30 June: From Wales to the Lakes

This morning we had the porridge oats again (they really do hit the spot on a blustery rainy day) and John had the full breakfast, but I just had a side order of bacon because I think eating all these eggs might kill me (yeah, I know, like eating bacon won't)! We had requested a picnic lunch to take with us, which was a little pricey at £16, but we figured it would be convenient on a long driving day. We thanked Kelly for the wonderful stay at Tan-y-Foel and then headed for Betws-y-Coed to get gas, find an ATM, and look around town a bit. I was surprised to find that there is not much to the town other than a string of slate-gray Victorian B&Bs and some shops. We stopped at a very cool outdoor sporting goods store called Cotswold, where John bought some waterproofing spray for his raincoat and I got some hand and foot warmers, just in case it is miserably cold in Scotland (which is beginning to seem more and more likely).

Even though it was raining and it would mean going a little out of our way, we decided to return to the dramatic Llamberis Pass in Snowdonia that we had driven through yesterday so I could get some photos. The wind was howling like a banshee down the valley, threatening to turn my umbrella inside-out and making picture-taking a bit difficult, but it was gorgeous. We stopped at a spot where sheep were grazing alongside a raging river strewn with massive boulders (photo, right). The clouds were even lower than yesterday, giving the place a very dark, brooding look. You could almost imagine the Welsh fighters holed up in caves high on the mountainsides. I took what pictures I could get and then we headed north back to Conwy. We hooked up with the motorway, drove through a tunnel under the estuary, and continued east along the coast.

We decided to make a brief stop at Rhuddlan Castle for lunch. Rhuddlan is yet another of Edward I’s string of castles, smaller and more ruined than the three we visited yesterday, but still very impressive, sitting squatly along the River Clwyd (photo, right). It was still raining so we ate our picnic lunch in the car (salmon and butter sandwiches, apples, and granola bars) and then went for a quick tour of the castle (our 3-day pass gave us entry here as well). Rhuddlan was constructed between 1277 and 1282 in a concentric plan, but diamond-shaped rather than square, with its gate towers positioned at the corner facing the river instead of along the bailey wall. The massive twin gate towers, thick walls, and three other towers are partially intact, but with huge holes blown through them and part of the exterior stone cladding chipped away. (I’m not sure how people managed to dismantle these castles some three hundred years ago with no more than sledgehammers and pickaxes!)

I bought a Welsh dragon Beanie Baby and a pewter Celtic barrette at the castle gift shop and then we set off on our three-hour drive to the Lake District. We didn’t notice when we passed back into England, but we realized at some point that the signs weren’t in Welsh anymore. It rained most of the way, but our route took us mostly on motorways (M6), so the going was fairly easy. (John continues to insist on doing all the driving because he likes having me as navigator, but I told him he's going to have to let me try driving on the left eventually.) We bypassed Chester, Liverpool, and Manchester and cut westward at Kendal on the A591 towards the Lake District. We only intended this “drive-through” visit to the lakes to give us an impression of the region, so we’ll know if we want to come back in the future. We drove through Windermere and Ambleside, winding through more lush countryside dotted with sheep and crisscrossed by neat stone walls. I will never get tired of those walls! Windermere is the largest town in the area, a popular Victorian-era resort known as the home of Beatrix Potter. It seemed a bit dreary in the rain and not very charming. Ambleside is smaller, with a better choice of restaurants and a nice little shopping district. We also passed Rydal Mount, home of the poet William Wordsworth from 1813 until his death in 1850.

Just outside of Grasmere, we found Banerigg Guest House a large, early-20^th-century family home situated directly across the road from Grasmere Lake (photo, right). Actually we passed right by it the first time because it is nestled in the trees and is hard to spot until you are right on top of it. We pulled into the gate and parked in front of the house, where we were greeted by Angela, one of the owners. She showed us upstairs to our room on what I have to call the second-and-a-half floor, as our door was located on a landing between the second and third floors. It is an ample room (one of six) on the back of the house with a double and a twin bed, plenty of storage space, and a good-sized bathroom lit by a large skylight. The only down side is that it only has a bathtub with no showerhead attachment, but Angela showed us the shared shower on the second floor that we were welcome to use. There were several other guests in the house, including a couple of people who were obviously regular visitors - Angela introduced them like old friends.

We settled into our room and then decided to walk (despite the stubborn rain, which refused to let up!) into Grasmere for dinner, about three-quarters of a mile down the road. It was a pleasant walk except we had to step back every time a car came speeding by to avoid getting drenched by road spray. We passed an Italian restaurant that Angela had recommended, but decided to check out more of the town first before deciding where to eat.

Grasmere is a pretty little village with winding streets lined with quaint stone cottages and a variety of small inns and hotels, intermixed with craft and curio shops. We crossed an arched stone bridge (photo, right) over the rushing river and discovered the churchyard where Wordsworth and his family are buried, in the shade of a yew tree planted by the poet. We probably should have gone back to the Italian place, but we ended up eating at The Rowan Tree, which was completely empty when we arrived at 7 p.m. (on a Saturday night no less!). I had goat cheese and tomato cannelloni with a generous side salad and John had a tuna, red onion, and olive pizza. The meal was so-so but the homemade sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream that we had for dessert was to die for! We finished with coffee and tea, all of which set us back £50 – which doesn’t sound so bad until you realize it converts to $100. That’s England for you!

We wandered around the village some more after dinner (photo, right). The rain had lessened up a bit and for a while I thought it was actually going to clear up (we could even see the tops of the surrounding hills). I couldn’t get over how lush and green the landscape was – and there were more gorgeous hydrangeas everywhere (one of my favorite flowers). On our way back to the hotel we saw a blue sheep. Well, it was gray, but it had a definite blue tinge to it. Now that we’ve seen so many sheep, we’ve realized that while the lambs are very cute, full-grown sheep are actually quite ugly. They also spraypaint the sheep with fluorescent pink and blue markings, which sort of takes away from the timeless pastoral look. We stopped on the shore of Grasmere Lake to watch a lone white swan float by. Within a few minutes the clouds had descended again, and we walked in a steady rain back to the house.

