The Road Goes Ever On

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Sheep

There's always one; and he's generally the one, in the middle

there, I identify with...

"We're going for a ride!" ... "What's an abbatoir?"

The literature of mountaineering is predominantly English, and much of it is about this mountain and especially its north face, the Black Cliff, Clogwyn dur Arduu, which has long been a training ground for British rock climbing. At 3,560 feet, it is just a day hike, but it is one of those classics one has to do. Besides, on a fine day, from Snowdon's summit you can see the Wicklow Mountains south of Dublin, the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight. So they say.

The day, Thursday, started hopefully for me but then quickly deteriorated. Bigger mountains make their own weather, and, as soon as I climbed up onto the ridge from the valley, everything went gray. Fellow walkers at fifty paces were vague dark figures. It was cold and clammy for six hours, but it was still fun and a thrill. Snowdon!

Vicki stayed back at the carpark, slaving over a hot laptop. After I got back down, we camped at a lay-by down the road from Llanberis, overlooking a lake and the huge strip-mined former-mountain of slate beyond it. Wales, for many years, roofed the world.

The Victorian cog railway still plies the route; here it is in

the valley, the weather, hopeful...

A couple hours later, near the summit, in the clouds; BTW,

I, obviously, eschewed the train; that is to say, I

eschewed-schewed.

Just below Snowdon summit

Snowdon summit compass

The Irish Sea, and beyond, the Wicklow Mountains, and far

to the right, the Isle of Man...

Summit self-Portrait

Staircase into the Abyss...one of the alternative trails

Clogwyn dur Arduu...as I would like to have seen it

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Caernarfon

We've spent two days in Caernarfon, one viewing the great castle and the old walled town, and the other just relaxing, working on the net, reading, planning next steps, enjoying the view across the Straits on Anglesey, watching the tide roll in, roll out, etc. All this at a public carpark with no fees and no restrictions.

The castle, most say, is the best of Edward's Welsh castles, relatively finished, big, an excellent example of concentric design with walled city, etc. In the past century, Caernarfon has been the site of the Royal Investiture, where the crown prince/princess becomes the Prince/Princess of Wales. When Charles was invested, 500 million people watched on TV. There is a nice exhibit on the Princes of Wales, the history of the position (started by Edward, whose son Edward II was born in the castle), the ceremony itself, in addition to the sizable castle exhibit and video.

G2G. The tide's rolling back in.

Caernarfon Castle from the harbor; stolen, yes

View of the fortified harbor; not stolen

Interior view

View from tower

The Triple Eagle Tower, designed to impress

the Welsh; note bands of stone, which Edward

would have seen on his travels to Italy, the

Holy Land, etc.

Charles' Investiture (from exhibit)

Last evening's sunset from our "campsite" on the Strait of

Menai

Vicki adds:

October 13, 2009 Caernarfon, Wales

We have camped the last two nights in a defunct area of an industrial estate as they call them here. Tonight we are actually in a free city lot, which is unusual in two ways. There is not a “no overnight parking” sign and it is free. It is right on the water—the straight that separates mainland Wales from Anglesy Island, the isle of the Druids. The bridge linking the two was built in 1826 by Robert Stephenson, undoubtably a cousin many times removed.

Rebecca and I visited Wales and the castle here in 2001 but this is Mark's first trip. It is also our third castle of Edward I in three days and we have probably now had enough. We have both an English Heritage pass and a National Trust pass. The two together allow us free entry to hundreds of sites. One caveat is that the Heritage pass gives only ½ price for Scotland and Wales unless you are a two year member. We have seen a great many things that we wouldn't have, had we not had the passes. We have also skipped a great many that we probably also would have enjoyed, but to do everything would take 5 months instead of the 3 we have. Mark originally thought 3 months too long but has since changed his mind. Perfect planning would have put us here from late April to late October. Next life.

Bryn Celli Ddu

And only about 2 miles back up the road, out in a sheep pasture, stands Bryn Celli Ddu, a medium-sized kerbed tumulus with an unusual cruciform passage grave; also, an unusual carved menhir outside the site and a standing stone within the passage, also most unusual. It was first excavated in Victorian times, using picks and shovels, more antiquarian hunting than archaeology, but put back together in some semblance of the original. The outside menhir is actually a replica. The original is at the British Museum.

Bryn Celli Ddu, about 20 feet high, 60 feet in diameter

The carved menhir outside

Looking in the passage-way

The interior menhir

Kerbs and entry

Moel-y-don

Research on walks on Anglesey revealed a place none of our other guidebooks mentioned, Moel-y-don. (Not a champagne). It is on the Strait of Menai, island side, probably not a mile west of Plas Newydd.

When the Romans came, in the first century BC, they soon outlawed Druidism, the religion of the Celts. According to the Romans, the Druids were practicing human sacrifice. (This sounds like a trumped-up charge to me, but that's what happens in victors' histories.) Anyhow, the Druids at length withdrew to their spiritual center, the Sacred Oak Grove at Brynsiencyn, on Anglesey. The Romans tracked them down and then finished them off at Moel-y-don. Tacitus describes it thus: "By the shore the opposing battle line was formed, thick with men and weapons; between the ranks flashed women draped in black like the Furies, with flowing hair and carrying torches. The Druids stood among them, issuing frightful curses, with their hands raised high to the heavens. Our soldiers were so frightened by this unfamiliar sight that their limbs were paralyzed, and they stood motionless, vulnerable to wounding."

