Cymru am byth

A few weeks ago my Canadian friend Robin and I decided we wanted to spend a weekend in Wales. So, on March 5, we headed to the train station with only backpacks and our Wales Rover passes, which are similar to Eurail passes, but only to be used in north Wales. Some drama with our seats on our first train caused me to accidentally cause a man, who was thankfully quite good-natured, to spill his Coke on himself. After another encounter with some elderly people, a woman winked at us and assured us that, "Not all Brits are like that." I will not go into detail about the events that led up to her having to tell us this. By the time we got to Warrington Bank Quay, where we transferred onto Arriva Trains (the main Welsh train company), we were getting nervous, as our morning train ride had not gone as smoothly as it could have. However, the rest of our trip went more smoothly than we could have hoped.

The first thing that stuck out to me was the Welsh language. The places all have odd names, such as Blaenau Ffestiniog and Betws-y-Coed. "Wales" itself is "Cymru" in Welsh, and is pronounced kind of like "Come-ree," but with the last syllable accented differently. Of course I was pronouncing it "Sim-rue" the whole time we were there, though thankfully I do not think I ever said that to an actual Welsh person. All of the signs had their message first in Welsh, then in English, like this sign at our favorite castle: random double "l's" and double "f's," everywhere.

None of the names of places are pronounced even close to how they are spelled. We talked to a young Welsh guy and he told us that he knew Welsh somewhat but had not started really learning it until high school. At least he had the pronunciations down, though, unlike us.

We arrived in Llandudno Junction via Arriva Trains, the provider of our bus and train passes. We then walked through the town and crossed a bridge, and the Conwy Castle spread out impressively before us. Around this point we started to get very cocky and self-congratulatory about this epic adventure we had planned for ourselves. Conwy is a quaint town, but you can tell it used to be a fairly epic stronghold. The stone walls that once surrounded the city now wind through it, fallen completely into disrepair at some places, but standing tall and strong at others.

Our first destination was our hostel, which was at the very top of the hill the town was built on. By the time we had climbed to the top, our spirits had fallen somewhat. We dropped our bags and said we would be back before 10:00 in the evening (or 22:00) to check in. In hindsight, we probably should have asked for some type of security to make sure our bags would be there when we returned. They did not ask for any ID or give us any type of bag tags to give back to them when we returned to retrieve our bags. But at this point we were on a we're-about-to-explore-an-epic-castle high. The lady at the desk recommended a few places in Wales that we should go, so we decided to change our already shaky itinerary, cutting out one town and adding in one or two others.

First we explored the walls that ran down from our hostel and through the town to the castle.

Then we explored the castle itself.

The rest of the town was very quaint, but the stone fortress was always visible. Also, the tides in the bay seemed to be confused, or perhaps they just confused us. We also had tea in a tea shop run by several old ladies. It gave me a slightly creepy, "A Rose for Emily" vibe, but we escaped with our lives, and even tried some Welsh cakes, which are basically just flat, small scones.

This photo was not edited at all. Cut out the cars and I would think I had somehow found my way into a fairytale!

That night we put our Wales passes to use, walking back to Llandudno Junction and taking the train 15 minutes away to Llandudno. We were… a bit nervous in this town. It was dark, rather empty, many of the restaurants were closed, and every time we try to go into a pub together we end up in an "old man pub." But we managed to find a quasi-authentic American diner; they even had Heinz ketchup and French's mustard, as well as an Elvis tribute wall and red and white vinyl booths. They also had large statues of Alice in Wonderland characters throughout the town, for no apparent reason. *Clarification: I have since found out that Alice Liddell, the supposed inspiration for Lewis Carroll's stories.

The next day we went back to the train station with plans to take a train to Betws-y-Coed, or at least part of the way there. As it turned out, the train was not coming for a few more hours, so we took the bus, instead. Every time we showed bus drivers and train conductors our Wales Rover pass, we went out of our way to over-explain it, but they never seemed to care. Truthfully, if we had just had any little orange and white piece of paper, we could probably have made it through most of Wales for free.