29 June: Castles of Kings

Just about everything at Tan-y-Foel is extraordinary, including breakfast. The breakfast room is swankily decorated with warm wood tones, a wall of wavy mirrors, and bright accent lighting. I usually don’t like to mix old and new, but they have done a really tasteful job here. After taking our coffee order, the man of the house (Mr. Pitman, I presume) gave us menus from which we could select two dishes. We both started with the mouthwatering porridge oats (a.k.a. oatmeal) topped with golden syrup and thick cream, followed by a hearty full English breakfast for John and poached eggs on toast for me. Thus fortified, we headed out under partly cloudy skies towards Conwy, the first of three of King Edward I’s mighty castles that we planned to visit today.

Edward I, who ruled England from 1272 to 1307, was quite an ambitious warmonger; he is perhaps best known for conquering the Welsh in the early years of his reign and later attempting, unsuccessfully, to do the same to the Scots (although he did manage to capture and execute the rabblerouser William Wallace of “Braveheart” fame). Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, self-proclaimed Prince of Wales, refused to pay homage to the English crown, which led to Edward I’s first campaign against the Welsh in 1276-77. Llywelyn was allowed to keep his title, although he was eventually put to death. His younger brother Dafydd started another rebellion in 1282, which was quickly quashed by Edward, who captured, tortured, and executed Dafydd the following year. To hammer his conquest into the hearts and minds of the Welsh people, Edward commenced construction of an “iron ring” of fortified castles across northern Wales, effectively hemming in the ancient Welsh stronghold of Snowdonia.

Of all of Edward's fortresses, the massive Conwy Castle, with its huge crenellated towers, tall curtain walls, and strategic position on a rocky promontory overlooking Conwy estuary, retains the most character of a classic medieval stronghold. The old town of Conwy is still enclosed by medieval walls, and the castle looms over the town as a crowning achievement of defensive architecture. After the ten-mile drive to the coast from Tan-y-Foel, the castle was the first thing we saw as we approached Conwy, its imposing bulk rising from a chunk of rock on the edge of the estuary like a stone sentinel right out of a fairytale (photo, right). We parked in a pay lot just outside the walls and entered the town through one of the mighty gates, approaching the castle by way of the “wall walk” – a narrow walkway on top of the ancient town wall. The walls are remarkably intact and you can circle nearly the entire city on the elevated walkway.

At the entrance to the castle we learned that our English Heritage visitor’s pass is ineligible for discounts in Wales (you only get the discount if you are a full English Heritage member), so we felt a bit duped. If it didn’t work here, that meant it probably wouldn’t work in Scotland either. That’s certainly not what they indicated when we bought the pass at Stonehenge. We ended up paying £17,50 for a three-day Welsh visitor pass, which would get us into all of the castles we wanted to visit today.

Conwy Castle follows the contours of the mound of rock it sits on: a long, narrow plan punctuated by eight huge towers with a gateway at each end. A cross wall divides the castle into two baileys – the larger, outer bailey, where the Great Hall and garrison buildings stood, and the inner bailey, which contained the royal apartments and private offices (the photo at right is looking down into the outer bailey). We entered the outer bailey from the west side, which was originally protected by a long stairway (now destroyed), a drawbridge, and three fortified gates. Interpretive signs guided us through the castle and into the towers, several of which you can climb all the way to the top via dizzying spiral staircases. Four of the towers have crenellated turrets that rise even higher, from these the defenders would have had a fantastic view of any approaching enemies. Little remains of the living quarters inside the walls (some of which were made of wood), but you can see the shells of several of the structures, including the Great Hall and the royal apartments. Many of the towers and the Great Hall itself still have their empty stone hearths built into the walls, even though the wooden floors are long gone, and fragments of the stone arches that supported the ceilings give some hint to the grandeur of the rooms. The crumbling towers were very atmospheric with their thick growth of clinging plants, many of which were in bloom, turning the castle into a hanging garden of sorts. We climbed up several of the towers, including two of the high turrets, for spectacular views out across the town and the harbor, which was full of moored sailboats. The weather was cooperating for once – the clouds had dispersed and we had more sunshine and blue sky than we’d seen in a week.

After touring the castle we stopped in at the knight’s shop across the street, where you can buy reproduction swords and crossbows or research your family crest, then walked down the quay, past the smallest house in Britain (it’s six feet wide and ten feet long, if you really want to know). At the end of the quay the medieval wall stretches out into the harbor. We walked out on it to get a nice view of the castle and waterfront, then we found a staircase in the wall and climbed up to the wall walk. We peered down at the rows of cheerful townhouses and glimpsed tiny backyard gardens dripping with greenery and summer blooms. At periodic intervals, huge half-moon watchtowers rise up above the wall, and some of these you can climb for even better views. The town is set on a slope that falls gently to the sea, so the wall climbs steadily upwards to a high point directly opposite the castle. From here we had a sweeping view across the town, protectively encircled by its ancient stone walls, and out to the brilliant blue harbor and the whitecapped sea beyond (photo, right). Behind us, the mountains of Snowdonia rose above verdant hills dotted with…sheep, of course!

Our next stop was Beaumaris Castle on Anglesey, the largest island directly off the shore of Wales and England. To reach it we took the coastal A55 and crossed over to the island on the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait. We took a slow, meandering road around the southeastern edge of the island to the small town of Beaumaris, where we found a free one-hour parking spot on the street. The town, a pleasant collection of pastel-colored Georgian townhouses and shops, grew up around Beaumaris Castle in the late 13^th century, the last and largest of Edward I’s fortifications. Built on a nearly level bit of land protected from the surf (Beaumaris means “beautiful marsh”), there were no topographical anomolies to disrupt the castle’s perfect symmetry. Of all the castles I have visited, its layout best exemplifies the classic features of medieval military architecture: a lower outer bailey, or defensive wall, with towers placed at even intervals, surrounded by a watered moat with a dock on the south side (photo, right), and an almost perfectly square inner bailey with 15½-foot-thick walls, a massive tower at each of the four corners, two more towers on the east and west walls, and two enormous gatehouses on the north and south sides (the north gatehouse is pictured below). The south gatehouse was the main entrance and is protected by a barbican, a stone wall that juts out from the righthand tower, turning at a sharp right angle to be parallel with the bailey wall. The barbican would have forced attackers to be funneled through a narrow corridor and turn sharply to the left to go through the gate. Defenders on the walls above could then attack them from all sides. A wall walk links all of the towers of the inner bailey except for the gatehouses, where the walk is barred by doorways and a short open section. In medieval times, these open sections would be crossed by wooden bridges that could be removed if necessary, separating the gatehouses from the rest of the walls. The gatehouse towers were thus the last line of defense, should both the outer and inner baileys be penetrated.

Beaumaris was never completed and has been significantly dismantled. It looks like someone chopped off the upper half of the towers with a sweep of a massive sledgehammer. The interior of the castle is completely empty save for a few stone foundations. But you can wander through the long, dark passages of the inner bailey and climb up on top a section of the walls, from which you can see back across the Menai Strait to the lush Welsh coastline and the brooding mountains of Snowdonia. After we toured the castle we walked outside the walls along the moat, but unfortunately I couldn’t get the classic “Beaumaris and Snowdonia” shot that I had seen in posters without climbing over a fence into a sheep pasture, which I figured would be frowned upon.

We crossed back to the mainland via a chain suspension bridge designed by Thomas Telford in 1826 and headed southwest along the Menai Strait to Caernarfon. We found a parking space in town and walked through a small, rather rundown shopping district towards the castle, which we had only glimpsed from the road. It was late afternoon already and the town looked pretty dead. The castle, however, was most impressive; its walls and towers are the most intact of the castles we visited today. It stands on a strategically important site near the mouth of the Menai Strait, originally the site of a Roman fort and later an 11^th-century mott-and-bailey castle. The castle we see today was begun by Edward I in 1283, after his armies had overrun Snowdonia. It follows an hourglass-shaped plan with two gatehouses and nine high towers. The castle’s polygonal towers and walls of striated light-and-dark stone were influenced by those of Constantinople, as Edward I was also an ardent Crusader. The castle was taken by Welsh forces when it was still under construction in 1294, but later withstood sieges in 1403 and 1404.

Caernarfon is perhaps most famously known as the birthplace of Edward II, the first English Prince of Wales. Edward I promised to give the Welsh chieftains a ruler who spoke no English, and so it was to Caernarfon that he sent his wife, Eleanor of Castile, to give birth to a son “who spoke no English, had been born on Welsh soil, and whose first words would be spoken in Welsh.” Every generation thereafter, the eldest son of the English royal family has been invested as the Prince of Wales at this very castle, as Prince Charles was in 1969.

We entered the castle via the King’s Gate on the town side and spent the next hour or so exploring the labyrinth of walls and towers. We hiked up to the top of the King’s Tower with its three turrets, from which we had a magnificent view down into the castle (photo, above), the surrounding hills, and the tidal waters of the strait. We stopped to watch a 20-minute film about the history of Caernarfon and the rest of Edward’s castles and the role they played in the subjugation of the Welsh people. The film left us with haunting images of the mountains of Snowdonia, which served as the last stronghold of the Welsh fighters. John went into the museum of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers while I scrambled around the walls for a while longer. It was after 5:30 when we were ready to leave, only to find ourselves locked in; the man at the ticket window had to unlock the door in the massive gate to let us out.

We drove out along the road opposite the castle to get some pictures (photo, right)and then made our way back overland through the Llanberis Pass to Betws-y-Coed. Along the way we spied the remains of Dolbadarn Castle, built by Llywelyn ap Iorweth sometime before 1230 to guard the route into Snowdonia. Apparently the Welsh didn’t have the same access to military engineers – or large pocketbooks – as their English rivals. The ruin is dominated by a round tower which stands lonely watch over the waters of Llyn Padarn. A bit further on we passed Electric Mountain, a power station built inside an abandoned slate mine so as to protect the scenery of Snowdonia, as well as the Welsh Slate Museum. As we continued towards Capel Curig, we stumbled upon the gorgeous craggy valley of Llanberis, where we finally got to see the real splendor of Snowdonia – albeit half-obscured in the clouds – and began to understand why the park is such a mecca for hikers and climbers. The road winds up a narrow valley, lined on either side by low slate walls. Dozens of waterfalls cascaded down green slopes all around us, sheep grazed on the impossibly steep hillsides, and more slate walls crisscrossed the pastures as if they had grown right out of the earth. Mount Snowdon, the highest peak in England and Wales (though not that high at 3,560 feet), was up in the clouds somewhere to our right. We were running late and it was starting to rain again so we couldn’t stop for pictures – I had to settle for the less-than-stellar shots I could snap out the window. We drove through Betws-y-Coed on the way back, located a bank and a gas station, and decided to come back to check out the town in the morning.

We made it back to Tan-y-Foel just before 7:00, so we had to hurry to get ready for dinner. Our meal was not quite as spectacular as last night (although the ambience was a bit more lively with three other couples there). I had a slab of roasted “stripy” bacon with red cabbage and honey dressing, while John had the confit of mullet with spiced sweet corn relish and mango and lime dressing. We both had the halibut with runner beans, salmon potato cake, and a port wine cream sauce, accompanied by a nice Australian chardonnay. We had homemade pannatone bread pudding for dessert, which was positively delicious! After dinner we retired to the lounge again, where John tried another port and I had a very generous glass of Sauternes.

And so ends our brief forway into Wales – tomorrow we head back to England, for a brief stopover in the Lake District on our way north to Scotland.

28 June: The Wilds of Wales

Mrs. Nixon served us our full English breakfast in the dining room, with canned peaches and prunes this time. The portions were a bit smaller than usual, for which I was grateful – I cringe at what these meals must be doing to my cholesterol level. When I went to check out, Mrs. Nixon took my credit card, looked at it for a moment, and asked if we were American. I said yes and she said, “That explains it – you didn’t sound German on the phone!” I asked her if they got many American guests and she said quite a few, so I guess they don’t all sign the guestbook.

We drove back down the crazy narrow lane and headed north on “A” roads (one step below motorway, meaning they are two full lanes wide, thank goodness) through rolling countryside populated by more sheep than people. (I’m not joking – Fodor’s says there are 2.9 million people in Wales and 5.5 million sheep.) We drove through the old spa town of Llandrindod Wells, its streets lined with incongruous Victorian mansions. From there we headed northwest into the Elan Valley, Wales’s equivalent of the Lake District (photo, right). We decided to check out something called Devil’s Bridge, which turned out to be a bit of a tourist folly. Here you can see the rushing River Mynach carving its way through a jagged chasm, complete with several “punch bowls” – nearly-symmetric bowls that have been eroded out of the rock by the river’s passage. The narrow channel is spanned by three separate bridges built literally one on top of the other, the first dating back to the 11^th century, the second from 1708, and the third from 1901 (photo, right). Why they decided not to tear down the previous structures is beyond me! We paid £1 each to go through an ancient metal turnstile and hike down a zigzag trail to see the punch bowls and the trio of bridges. On our way back we got stuck because the turnstile jammed and we had to exit via another door.

We continued west to Aberystwyth on the coast (home of the National Library of Wales) and then turned northeast, passing through Machynlleth, its streets lined with handsome Georgian townhouses. By midday we had entered Snowdonia National Park and the landscape grew increasingly wild as we continued northwards (photo, below). The image that probably comes to mind when you think of Wales is really only one small part of the country, concentrated in the northwest amidst the mountains of Snowdonia. We stopped in a particularly rugged valley to admire the scenery – steep hillsides carpeted in ferns, topped by jagged slate cliffs, with the ubiquitous white sheep grazing in lush green pastures on the lower slopes.

I talked John into taking a scenic drive over Bwlch y Groes (Pass of the Cross), the highest road in Wales. I figured if it was listed in Fodor’s, it couldn’t be that bad. We started out from a lake called Llyn Tegid near the town of Bala and headed towards a bulbous rocky mountain in the distance. When we arrived at the turnoff for the pass (a road so small that it didn’t even have a name on our map), John was rather dubious. There was a sign posted that warned, “single-track road with few passing areas.” I had to show John the description in Fodor’s again to prove that we were in the right place and we weren’t going to get lost out in the Welsh wilderness. The road began winding through tall hedges, then opened up as we climbed the side of a narrow valley occupied by a lone farmstead. We encountered more sheep than cars on the road – a good thing, since sheep are smaller and easier to avoid. We stopped at a little pull-out where a stream came cascading down the hillside to eat a light lunch (salami, crackers, and a tomato and an orange left over from our Sussex Pad breakfast). Our huge Mercedes stood out peculiarly in this empty landscape. Tucked into the pull-out, it resembled a disguised Polizei car waiting for speeders. Just as I asked, “Do you think we are the only people out here in an E-Class?” we watched an older couple drive by in a silver E-Class with British plates. Apparently we were not the only crazy tourists out today. We also got some funny looks from three guys in an offroad-equipped Land Rover coming down the mountain. Remember that we have German plates, so we were definitely a bit of an oddity on the backroads of northern Wales.

After our snack amongst the sheep, we continued onwards, the road narrowing to barely a car’s width as we crept up the side of the valley, watching constantly for pull-outs in the event that someone came at us from the other direction. Fortunately we didn’t see any more cars until we got to the pass, where we got out and climbed a nearby rise to survey the landscape. It was overcast and the clouds kept spitting cold rain at us, but we could see the ridgeline of the Aran Mountains through the mist. A sign was posted that read “This is Sheep Country – you are legally required to keep your dog on a lead.” Right next to the sign stood a blocky stone marker with – you guessed it – a sheep sitting on top of it. An interpretive sign told us that the dark wavy lines on a distant hillside were the edges of ancient peat bogs – an increasingly rare sight even in this unspoiled landscape (photo, right).

We continued on over the pass, rolling treeless grassland stretching out around us. We arrived at a crossroads and admired the view down another steep valley (photo, right), but our route took us in the other direction. On the way down the other side we had to keep our eyes peeled because we encountered several oncoming cars. A couple of times John had to back up quite a ways in order to give the other cars room to pass.

We finally emerged at Lake Vyrnwy and decided to drive counter-clockwise around the lake and then hook up with a B road that would take us back to Bala. We could have taken another mountain road to get back, but John decided that he had had enough of that sort of driving for one day! The lake – or what we could glimpse of it through the trees – was very pretty, with not a house in sight to disturb the landscape of dark forest and green pastures. We stopped at the southeast end of the lake to cross the late 19^th-century dam (constructed to provide water to Liverpool) and used the award-winning loo there (yes, these things are important).

I navigated us back to a nice wide A road (who knew we would ever be so grateful to see a dotted white line down the middle of the road) and we headed west to Trawsfynydd and then north for the final push to Betws-y-Coed. We passed the Llechwedd Slate Caverns en route, where you can tour the slate quarry. The scenery in that area was amazing – enormous piles of slate literally poured out of the mountainside like shards of black glass. Unfortunately it was now raining heavily so I couldn’t get any pictures.

We turned off before reaching the popular resort village of Betws-y-Coed to find our lodging for the next two nights: Tan-y-Foel Country House. It is located several miles from town, up yet another winding single-track lane between high hedges. We were quite relieved when we finally arrived at the gorgeous 16^th-century stone farmhouse nestled in the woods (photo, right). This was our big splurge on the trip and I was anxious to see which of the six individually-decorated rooms we would get. We rushed inside to escape the wind and wet and were greeted warmly by Kelly, daughter of the proprietors. She told us that we were the only guests for the night so they had upgraded us to a larger room. Kelly threw on a coat and took us back outside, around the side of the house to our private entrance. We had our own little vestibule where we could take off our coats and shoes. A second door opened onto the room: a cozy, low-ceilinged chamber with ancient wood beams, a king bed swathed in a gold quilt, two comfortable leather armchairs, a dressing table and large closet, all done in soothing cream and beige tones with lots of atmospheric lighting and artsy fixtures. The bathroom was enormous, simple and modern, with cork flooring, a separate shower and tub, and huge fluffy white bath towels and robes. We were in heaven!

