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Caernarfon Porthmadog Betws-y-Coen Bodnant Gardens

Still Tuesday, June 13, 1995

We land at Holyhead on Holy Island. Small island, quick trip to Anglesey Island. There, we stop for a brief time at the town with the longest name in the world: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllandysiliogogogoch. Keith plays a tape of a song on how to pronouce it, but all we can get is the "gogogoch" bit. We don't have enough time to see the town, just the tourist center/store at the railway station. Also, enough time for me to grab a sandwich for lunch in their cafeteria. I decide that this is a good time to change my Irish money. Unfortunately, the nearest bank is 2 1/2 miles down the road, so I pick up a spoon with the town name and a cassette of Welsh songs that Keith had been playing on the bus. They take the Irish 10 pound note and give me English change. Not bad. Now I just have to carry around the Irish change I already have for the rest of the trip.

The store also has a stand where you can stamp your passport with a stamp that has the full name of the town on it. I am a bit hesitant to do this, since my passport is an official document and all, and this is just a tourist store thing, but I do it anyway. I have this (possibly) naive belief that if there had been any people that got into trouble from stamping their passport here, the government would have made them stop doing this by now.

Another quick stop in Caernarfon to see the castle. This is the famous one in which Prince Charles was invested as the Prince of Wales back in 1969 or so. This thing is huge. We approach it by walking through the center of town on Market Street. They have stalls in the streets, and banners over the street, and at the end is this really, really big castle. We don't have enough time to take the tour inside, and it's about 5 pounds, anyway. I just enough time to take some pictures, walk around the side to the parking lot, and stop at a tourist shop to pick up one of the ubiquitous booklets. I still want to know more about the castle, and since I can't take the tour, this book should come in handy.

The reason we don't have much time is that we have to get to Porthmadog to catch one of The Great Little Trains of Wales. These are (mostly) tourist trains that run up to Blaenau Ffestiniog on really narrow-gauge track. One of the railway staff guys tells us that the gauge is about 1 foot, 11 1/2 inches. The cars aren't much wider. Most of the trip we spend going from one side of the car to the other looking for good picture angles. And there is plenty of great scenery to take pictures of including valleys, waterfalls, and many Welsh trees (which seem to get in most of our pictures). The staff guy sells us books, brings us drinks & stuff, and then stays to talk. He says he's worn out because the bunch before us was mostly made up of school kids. We express our sympathy. He's a riot.

The first major station (the second actual stop) is Minffordd. I only mention this because I discover while we're stopped that Portmeirion is a mere 15 minute walk from there. Portmeirion is where they filmed The Prisoner, one of the all-time great TV shows, and I've always wanted to visit The Village there. I check with Keith, but we're only going one way on the railroad, not a round trip. If we were, I think I would have jumped off and gone for a walk. Of course I don't get around to checking this until we're well on our way again, so it wouldn't have made any difference at that point, anyway. Next visit.

The bus meets us at the end of the line, and we drive to the Royal Oak Hotel at Betws-y-Coen. This place is quite spectacular. The hotel looks good, the rooms are big, and the view is amazing. I have the mushroom stroganoff for supper, and it is just superb. Everyone else has similar opinions about their meals. Keith has the chef come out, and we all give him a big round of applause.

After supper, a good share of the group goes on a hike down the stream to a waterfall or something. Later I hear that it was a long hike, but good one. Keith had promised a "short walk," and for the rest of the trip, he gets kidded about taking the group on really long "short walks." I go for a walk with the Winzenrieds in the area around the hotel. We see the stream, the railroad station, the grounds and outside of a rail museum (the cars were looking somewhat dilapidated), and St. Mary's and St. Michael's churches. Outside of St. Michael's, there are several tombstones leaning up against the church walls. Most are dated from the 1700s. I'm not exactly sure what this means, probably just that the graves fell apart or something, and they have to keep the covering stones somewhere. Behind the church is an actual pedestrian suspension bridge over the stream. A sign says it was built in 1930. Another sign says that we aren't to swing or bounce on the bridge. "YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED." More scary, however, is the cloud of mosquitoes that hovers in the middle of the bridge. Andrew's parents follow the path on the other side of the bridge for a ways, while Andrew and I stay to check out the bridge and the graveyard.

We've all been looking in the shops. They are, of course, closed by this time, and some people are a little upset by this. There's some stuff they want to buy in there, and the shops don't open again until 9:30 in the morning. Unfortunately, that's also when we are scheduled to leave. Too bad. Most of us feel that we could spend quite a bit of time, not to mention money, here.

The NYPD Blue clone is on again tonight. I discover that it's called "Out of the Blue." Some sort of homage, perhaps.

Wednesday, June 14, 1995

It's good to sleep in in the morning. But sad to think that sleeping in now means being able to sleep until 7:30.

I've discovered the one drawback of this hotel. The shower has almost no water pressure. It takes me forever to get done with my shower. I finally get to see The Big Breakfast again. I discover that their e-mail address is bigbreakfast@planet24.co.uk. I'll have to write to them when I get back.

At breakfast, I decide to be brave and order the porridge. Yes, it's oatmeal, but kind of thin and gluey. I steal some milk from another table, and that seems to help a bit.

Our first stop is pretty close: the Bodnant Gardens. Keith tell us we have an hour and a half to roam around. I figure that since gardens aren't exactly my favorite thing in the world, I'm going to have to be pretty creative to kill off an hour and a half. Somehow, though, I still manage to use up the last 10 pictures on my roll of film, which I think is a record for me. It might be the greatest number of pictures I've taken in one place on this trip. Also, I don't find it difficult at all to spend the whole time wandering around. The place is really big. Huge. The paths go on and on. I didn't get a map, so I have no idea how much of the park I saw, but it wasn't close to all of it. What I did see was quite spectacular. As I said, I am no huge lover or student of plants, but I was impressed by the grounds and the layout. Very nice. I could easily live in the big house there. But I think I'd keep the full staff on to manage the grounds. Then it's back on the bus for our drive to the walled city of Chester.