draliman on life

I don’t usually prattle on about my largely uninteresting life, but since I just had a holiday (my first in five years!) in Wales I thought I’d share some pictures.

Well, I say a holiday. Two full days is more of a mini-break, I guess, but I lost two days on the road (it’s a six and a half hour drive).

Here’s where I went:

Map courtesy of Google Maps

The area to the north of the arrow is Snowdonia – mountains, forests and whatnot.

The trip up was fine apart from some panic around Birmingham. So many motorways branching off. Why is it that when you’re desperately looking for a turn off, all the road signs are obscured by lorries? Still, I didn’t get lost even once, and when you’re on your own with no navigator, and especially if you’re me, that’s quite a feat!

After arriving in a lovely little Bar/Grill/Restaurant/Hotel (six rooms!) I booked a table for dinner. Quality food! Grilled brie in breadcrumbs for starter followed by a massive home-made burger with onion rings, a mushroom so big it should have had some sort of faerie creature sitting on it and home-made chips (with the skins on!). For my US friends, that’s chips as in “French fries”, or is it “Freedom fries”? In the UK, the term “French fries” is reserved for those rubbish chips you get in fast-food places like MacDonald’s.

So, enough rambling, on with the pictures! I don’t want this post to get too long, so today I’ll show you some pictures I took at Dolwyddelan Castle.

Set on a hilltop (as many good/effective castles are!) it commands a dominant position over the surrounding countryside.

It was manned by Welsh soldiers – at that time Wales consisted of several kingdoms and there was also the threat of Norman/Anglo-Saxon invasion from England.

After visiting the castle, I continued to Bodnant Gardens, a National Trust property to the north. I’ll post some of those pictures later!