Tan-y-Foel is known for its fine cuisine, cooked up by co-owner and Master Chef Janet Pitman, so we were really looking forward to a wonderful meal. We were seated all alone in a nook in the modern dining room, looking out on a little walled garden where a tabby cat was snuggled in a box under an umbrella, oblivious to the rain. Our meal was simply fabulous, starting with the homemade bread – white with Welsh cheddar and brown flavored with molasses. For starters, I had chicken livers on toast with mixed greens and raspberry-mustardseed vinaigrette and John had roast salmon with tomato fondant and olive tapenade. We both had the Welsh pork tenderloin with crisp pancetta, potato cake, apple cider sauce and something called “bubble-and-squeak,” which is a crispy sort of cracker made from the pork drippings. Can you imagine a more perfect meal for a dark and stormy night? To go with it we had the recommended Jackie Janedot Moulin-a-Vent Beaujolais. For dessert, John had rhubarb fool and I had apricot Tarte Tatin with crème Anglaise. Kelly was our server and sommelier and, since she didn’t have any other guests to take care of, stopped to chat with us several times about our trip and living in Germany. After dinner we retired to the cozy lounge, also very tastefully decorated in a modern style, where I had Earl Grey tea and John had a glass of port, which he picked because it was described as tasting of pencil lead. It was raining sideways when we finally turned in for the night. Full of good food and exhausted from the day’s journey, we relaxed in our cozy room, quite safe from the raging Welsh weather.

27 June: From Cornwall to Wales

John had the Bottreaux’s English breakfast again and I had scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and chives. Our hostess came over to greet us – after talking to all of the other guests first, just like yesterday. I felt sort of second-class. She seemed nice enough, although they never did turn on the heat. John loaded up the car while I checked out and chatted with the hostess. For some reason we got on the topic of Africa because she used to live in South Africa.

Today’s route was slated to take us back through northern Cornwall to Exeter and northeast along the Bristol Channel. We planned to take a short detour to Glastonbury to visit the famous Tor and then continue on past Bristol, across the channel, and into Wales. We had reservations this evening (including dinner) at a bed & breakfast called Brynhir Farm near Llandrindod Wells in central Wales. Susie said the drive would take about four hours.

We followed the narrow winding roads back through Cornwall and I was reminded of a comment I read somewhere expressing frustration about the hedges being so high here. All we ever seemed to see were masses of tangled green shrubs, with glimpses of rolling hills (dotted with sheep, of course) flashing by through the occasional break in the hedge. Of course John’s eyes were always on the road, anticipating the next car to come speeding around the bend. English drivers don’t seem to expect an oversized German sedan to be coming at them and they often barely give us enough room to squeeze by. (I’m laughing as I write this since an E-Class is considered a mid-size sedan in the U.S.)

We soon hooked up with the welcoming broad swath of the M5 motorway and made good time through the rolling countryside to Glastonbury. Susie guided us into town and, amazingly, even knew exactly where we should park, as you cannot actually drive to Glastonbury Tor. The parking lot was right next to Glastonbury Abbey, site of the first Christian settlement in England, and, according to legend, where Joseph of Arimathea brought the Holy Grail and founded a monastery in the 1^st century. We could see bits of the ruined Abbey over the high stone wall, and I hoped that we could take a peek inside (after all, it is rumored to be the site where King Arthur and Guinevere were buried), but our primary goal was the Tor, long-revered as the heart of the mystical realm of Avalon.

We decided to get something for lunch first since it was almost 1:00. The town – at least what we could see of it – looked like your normal sort of college hangout, despite Glastonbury being a major draw for druids, hippies, and various other New Agers attracted to its mystical past. We walked down the street a ways (figuring it was probably a good idea to put a little distance between us and the tour bus throngs descending on the Abbey) and ducked into a cozy pub with red velour seats and red curtains and a very frazzled bleached-blonde barmaid. We ordered a couple of toasted baguette sandwiches and sodas. While we waited for our lunch to arrive, we watched with mild amusement as the barmaid told some teenagers of uncertain origin to turn down the music that they were blasting on their cell phones. They pretended not to understand English but did what she asked and left soon after. We gobbled down our sandwiches and then set off on our jaunt to Glastonbury Tor.

We walked about a mile through town, past a park, and then along a trail through a cow pasture to the base of the Tor. It sprinkled on and off but fortunately never turned into a serious downpour. The dirt path angled steeply upwards and we could see the massive dark tower looming on the hill above us (photo, above). When we arrived at the top we had the place completely to ourselves, although there was plenty of evidence of past visitors of the bovine variety – evidence splattered rather unceremoniously all over the base of the tower. The striking square edifice is all that remains of St. Michael’s Church, which collapsed in1271 (photo, right). From the open archways at the base of the tower we had magnificent views of the surrounding countryside, out across the red-brick houses of Glastonbury and the vivid green fields of the so-called Vale of Avalon (photo, below). A circular stone slab set into the ground nearby pointed out nearby landmarks. We found Cadbury Castle, one of several contenders for the site of King Arthur’s Camelot, about 13 miles distant. Or rather, I think I identified a dark green, flat-topped hill as the location of Cadbury Castle.

We took our pictures and then hiked back down the hill in a light rain. We peeked in the entrance to Glastonbury Abbey but didn’t have time for a visit (it would have cost £18) which was too bad, because the ruins looked very atmospheric in the rain. (The abbey was completed in 1524 but destroyed in 1539 when Henry VIII called for the dissolution of the monasteries.) We looked around the gift shop instead and bought a fridge magnet with the Wilkinson family crest (Wilkinson being John’s grandmother’s maiden name).

Then it was back in the car, a quick stop for gas, and onwards to Wales. I called Brynhir Farm on my cell phone to tell them when we would arrive; Mrs. Nixon said she had to attend an important meeting in town and was leaving dinner in the hands of her husband (she actually said, “I think everything is under control!”). We bypassed Bristol and headed across the very new, very modern Severn Bridge (whopping £5,10 toll!) into Wales. We were greeted by a “Welcome to Wales” sign printed in English and in Welsh, and I was pleased to see that all of the road signs are printed in both languages, with Welsh on top. On the down side, this meant that my navigational instructions became completely incomprehensible as I tried in vain to pronounce the jumbles of consonants that pepper the Welsh language.

Near Cardiff we left the M4 and headed north on winding roads through more rolling green countryside that gradually became more rugged and barren. I am beginning to understand why people are always joking about how many sheep there are in the U.K. There are a few cows, too – I spotted my first Highland cows, the cute ones with blonde bangs and long curved horns. We made our way through a string of quaint little towns until we finally reached the tiny hamlet of Howey, just south of Llandrindod Wells, where, after one wrong turn, we found Chapel Road and followed the signs to Brynhir Farm. The road became a narrow one-lane track with high hedges on either side, and we just hoped that no one would come at us from the other direction because there was nowhere to pull over. We passed several other B&Bs and farmsteads and the road finally ended at the entrance to Brynhir Farm (photo, right). It was pretty funny to see where the mapmakers had stopped – we drove right off the end of the white line on the navi’s display, our little arrow indicator heading into a blank sea of gray on the screen.

We parked in front of a rambling white stone farmhouse (photo, right), where we were greeted by a scruffy but friendly Border Collie. As we rooted through our stuff in the trunk, a grizzled man in mud-covered work clothes came out of a nearby barn carrying a bucket. He apologized for his appearance, saying he was dealing with a difficult birth (a cow, I assume, from the heart-rending lowing coming from the barn), and asked if we wouldn’t mind showing ourselves to our room. He gave us directions through the house and there was also a note from his wife for us on the door. Our room was on the first floor at the far end of the house, through two small parlors filled with frilly antiques. We were surprised to open the door and find twin beds on opposite sides of the room (I had simply requested a double), with a sink in one corner and a small but serviceable bathroom with shower. In one of the parlors there was a guestbook, which I peeked at; no American guests had signed it since last September. After we’d settled in, I decided to take a little walk before dinner. As soon as I started down the road, my friend the Border Collie jumped up and led the way. I got the feeling he had done this before. I took a few pictures of the scenery and then returned to the house. On my way inside I met an elderly lady who was seated at the desk in one of the parlors. She told me she was here with two friends on a walking holiday (apparently a very popular pastime for Brits). We chatted for a bit about the weather, as there has been some serious flooding elsewhere in Wales and England over the past few days.

Dinner was served promptly at 7:00 p.m. We were seated at a table in front of the stone fireplace, which was large enough for five people to stand up inside of it (photo, right). The woman from the parlor was there with her friends, along with another older couple. Dinner was efficiently served by a young woman dressed in a prim black skirt and white apron. It was a rather interesting meal. First we had a piece of honeydew melon garnished with an orange slice and a strawberry. The main course consisted of a platter of cold ham, accompanied by individual dishes of potatoes, rice and peas, pickled beets, halved hard-boiled eggs with mayonnaise, an iceburg lettuce salad, and bread and butter. The potatoes were the only thing served warm. In some ways it reminded me of the simple dinners we would eat on the farm in France when my brother and I stayed with the Nuttens in high school. Lunch was usually served hot and dinner was the leftovers, served cold…typical farm fare, I suppose. I saw that the other couple had a bottle of wine so I asked the young woman if they sold wine. She asked us if we wanted white or red. I asked for a medium white, and we got a very nice Riesling – from Bernkastel-Keus in the Mosel Valley, of course!

The best part of dinner was dessert – a fabulous raspberry custard topped with a thick layer of the richest cream I’ve ever tasted – homemade, I reckon. We finished with tea and coffee and then took a nice late-evening stroll down the lane. We stopped to watch a couple of horses grazing in a pasture (photo, right), but they wouldn’t come very close – apparently they didn’t smell any apples or carrots on us. We went on down the road until we reached a herd of plaintively bleating sheep, several of whom were sticking their heads through the fence to munch on the tender leaves of the hedge (you know what they say – the grass is always greener…). Finally we turned around and headed back to the farmhouse, marveling at this little idyllic corner of the world that we had discovered in central Wales.

26 June: Magical, Mystical Tintagel

The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was look out the window. It was raining. Again. What a surprise.

The mention of a “full English breakfast” in every one of our hotel reservations is apparently not a misnomer. Once again we were treated to eggs made to order, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes, and toast. Oh, the calories!! The only variables seem to be the cereal selection and the fruit, which in this case was stewed prunes. A woman we hadn’t seen before came in and chatted gaily with all of the other guests before coming to greet us, rather perfunctorily might I add. I got the feeling that the others were repeat customers at the hotel, but it was still a little off-putting.

With just one day to spend in Cornwall, I had a single destination in mind: Tintagel, legendary birthplace of King Arthur, located about eight miles down the rocky, surf-battered coast from Boscastle. I have always pictured Tintagel as Marion Zimmer Bradley described it in The Mists of Avalon: an impenetrable iron-gray fortress rising majestically from its rocky foundations, separated from the mainland by a narrow stone causeway, its lonely battlements ravaged by the wind and waves, its occupants huddled in front of a blazing hearth to ward off the perpetual chill of the sea. I would like to tell you that this grand vision still exists in all of its mystical glory on the northern shore of Cornwall, but alas, the mighty castle has been reduced to a few ruined walls and gates, pockmarked here and there by jagged windows opening their blind eyes to the crashing surf below. And yet, it seems that history is alive and well on this windswept promontory at the end of the world…

If Arthur really existed at all, he most likely lived in a wood-framed, thatch-roofed hall whose 6^th-century remains have long since rotted away. The first person to place Arthur in the context of Tintagel was Nennius, a 9^th-century cleric, who, struggling to fill a blank spot in the pages of history following the departure of the Romans from England, knitted together the story of a great Christian war leader who successfully warded off the invading pagan Saxons in a series of battles around 500 A.D. This representation of Arthur might have long since faded into the annals of the past were it not for the creative mind of one Geoffrey of Monmouth, who apparently decided that the Kings of England needed an ancestor of whom they could be proud. He made Arthur out to be a powerful king who had defeated a Roman Emperor and conquered most of Western Europe. Arthur was eventually wounded in battle and spirited away to the Isle of Avalon, from which, Geoffery hinted, the great king might one day return to lead the people of England to peace and prosperity.