We passed through beautiful Welsh countryside, including great slate mountains and fields dotted with sheep and so many tiny lambs. One of our goals was to pet a little lamb, but alas, it did not happen. Hopefully Scotland's lambing season will start soon. Hmm, I wonder if I could somehow sneak a lamb into my tiny flat… Anyway, we eventually arrived at the little hamlet of Betws-y-Coed. Nestled in between the River Conwy and its three western tributaries, this town reminded me of Star's Hollow, from Gilmore Girls. Unfortunately there were more bed and breakfasts and fancy vacation restaurants than diners, and while I did not run into Taylor Doose, I did see the town meeting minutes stapled in a glass case in the park, for all to read.

After Betws-y-Coed, we took the train, and then the bus, onward to Caernarfon, and then Beaumaris. It is only because of Robin (and her data) that I am not still in Wales to this day. She bravely planned out our journey, and got us from train to bus and back again. Sometimes this involved running from the train to an about-to-leave bus, other times it involved a helpful stranger a few seats over giving us advice. Luckily, as loud North Americans, everyone always knew our plans and knew when we needed help.

Later that day we saw some more castles. I never thought I would say that so nonchalantly. First we explored Caernarfon...

Next we saw Beaumaris Castle, which is known as the most technically beautiful castle in the UK, and has its very own moat.

All the castles we visited were built by Edward Longshanks in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. He built and rebuilt a string of castles across Wales, and we saw three of the "four great castles." They were all incredible, and massive, and made me wonder what type of man Edward was.

When we got off the bus at Beaumaris, I specifically asked the driver how often the bus back to Bangor comes, and he told us every 15 minutes. Well, that was a lie, so we waited in the wind and cold for over an hour until the bus finally came. A young Welsh guy was also waiting for the bus, and when we dropped him off at his stop, his next bus was just pulling away, so at least we did not have his luck.

We spent that night in Chester, England, at another hostel. This time we had a roommate which was a wee bit awkward. She spent a disconcerting amount of time sitting on her bed with no phone or book, watching me. But we made the most of it. The next morning, we hopped on a bus to our last destination, Llangollen. We originally put this town on our list because they were having a steam train festival, but when we arrived we decided to skip it, as we had already been riding trains, albeit not steam trains, all weekend, and it was more expensive than we hoped. Instead, we wandered around the town, which was a very nice little place with a river running through it, and fruit, vegetable, and flower markets spilling out onto the sidewalk.

A little old lady approached us in the street and asked if we were lost. We told her "No, we're just wandering around." She said we simply had to see the ceiling of their church, as it would be like nothing we had ever seen before. She then commanded us to go around the church to a building where they were serving free breakfast, and tell them that Pam said to tell Mike to open the church for us. We did, and not only did we get a free full English breakfast, complete with beans, tomatoes, and two kinds of meat, but we also got to see the exquisite, wood carved ceiling of the church.

We spent the afternoon taking a canal boat down the Llangollen Canal to the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. Collectively they are another UNESCO World Heritage Site. Honestly I'm not sure why I'm so excited about going to these UNESCO sites, but why not? Most of them we went to without even knowing what they were. We chilled on the boat with people a few years (or 30-50 years) older than us, and then embraced our youth by running down into a random farmer's field to get a closer view of the aqueduct we had just crossed via boat. There was also a viaduct in the distance.

All in all, Wales was much more spectacular than I thought it would be. When I first came to the United Kingdom, Wales was at the bottom of my list of places to travel to, but now, northern Wales is one of the first places I would recommend to people traveling in the UK, after the Scottish highlands of course. The Welsh motto, "Cymru am byth" means "Wales forever" or "Long live Wales." I could not agree more. I hope Wales lives on for a very long time; it will live on in my memory as long as I live.


Thanks for reading,

Carrie