A Wales of a Good Time, Part 3

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

When on vacation I never keep track of the calendar date, unless I have a reservation or something.  So the 4th of July passed us by with little fanfare, (and no rain, take that PNW!!)

 We started the day by attending Morgan's Field Day at school.

 It was fun to watch and cheer for our young friend as he won the potato on the spoon run.

 Then it was off to St Fagan's National Museum. This is an outdoor heritage museum showcasing the historical lifestyle, culture and architecture of the Welsh people.

 It consists of more than 40 relocated buildings brought to the grounds of St Fagan's Castle which is actually a manor house not a real castle.

 The grounds have many formal gardens

 The manor house was really quite dark

 Some of the original furnishings were fun

 Wouldn't we all like a kitchen this size??

 Louise, Morgan and David in the castle yard

 Wayne walking through the formal gardens

 Now that is really one planned out and executed garden

 Outside the 'castle wall'

 We walked through this tunnel to get to the rest of the museum, and yes we checked for spiders in our hair!

 The spinner was working at the woolen mill.  He said it took about 20 hours to spin the yarn that would be used in about 2 hours of weaving.

 One of the old barns moved to this site.

 That is one big tree Wayne is standing next to.

 An old farm house moved to this site

 Another old farm house

 After St Fagans we went my my cousin Kim's farm to see if she was there. We found these guys instead.

 Then we went to the Royal Mint. It was originally in the Tower of London, where we saw a display about the workings of that time.  It was moved out of the tower to Tower Hill in 1812 where it remained until the current location was opened in 1968.   This Mini is located in the lobby and is thought to be one of 2 made for the promotion of the Beatles' "Penny Lane"

 Although you can't take picture's in the mint, we did go on a tour and I even minted a 2 Pound coin, which I gave to the new grandson Finn.  Here we are looking at the exhibits after our tour.

The mint also made all the medals for the 2012 London Olympics. 

A Wales of a Good Time, Part 2

Tuesday, July 2, 2018

 Our first stop today was the Pontypridd Museum and the Old Bridge on the River Taff.

The Old Bridge AKA the William Edwards Bridge is an arched single span footbridge built in 1756. It was the only way across the river in that area.

 The small local museum is housed in an old church with a beautiful organ still in place.

 David and Wayne reading up on local history

 Then we picked up Louise and Morgan and went to visit the Tredgar House. This is the 17th century country manor of the Morgan Family, the same family that renovated Brecon Castle in the 1800's.

 Louise, David and Morgan walking in the 90 acre gardens that are part of the property.

 Although parts of the house date back to the late 15th century this beautiful brick building was added on in 1664. The Morgan family is a well known, dating back to the 1400's. The person we were most interested in was Godfrey Morgan (maybe because our young friend's name is Morgan Godfrey).  In 1854 Godfrey Morgan fought in and survived the Battle of The Light Brigade, made famous by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in his poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade."

 As with many of these old mansions the wood work is ornate and the decor is decadent.

 Lots of gold leave in use

 The music room was one of my favorites

 We walked more of the grounds and found the swans in the pond

 Morgan and David

 The park trail

 Then it was off to Cardiff Bay. David, Morgan and Louise take the lead.

 The re-vitalization of the port area is quite nice

 Cardiff Bay

In the 19th century Cardiff Bay was one of Britain's 3 busiest ports and at that time the Norwegian merchant fleet was the 3rd largest in the world. It should be no surprise to find a Norwegian Church on the shore of the bay.

A Wales of a Good Time, Part 1

Monday, July 2, 2018
For our first day is South Wales, David is taking us up to Brecon Beacons National Park.

 We started at the Brecon Mountain Railway for a ride on the Steam Train.

 The station waiting room has been restored

 A look through the rail car

 Wonderful scenery along the way

 The No. 2 was built by Baldwin of Philadelphia, PA in 1930. It spent its working life hauling limestone near Port Elizabeth in South Africa. In 1974 it ran away driver-less and after travelling some miles it left the track and was wrecked.  It is a 4-6-2 tender locomotive weighing 47 tons. It is a beautiful restoration.

 Then it was on to the town of Brecon for lunch at the local pub along the River Usk.

 That's Brecon Castle in the distance.  It was built in the 11th century, fell into ruins and then purchased and partially renovated by the Morgan family in 1809. (More about them later). It is currently a hotel and wedding venue.

Our next stop was to be at the National Show Caves, a public cavern along the lines of Carlsbad Caverns. However we arrived at 3:15 and the last entrance was at 3.  So we moved on to our final destination, Henrhyrd Falls. Used in many movies, but due to the current drought like conditions in this area, very little water is flowing. Those two little people are me and my cousin David.

When leaving we followed David's SatNav in his car, which took us on some really little roads, through someones farm and onto the dirt road in the forest.  It was quite the adventure.

A Week In Ireland, Part 5

Friday-Sunday, June 29-July 1, 2018  **  Remember I drowned my phone/camera

 Friday was a travel day, which included a trip around Dublin with a local tour guide. As Wayne and I had already rambled around town last week, we had seen most of the places on her list. We then went to the hotel which was located on the Irish Sea at the mouth of Dublin Bay in Dun Laoghaire. (Dun Lear-ah). I only have my Kindle Fire to take photos, not nearly as good as my phone was.

 The East Pier was out in front of the hotel

 On Saturday we went to Glendalough, to the ruins of St Kevin's church and monastery. St. Kevin (Died 620) was the founder of the ecclesiastical settlement. He actually lived in the area as a religious hermit but after his death and canonization many pilgrims came and settled here later.

 Our guide for the day telling us about the remaining entrance gates

 Round towers were built at important church sites in Ireland from the middle of the tenth century until the later twelfth century. This type of tower is almost exclusively in Ireland, although 3 have been found outside Ireland.  Two in Scotland and one on the Isle of Man. There are remains of 80 in Ireland.

 After our tour we had time to hike up to the two (da) lakes (loughs) that give Glendalough its name.

 What a beautiful setting

The bus returned us to Dublin where we spent the afternoon wandering around and ended up at Trinity College and the Library where the book of Kells resides. It is over 1000 years old, with colors that are still bright and lavishly decorated.  No photography is allowed of the book. It was thought to be produced in the 9th century by the monks of Iona, after they had moved to Kells in county Meath.  It contains 4 of the Gospels in Latin, highly decorated as was the norm at that time. It was moved to Dublin around 1653 for security during the Cromwellian period.

The Long Room is the main chamber of the Old Library and houses around 200,000 of the Library's oldest books. From here we walked to the train station and took the DART back to Dun Laoghaire.

That evening was our last with the tour group.  We had a farewell dinner at the hotel, but an early night in, as most of the group had to be up at some horrible hour to get the bus to their flights.  As we made our own arrangements, I had us flying out in the late afternoon. We spent the day walking along the shore of the Irish Sea.

We walked along the shore toward the town of Dalkey

 The tide was out a bit

 We stopped at the James Joyce Museum, not because we are a fan (we recognized the name but if I read anything of his it was back in the 70's). We stopped because it is in one of the round towers that have dotted the shoreline all around Ireland.  These towers were built in the 1800's as a defense against Napoleon.

It has a great view of Dalkey.

 On our way back to the hotel we stopped at a street fair for lunch, then went to the National Maritime Museum.

It was a pleasant way to spend some time while we waited for the Airporter Bus. Then it was off to the Dubin Airport for our flight back to the UK. My cousin David along with Louise and her son Morgan picked us up at the other end, to start our last week in the UK. Ireland was wonderful, we had such a great time and saw so many beautiful places.