It was quite easy for medieval French poets and storytellers to pick up the now-popular tale, embellishing it with their own current ideals of noble knights, chivalry, and courtly love. Soon the Knights of the Round Table and the colorful personas of Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Lady of the Lake were added to the cast of characters. With the coming of the Crusades, Arthur and his knights were given a new mission – the quest for the Holy Grail. And so, over the centuries, the legend of King Arthur morphed and evolved to suit the needs and desires of the day. The story might have died out were it not for The Idylls of the King, a narrative poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the 1860s, introducing a whole new audience to the legendary Arthur. In the end, the question of whether Arthur really existed is largely irrelevant in the face of the influence his story has had – and continues to have – on countless generations. The themes of courage and cowardice, love and hate, virtue and sin are timeless, and will live on in our collective consciousness for centuries to come.

Which brings us back to Tintagel, and why this place continues to draw so many visitors year after year. Curiously, one solid piece of evidence has been uncovered to link Arthur to this mysterious spot. In 1998, an archaeological team turned over a slab of stone covering a 6^th-century drain, revealing a portion of an inscription containing the name ARTOGNOV. Someone named Artognou built something here and wanted people to know about it. A fire in 1983 burned off the peaty topsoil of Tintagel’s island to reveal the foundations of dozens of small buildings dating to the 5^th and 6^th centuries – Arthur’s time. And someone wealthy enough to import luxury goods from Spain, North Africa and Greece apparently lived here, because shards of wine jars and other pottery vessels originating from those distant locales have been found in great quantities all over the island. Obviously Tintagel still holds many secrets beneath its slate-covered surface.

What we do know is that a 13^th-century Earl of Cornwall by the name of Richard, brother of King Henry III, took it upon himself to rebuild the remote and strategically-unimportant fortress at Tintagel (from Din Tagell, meaning Fortress of the Narrow Entrance). This was either a purely romantic gesture or a savvy political move to strengthen Earl Richard’s self-promotion as a successor to the legendary King Arthur and protector of Cornwall. Whatever his motivations, the fortress never served much purpose and soon fell into ruin, the grassy promontory serving as a sheep pasture until it was rediscovered by 19^th-century romanticists and turned into the Arthurian tourist attraction we were heading off to visit today.

We found the small village of Tintagel (which changed its name from Travena to Tintagel in 1900 to profit off the famous castle) to be busy with tourists at 10 a.m. on this breezy Tuesday morning. The streets were lined with shops selling plastic swords and mood crystals, and the huge bulk of the ugly Camelot Hotel (originally built as a railway terminus hotel, except that the railway was never built) marred the otherwise tranquil view out to the sea. We found a gravel lot in the middle of town where we paid £1 to park all day and set off down the steep path to the castle. Our first glimpse of the fortress consisted of a jagged span of wall rising from the grassy promontory, the man-made construction barely distinguishable from the surrounding outcroppings of layered slate. We walked around a bend in the trail and more of the ruins came into view above us. We used our English Heritage pass to get in (saving us £9) and watched the short film about “uncovering Arthur,” which basically said that the whole legend is a “bunch of hooey” (John’s words, not mine).

Below us lay a short stretch of sandy beach, where ships once landed to load and unload goods. A zigzagging set of stairs led us to a wooden footbridge, which crosses the narrow span of rock linking Tintagel to the mainland. The fortress is split into two main sections – two large courtyards on the mainland, set high up on a cliff to our left, and the island courtyard nestled in a sheltered hollow on our right. We decided to head to the island first. We climbed the steep trail along a battlement wall, a 19^th-century construction that replaced a medieval section that fell into the sea (probably foretelling the eventual fate of the rest of the island courtyard as the sea pounds inevitably away at its base), and passed through an archway into the remains of the 13^th-century courtyard, where Earl Richard’s Great Hall once stood. All that remains is a romantically ruined section of stair-stepped battlement (photo, above) and the rough outline of several rooms. The buildings were all constructed of local slate, set in thin layers much like the geologic formations from which they came, so the walls look like they grew organically, right out of the ground. From here we looked through empty windows at the dramatic Cornish coastline stretching away to the north (photo, above). It looked very much like a stormy day on the Mendocino coast of northern California, complete with low threatening clouds and a chilling wind. My boots were still wet from yesterday so I was stamping my feet and running around trying to warm up.

Despite the crowds in town, we soon left most of the visitors behind as we set out to explore the island. Narrow trails led us from one ruined structure to the next, including the foundations of a tiny chapel and the rectangular outline of what is believed to have been the castle garden (photo, above). The island was carpeted with grasses and wildflowers, including tall spikes of bright pink foxglove, which really should be the national flower of England, it is so common. The island flattens out on top, where a shallow depression in the rock forms a water catchment and you can crawl through a short, triangular tunnel carved out of the rock, which possibly served as a food larder for the castle, cooled by the sea breezes. As we scrambled about on the slate outcroppings, the clouds began to disperse and patches of blue sky appeared to compete with the brilliant aquamarine of the ocean. We circled the entire island, eventually coming back to the landward side, where we had a lovely view across the narrow inlet to the squat stone tower of Tintagel’s parish church of St. Materiana (photo, right).

We crossed the bridge back to the mainland and toured the two ruined courtyards on that side (seen in photo at right, with the town of Tintagel in the background), which offer good views back to the island fortress. From here you can really see why they call it an island, though it is just barely connected to the mainland (photo, below). Then we hiked along the coastal trail to the 11^th-century parish church, sitting all alone on the bluff, surrounded by an ancient graveyard (photo, below). The church was likely built on the site of a Celtic oratory and later replaced by a Saxon building. The oldest portion of the church is the wall and porch on the north side, dating to 1080. Inside, there is a lovely timber-framed ceiling, a Norman font, and various medieval and modern additions. The South Transept features a stone bench running around the edge dating to the 15^th century, when people used to stand through the services. Only the elderly and infirm were allowed to sit (“the weakest goes to the wall”). The little pamphlet about the church mentions a famous altercation between Thomas Hardy and the Vicar that took place here in 1916, but apparently the visitor is supposed to know the details already, as no further information is provided. The church registers date back to 1546, and many of the lichen-encrusted headstones in the graveyard looked like they could be that old, time and weather having long since worn away the inscriptions. We wandered through the graveyard and then back to town on a narrow country lane. On our way back to the car we passed the 14^th-century Old Post Office with its undulating slate tile roof.