Evidently, the Celtic bark was worse than the bite. The Romans regrouped, crossed the Strait, slaughtered the Druids and then hacked down the Sacred Grove. End of Druidism; at least until Stonehenge became a National Trust site. (English Heritage site?)

Moel-y-don, on the Strait of Menai

Druidess Vicki

Viking ship? Roman? Welsh?

Plas Newydd, 2009

Plas Newydd is the home of the various earls/marquesses/etc. of Uxbridge/Anglesley/etc. (it is so hard to keep these things straight), and another beautiful National Trust property. Well, I think it's a Welsh Trust property, but National Trust members have reciprocal rights.

The only problem with National Trust sites is that you can never do interior photography, and so I have no pix of the beautiful interior, decorated as it was in the 1930s and with Rex Whistler's wonderful dining room mural, 55 by 10 feet, an Italian harbor/country scene that invites study as well as appreciation. Whistler was, among other things, a theatrical scene designer and painter. He volunteered in 1940, at the age of 41, and was killed at Normandy in 1944. The other thing you get no hint of, from the outside, was that the marquess/earl in the early 19th century, the 2nd earl of Uxbridge, was one of the heroes of Waterloo, Wellington's cavalry chief, who lost his leg in the battle, at Wellington's side. He went on to considerable greatness as a public servant in subsequent years. The House contains quite a Waterloo museum.

The gardens, even in mid-October, were stunning too.

A pair of dolmens, possibly contrived folly, sits near the stables

Trees lining the path to the entry view

The House; heather and other things still in bloom all about

View of House from Menai Strait side; the House is perhaps 75 yards up from
the Straits; wall foliage has turned red

Part of the gardens

Some of the trees here think it's autumn

The hydrangeas haven't gotten the memo yet

The 5th marquess/earl/whatever loved theater, and--I love

this--changed the chapel into the "Gaiety Theatre," where

he produced a number of shows featuring the greats of the

day; he died, age 29, in Monte Carlo, his estranged wife

at his side

Beaumaris

The isle of Anglesey sits north of mainland Wales, separated by the Strait of Menai, which in places seems more a river, hardly 100 yards wide, but is still subject to the significant tidal flows of the region. It was joined to the mainland by a bridge in 1826. We spent Monday seeing a variety of sights on Anglesey.

The first of these was Beaumaris Castle, the last and possibly largest of Edward I's Welsh castle construction projects. Though it was never actually finished, historians describe it as the "perfect" concentric castle, that is, a castle whose walls are surrounded by a lower "curtain" wall, itself with towers and turrets, thereby doubling the firepower with arrows and projectiles streaming from both sets of walls. If the curtain were breached, then the gap between curtain and high wall became a killing field. As I noted about Conwy, these castles were so designed that they could be defended by a very small number of men, even against an army. And, of course, the adjoining town was also fortified, walls, towers, etc.

As much of Beaumaris as I could fit in the lens

Interior corridor, sufficiently narrow that any fighting here

would be single combat, mano y mano

Killing field, between wall and curtain

Structure in the yard

Chapel; Edward I was quite the international king, with a
French mother, Spanish wife, he was Duke of Gascony as
well as King of England and Scotland and Ireland, close

pals with Saint Louis, the French king (they went
crusading together, except that Edward got there too late,
after Louis had died of plague), and also a pal of Pope
Gregory X, the crusading pope

Arrow slits in wall

Beaumaris had a moat too as well as fortified access to the

harbor

British warning sign; should be prefaced by "I'm terriby

sorry to bother you, but..."

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Conwy

After Liverpuddle, we drove on, through the tunnel and into Wales, stopping at a real campground just short of Conwy. Despite rain, we got the wash done and other campground things, and then, as the sky cleared to a beautiful day Sunday, we drove on to Conwy and its castle.

The best real medieval castles, some say, are all in Wales, ordered in the later 13th century by Edward I, whom we last saw getting defeated by Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn near Stirling, in Scotland. Edward did much better in Wales, though he had to fight two wars and did not get a Stone of Scone as a bonus. (But he did get the Prince of Wales thing, which turned out to be important.) The Welsh strongholds were all in mountainous Snowdonia, in the north. Edward and his advisors concluded that it would be cheaper to build these monster castles and the fortified towns associated with them, and to send in English settlers, than to continue a series of wars with the feisty Welsh. History always has its little surprises, but, basically, he was right, and up went the castles, 17 in all, the largest and strongest of which ring Snowdonia. Edward had traveled widely before becoming king, including a crusade or two, knew the latest in warfare, and employed the leading military architect of his time. They were military fortresses, strongholds, part of the national defense, neither noble nor royal residences. They were designed to be defended by as few as a couple dozen men. And did. Anyhow, several of the castles are still in reasonably good shape. Conwy is one of the best, although not "concentric" in design, it still had its "killing fields," fortified access to the harbor, etc.