfortable flat area that has a ledge right under his feet.

Alex’s and Worm’s Heads.

Sorry, cannot come up with anything else funny. Therefore, here are Katya’s and Worm’s Heads.

All three kids enjoyed this area immensely. They did not want to leave. Alex kept saying he wants to spend the rest of the day here. They played so nicely with each other.

But we had to move on. We ate a quick sandwich and fruit lunch near our car and headed down to the beach.

Can you see “Wales” written in the sand? Usually you can write in the sand only right where the waves come and go and moist it, but here, the tide comes in so far in and makes the sand so moist very far inland.

Kids were playing for a couple of hours building castles and watching the waves get them.

The tide was rolling it very-very fast. I had to move every ten minutes or so to not get “eaten” by the water. I was also getting  a sunburn on my nose-haha.

After a while, we had to say good bye to the beach and hike up back to the car. I am sure that ten minute journey up is much more unpleasant in the heat.

From Rossilli we drove to Pennard area at Pwlld Bay. Just Gorgeous as you can see.

Everyone was getting tired by then, so after running around we headed back to where we were staying. That evening we ate at Cowbridge, a town nearby, at a hotel called “Bear”. It was probably one of the best British meals I have ever had.

On Sunday morning, after a very hearty Welsh breakfast, headed to Caerphilly. Katya had to do her one last monkey picture.

 

Caerphilly is a town about twenty minutes North from Cardiff that is not really famous for anything but its castle.

Caerfphilly castle is BIG. It is surrounded by water and looks like a very beautiful but gloomy place.

This is what you see when you first enter the castle grounds.

And this is whom you first meet if you go to the left to the community bathrooms.

I Spy Mark.

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair”.

Ummmm, maybe she is not really Rapunzel, maybe she is Mowgli?

Mark loved exploring this castle. Huge doors, stone walls, corridors and secret passageways.

This is the Leaning Tower of Caerphilly. Did you know that Wales had a period of time in its history when all medieval castles were ordered to be destroyed? During the Civil War in 1642, it is believed that this tower was badly damaged and never restored.  In the beginning of the 20th century, one of the very rich men in Wales, decided to invest into a major restoration project of this castle, and that is why it looks so “put together” today despite of all the historical battles in its past.

Robert was the main photographer in this trip, that is the reason he is in very few pictures. But he was indeed there!

After Caerphilly, we drove East to a very mountainous place near Blaenofon (I could rhyme it with “banana phone” but my pronunciation is probably wrong). The last attraction of the day was Big Pit –National Coal Museum. It is probably one of the most popular attractions in South Wales. It is also free, you only have to pay 2 pounds for parking.

The main thing we did there, was take the underground coal mine tour. Little Mark had to carry his own equipment weighing 10 lbs and wear this fun hat with a light attached to it.

Listening to the instructions of what to do underground.

The tour lasted about 50 minutes. We literally were taken underground and shown what people used to do a two hundred years ago to get coal. It was horrible to imagine even how difficult their job was-to be in the dark day in and day out with little light and little food, trying not to attract the rats and not start any fire. The guide also told us about little kids, as young as five, who had to sit in complete darkness for twelve hours straight at a time. Their job was to wait for horses pulling carriages with coal and open doors for them. Sounds just horrible.

We could not take any pictures inside, unfortunately. 

Outside the mine, we also went to a few exhibits about the history of coal mining in Wales, revealing a lot of details of how coal was such an important part of people’s lives here, and how coal mining industry here has declined tremendously since after WWII, leaving many unhappy coal miners.

We highly recommend this place—lots to see and do, interesting for both kids and adults.

Phew…that is the end. We drove pass Birmingham and Coventry, stopping for dinner at an Indian place in Coventry since this area is famous for its Indian food. We were home by 9 pm, happy to sleep in our own beds for just two nights before heading to our next adventure.

“Da bye” for now! I better go get some lunch.