It was now early afternoon and we decided to head down the coast a few miles to the fishing village of Port Isaac. Susie kept trying to send us on impossibly narrow roads, so I took over and tried to keep us on roads that pretended to be two lanes wide. It didn’t help that it seems to be perfectly legal in England to park facing the wrong way (so it looks like a car is coming right at you in your lane) and block half the road. We started to feel like we had the largest car in England. It also didn’t help that there are no shoulders to speak of, and most of the roads are fenced in on either side by five-foot hedges, so you can’t see what’s coming around the bend.

Port Isaac is described in my Fodor’s guide as a cluster of cottages that “tumbles precipitously down the cliff” but you wouldn’t know it unless you parked in the lot above the village, as we did, and walked down, because the village is literally invisible from the road above. We didn’t want to risk any more parking tickets so we put a full four hours on the meter, to the tune of £2,70. I returned to the car and put the ticket on the dashboard. To my dismay, as I exited the car, a gust of wind blew the ticket down into the crack between the windshield and the dashboard. We spent several long minutes trying to extract the ticket using John’s mini Swiss Army knife, but to no avail. Finally I went and bought another ticket, this time only for two hours because I was running short on change. I came back and John was still trying to get the other ticket out. I thought it was gone for good but John swore that he could see the “reflection” of the ticket in the windshield, just a few inches out of reach. I told him he was seeing things. Then I took off my (polarized) sunglasses and realized that you could actually see the ticket. I finally used the pamphlet from the Tintagel chapel to carefully ease the ticket out of the crevice. Now we had two parking tickets with six hours of time between them. I walked back to the machine, certain that I could find someone to buy the ticket off of me. A couple of minutes later an English guy walked up and I offered him my ticket, showing him that it was good for another two hours. I said I would take a pound for it but he insisted on giving me the whole £1,50 (don’t laugh – that’s $3!).

After this minor drama, we set off towards the village on the coastal trail. Port Isaac is indeed a lovely little hamlet of whitewashed stone houses perched around a narrow harbor dotted with colorful fishing boats. There are a few touristy shops, art galleries, pubs, and little cafés offering simple meals and afternoon tea. There were lots of little cottages for rent and I imagined that this would be a nice place to spend a few days, either to explore Cornwall or just sit and watch the waves roll in. We wandered the narrow streets for a while admiring the quaint houses and gardens (photo, right), peeked into an art gallery inhabiting an old church, and then hiked up the other side of the valley to get a spectacular view of the village and harbor (photo, below). We continued up the narrow trail, which dumped us into a sheep pasture, and walked out to the next point, where we could see all the way back to Tintagel’s island. We returned to town by the same route and decided to stop at the bar at the Slipway Hotel (a place I had researched staying at before settling on the Bottreaux), where we indulged in Cornish cream tea and scones slathered with strawberry preserves and clotted cream. John said he felt a heart attack coming on. Granted the clotted cream came in store-bought plastic tubs, but it was still delicious! We stopped in at a few galleries on the way back to the car but didn’t see anything that really attracted us.

We drove back to Boscastle, left our car at the hotel, and then took a long walk through the village. A steep road leads straight down the hill from the hotel, lined with charming stone and white-washed houses, each with its own little garden out front (photo. The hydrangeas and roses were in full bloom, splashing the subdued gray and white houses with bright pinks and reds. A plush gray cat sat on a wall and stared at us as we walked past. We hiked up a very steep hill to the Forabury parish church, which we could see from our hotel window. The church was already locked up for the night but we wandered around the graveyard and then out to the coastal trail. (If I haven’t mentioned it before, a public trail runs all along the spectacular Cornwall coastline.) We headed out to a funny little white building on the nearest bluff, which turned out to be the Willapark Lookout – originally built as a summer house in the early 1800s by a local landowner and later used as a Coast Guard lookout station. From this windy vantage point we had a gorgeous sweeping view over the Cornish countryside: emerald-green fields bordered neatly by dark hedgerows, like a rich green plaid blanket spread over the hills (photo, right). Along the rocky cliffs we made out the remants of stone walls and buildings – more mysterious ruins from the distant past.

I recognized the entrance to Boscastle harbor off to our right so we decided to hike down that way and come back up through the town on the inland side. The harbor was amazing – a narrow, sinuous channel cutting deep through layers and layers of slate (photo, below). We found it hard to believe that boats could navigate the channel in the crashing surf. As we walked up to the village we could see remnants of the raging flood that nearly destroyed Boscastle in 2004. They were in the process of tearing down the historic stone bridge over the river to be replaced by a new one for flood control purposes. We passed the Wellington Hotel, which I had also looked into staying at. It seemed a little touristy, but charming. We hiked all the way back up the hill to the hotel, at which point we agreed that we had definitely gotten our share of exercise today.

We had an hour to shower and change before dinner in the Bottreaux’s restaurant. There was just one young woman serving the ten or so tables (we were one of just three or four parties). She was very sweet, although rather inappropriately dressed in a cropped white t-shirt and skin-tight low-riding black pants, baring about three inches of flesh above the lacy trim of her bright green underwear. Wowsers! We both ordered from the 3-course menu for £28 and an Australian Chardonnay called Apple Hill. John had the smoked salmon, blini, and caviar for appetizer (the blini was fluffy and piping hot), followed by a big slab of turbot with what I identified as pickerel weed (“poor man’s asparagus”) and a lemon Hollandaise sauce. John described his meal as “okay.” My appetizer and entrée were excellent: seared sashimi tuna with soy sauce and sesame seeds on a bed of pickled bok choy, followed by fillet of bream with panko-coated fried eggplant and tempura-battered zucchini flower with a bouillabaisse sauce. For dessert we both had the chocolate and orange tart (excellent except for the crust, which was a bit underdone) with delicious homemade lemon and thyme ice cream.

I asked our waitress about getting a picnic lunch to take with us tomorrow, as this was listed as an option in the hotel guide. She came back and said that they needed more advance notice, which was a bit frustrating because it just said in the guide to order lunch the night before. My take on the Bottreaux is that it is is trying really hard to be top-notch, but it’s still a little rough around the edges.