Wednesday, July 27, 2011

We were just a 15-minute walk from Caernarvon Castle, but we piled into the van for a short drive there. Rob led us around the inside of the castle, pointing out the slate dais where Charles had been invested as Prince of Wales in 1969 at the age of 21. Construction of the castle was started in 1283 by Edward I as part of an iron ring of castles meant to subdue the Welsh. Unlike Edward’s other castles, this one was not covered with lime, but instead was built with different colored bands of stone. Edward’s son, Edward II, was supposedly born there, and Edward reported that no word of English was spoken. This was meant to placate the Welsh, but even today they know that the English monarchs at that time spoke French, not English. According to Rob, many believe that Edward II was born on the way to Caernarvon, not at the castle itself.

We drove across one of the Menai bridges to the island of Anglesey. I took a photograph of one of the bridges, built in 1826, for Abby to share with her former colleagues at the Minnesota Department of Transportation. In Beaumaris, we walked through the Bulkeley Hotel to Ye Olde Bull’s Head Inn for lunch, then it was off to Penmon to see the ancient priory. Inside the church are a couple of very old Celtic crosses, the newer of which had one of its arms cut off when it was used temporarily for a window sill. Even the baptismal font in the church is an ancient stone artifact. Outside, Rob led us to St. Seiriol’s Well. The lower part of the well is believed to date to St. Seriol’s time in the 6th century, but the brick building above it is from the 18th century. We found the well to be a peaceful, contemplative place.

As we left the well, we passed a pond that had a family of moorhens swimming in it. Across the driveway from the pond is the Penmon Dovecot, the second-largest stone dovecote in the world. On the way back to Caernarfon, we had our passports stamped at the place with longest train station name in Britain, known as LlanfairPG for short. After Rob dropped us at the Menai Bank, we walked to Le Bistro, a French restaurant on Hole in the Wall Street in Caernarfon. The proprietress had just recently met her 70-year-old half brother in Estonia. They had been separated by World War II and by the remarriage of their father to an English woman after the war. After a delicious Franco-Welsh meal, it was a short walk back to the hotel. The weather was so perfect – sunny and 70 degrees Fahrenheit during the day – that I went for a short walk after Abby went to bed.