Day 6 of 14 North Wales/Chester (part I)

Day 6 Itinerary reads: Drive through the countryside of North Wales as your journey to Conwy, a medieval town dominated by a huge castle.  Enjoy a walking tour around the picturesque streets and see the smallest house in Britain, followed by free time for lunch on your own.  In Chester, take another walking tour to see medieval buildings and Roman Walls.

Our first stop to use the facilities....notice the machine to pay to use the toilet.  You could actually use your credit card, which was helpful as most of us had no coin.

Not sure what people might have used the sinks for that made them put up the sign, but I wondered.

And an interesting place to place tourist information, lol.  That's me in the reflection as I was taking the photo.

A pretty stream along side buildings.  If you click to enlarge, I think you can see how closely the buildings were to the water's edge.

A very pretty little town/village with bridges and walk ways to explore. along the River Dee.

You know you're in Wales, when you attempt to pronounce the name of village  Llangollen.  The area is quite pretty, and hilly.  Seems to be an area where nature provides the entertainment by way of rafting, kayaking, fishing, climbing, biking etc.  There are canal paths to explore (though we didn't see those when we were there), and historic ruins (which we also didn't see when there).

A very old building used currently as a day care, was previously a church.  But, look at all the interesting details in this old building.

There is a history trail with ruins, but as I mentioned above; we did not see that on our visit.  This picture is from a visit the area webpage that I knabbed.  Wish we had been able to see this while there.  Our visit there was brief, passing through as we hoped back on the coach to continue our travels.

Beautiful country side with threatening clouds; but I think you get a feel for how rugged the country side was, and how hilly. 

We stopped for a photo opt along the side of the road amid lots of sheep, though only 2 are in the picture they pretty much covered the hillside.

My friend, Jane got the photo of the day.  She was able to get pretty close to these very special, 2 headed sheep!  You gotta click to enlarge this picture folks, really...no really you do.  LOL  She couldn't have placed the two sheep any better if she tried to get this fun photo.

We made another brief stop at St. Margaret's.  (The Church of Wales).

Aside from being a beautiful church with an interesting grave yard attached, it has a deep connection with World War I, and Canadian solders.  

The church is known as the "Marble Church".  We were unable to go inside, but pictures of the church look breathtaking.  Nearby in Kinmel Park Army Camp thousands of Canadian soldiers awaited ships to take them home to Canada after the close of the World War.  Food shortages were a problem, soldiers were unhappy.  The influenza took the lives of 86 of their comrades between Nov of 1918 and March of 1919.  The soldiers had had enough and rioted.  How horrible to live through the war and then die of influenza and be buried here so far from home.  Additionally 4 who died in the riot are buried here.  There was an investigation that the army officers didn't do what they should to take care of their men, and to put a stop to the riot.

**I'll pause here due to the number of pictures from that day and pick up Day 6 part II in the next post.  Please come back.

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Day 5 of 14, Hay-onWye, Shrewsbury, Touring the UK

Thought it was time to bring back the map, it's helpful to see where we are and where we're heading on this 14 Tour of The UK.  

Todays Itinerary reads as follows:  travel through the Brecon Beacons National Park to Hay-on-Wye, a town famous for it's bookshops.  Continue to Shrewsbury, a picturesque town near the English/Welsh border.  Take a walking tour with the town crier to see black and white buildings that line the narrow streets.  Travel through Cheshire to your hotel in Chester.

Just outside the carpark is this cute map showing this historic little village of Hay-on-Way.  

You can see how narrow the roads are in this little village, with shops lining the street.  Lots of books shops, and charity shops.  Unlike the US where you can donate to a charity, The UK has lots of second hand shops where the proceeds are directed to a specific charity.  We noted the second hand clothes seemed more expensive than our resale shops back in the states.

On a hill overlooking the village is Hay Castle

At the base of the Castle is a monument with plaques honoring the towns dead in various wars.

Notice the book store across the street.  With the bright sunny day, it was hard to photograph the plaques to read the names of those being remembered.

On the stone wall is a plaque with the history of the castle.  You can see how old it is, how many times it's been destroyed and rebuilt.

As you climb the hill to enter the grounds of the castle you pass through this impressive very large and very thick door.  This 13th century gateway is the oldest working defensive door in situ in the UK.  It was restored in 2019 using locally sourced oak to replace some missing wood.  150 new nails were forged re-using medieval wrought iron!  Truly impressive.

This very tall man, is Martin, our town crier in Shrewsbury.  The woman to his right was taller than me.  I'm 5'5, she was probably about 5'8'.  Martin was well over 6 feet, closer to 7 ft.

The Black and Whites.  

Notice the curved wood in areas?  We were told you can tell if the building was built by a local carpenter by looking for curved vs straight boards.  The curved wood indicates the building was built in forest after trees were felled then disassembled and brought to town and reconstructed by a local carpenter vs buildings with straight wood where logs were cut elsewhere and brought to town to build.

An old clock tower.

Beautiful stained glass window.

When we had our group dinners, we got a bit of selection like this while on the coach to select our meal for the evening.  I'm the * and my friend has her choice underlined.  One of the negatives of this tour company CIE was that all group dinners were in the hotel.  I think most of us know hotels are generally known for having the best cuisine.  In other tours I've taken, you generally leave the hotel and go to a nice restaurant, in order to see and experience a little more of the culture of the area.  Between Jane and I, we've toured with 4 other companies.  So this is one of the reasons I would not recommend this tour company and won't be using them again.  

Our dining area with a view of the pretty outside gardens.  The Doubletree was a spa and convention area, so it was quite large.  We didn't have any time to even see, let alone use any of the spa facilities.

Our room for the next 2 nights.  

The last 3 photo's are from The Doubletree's website.  There was a large outside area that was quite pretty; but we didn't get to take advantage of it, partially due to our schedule and when we arrived it was raining.

**I hope this picture heavy post works out ok, I decided not to separate the day into part I and part II.

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit.