A Wale of a birthday

I'm exactly a month behind in these blogs by the way. For those not in the know, my birthday is Febuary 6th)

I was pretty lucky to have my birthday fall on the same weekend that we were scheduled to go to Wales. Even though I've had a couple legal drinks by this point, it was still a lot of fun.

Our first stop of the weekend was Caerphilly Castle.



Its the second largest Castle in the U.K. and the largest in Wales. For those who are curious, Wales is its own country but still part of the U.K. They do speak their own language, Welsh, which is on all the signs along with English. They have the same laws as England, use the same money but a different judicial system. It's a pretty confusing relationship but you could definitely tell you weren't in England anymore.



Apparently you can camp by the castle too.



There are birds in the moat as well.



Background: Castle
Foreground: Gift Shop



The building on the left hand side is the great hall of the castle where the King/Queen has their great feast. I thought it would be bigger but then again we are in a castle, how much space can you really spare.



Inside the great hall. That's not the original ceiling. It's a pretty close replica though.



These are all the crest of the surrounding important families.



Yeah, Im pretty much the king.



Ok, this isn't a very good picture but I almost died on these steps so it needs to be documented. This is a spiral staircase going up to one of the towers. The steps were so small that I had to walk down sideways so my foot would fit on each step. I don't know how people did this back in the middle ages with no hand railing!



Here's an aerialish view of the castle. It definitely is huge since this is only about a fourth of it.



The Welsh Flag. That's a red dragon for the visually impaired. It's definitely one of the cooler country flags. Dragons have a pretty deep root in Welsh history. There are a lot of legends about knights and dragons. Giants are also pretty big too, but its hard to fit a giant on a flag.



Settle down, I'm not winking. It was sunny.



Some of the surrounding country side from the castle grounds.



Don't fall of the wall.



The castle was really close to the surrounding road. It's almost like the castle is in the central park of the town which seems really weird to us. Your just walking down the street, turn the corner, and there's a castle right there.

The top word on the sign in Welsh. Don't as me how to pronounce it.

After we left Caerphilly we stopped just outside the town for horseback riding or a nature walk. Seeing as I'm allergic to horses, I went on the nature walk. I didn't miss much because it was just riding around in a circle in a barn. The nature walk wasn't that much more exciting. We were hiking to these amazing water falls which turned out to be...



...6 feet tall.

We did get to see some wild sheep so it wasn't a total loss.



After the nature walk we headed towards Cardiff, the capital of Wales for the night. On Sunday we explored another castle and the Big Pit coal mine, which will be the subject of my next blog.

Fountains Abbey (part 3)

On our final (of two) day in Yorkshire we visited Fountains Abbey (founded in 1132), at least whats left of it. We stay overnight just outside of York at a Racetrack dormotory. I would say the rooms were between a hostel and a hotel. Here's a couple pictures from our night.



The Hallway



The bathroom, or as they say here, the toilets. I have not heard it called the loo once since Ive been here. Must be American stereo typing at work.



AHHH my eyes!!!

I thought Fountains Abbey was pretty cool. Try to imagine a huge forest area with a bunch of sheep and ruins in it. The monks who founded the abbey wanted to get away from all the immorals of the city. and they did a good job because this place is in the middle of know where.



The sheep. They all ran away when I tried to touch one.



As the orginal monstary grew, it got away from the simple life the original monks had envisioned and because one of the biggest in England.



Pretty big huh? That's not the original grass by the way, they maintain it.



Fountains Abbey now lies in ruins thanks to Henry VIII. He wasn't a big fan of the abbey situation going on in England, so he had them all shut down in 1539. You could say the monks at the abbey where smart because they took the Crowns money to leave their abbey and lived very comfortable lives. Another near by abbey(whos name escapes me) decided to resits the kings order. All the monks were tried and hanged for some bogus reason.

Before returning to London we made a quick stop at this very small town on top of a hill right outside of York. It is famous for being the home town of a famous author who's name and hometown escape me at the moment. At least it had a pretty good view.







And good tea rooms. We had lunch in this one. I was feeling a little sick at this point but the lemon tea really helped the throat. The spicy nachos didn't hurt either. But I was kind of surprised to find nachos in a sophisticated tea room.

Yorkshire

To start it off I'm posting some pictures of the York Minster Abbey. I'm not going to explain each one because, frankly, I don't remember a lot of the specifics. There are a bunch of old churches that I've been to and they are all kind of blending together at the moment. The one thing that I do remember that the abbey is on of the largest in Europe. It is headed by the Archbishop of York which is the second highest post in the Church of England.









Pretty massive huh?



The ceiling is pretty high too.



When's the last time you saw a clock in a church? There is actually an astronomical clock right below this one. It was put in York Minster in 1955 as a memorial for the airmen who lost their lives in the second world war.



Not a great picture, but I assure you its an organ. The choir at the abbey is suppose to be one of the best in England. We got to hear them practicing and while I am not one for church choir musics, they were pretty good.

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any pictures of the coolest part of the church, the crypt. Before there was the English city of York there was the Roman city of Eboracum established around 70 A.D. York Minster is built right on top of the Roman Basilica. The crypt is now a museum of Roman artifacts and other things through out the history of York.

My next blog will conclude my trip to York and St. Mary's Abbey.