Day 4 Continued, Cardiff Castle

This is a cut and paste of the itinerary:  Our Itinerary reads: Explore Bath, a city of elegant Georgian buildings in a distinctive golden stone.  Tour the wonderfully preserved Roman Baths.  Head to Cardiff, where you'll take a sightseeing tour of the city before touring Cardiff Castle, a medieval castle fabulously renovated in Victorian Gothic style.  Dine in your hotel this evening.  So, we are inside Cardiff Castle.

The ceilings were gorgeous.

One of the walls in the nursery.

Cardiff Castle is one of Wales leading heritage attractions.  From the Roman occupation, to the Norman Conquest, through Civil War, The Victorian transformation and the terrors of WWII, there are 2,000 years of history in the castle right in the heart of the city.

Picture after picture.  There's so much to see on every wall, on every ceiling you hardly can take it all in.

Murals and symbols throughout the castle.

Even the rooftop area was gorgeous.

The Bute family left their mark transforming the house into the opulent Victorian Gothic Home it is today.

After departing Cardiff Castle, we headed Mercure Hotel, were we lodged just for 1 night.

Once again we were super rushed to check in, get out luggage and change for dinner, so no time to take our own pictures of the hotel, so these are from the hotel's webpage.

In the morning we'll head north from Cardiff.

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Day 4 of Fourteen, Touring The UK,( Bath, Cardiff)

Moving Day, so bags out at 7, breakfast at 7 and be on the coach at 8.  We head northeast from Tavistock.

Our Itinerary reads: Explore Bath, a city of elegant Georgian buildings in a distinctive golden stone.  Tour the wonderfully preserved Roman Baths.  Head to Cardiff, where you'll take a sightseeing tour of the city before touring Cardiff Castle, a medieval castle fabulously renovated in Victorian Gothis style.  Dine in your hotel this evening.

Beautiful buildings like this everywhere with gorgeous flower boxes and or planters in front.  These two ladies (cousins), were part of our group.  Their luggage didn't make it to London, so they did lots of scrambling until their luggage was found and caught up with them.

The buildings were golden.

We noted beautiful walkways, as we took a walking tour in Bath.

Sally Lunn's, the oldest house in Bath, built 1482.  Sally lived there in 1680.  It's a Tea and Eating House.

We're about to enter the Roman Baths.  Gorgeous, look at the size and details of the structure.

You walk above the level of the baths and get a great view of the baths and some of the city.  You walk on the same level as the baths and stop at various listening stations to learn more by using your voice box as part of your entrance fee.

You continue walking below the level of the baths where lots of artifacts are stored.  Much has been excavated and studied.  They've even found mounds of money.  It's dark on this lower level so pictures are a bit of a challenge.  AND, it's rather crowded as people continue to listen and stop at various stations.  You could spend hours if you stopped at every station and listened to the entire recording.  We were a bit hemmed in by our time table to grab lunch if wanted and be back at the coach at the appointed time, so we cut this area a bit short and headed to the gift shop.

We headed to Cardiff, the capital of Wales for a walking tour of the city.  This is Aneurin Bevan 1897-1960.  He's Welsh, and was The Minister of Health.  He spearheaded the British National Health Service.  During World War II, a need to care for lots of injured and sick people had to be set up.  Thus this monument to him.

Making our way through the city to Cardiff Castle.  This is the walled area.

Inside the walled area, the beautiful clock tower in the distance.

The Keep way up on a hill.  A fortification built on top a Roman ruin.

Some of stone wall with the Dragon, the symbol of Wales.

Lots of history here, Romans, Normans, William The Conqueror, and even World War II are part of the history.  The tunnels under the castle were used as air raid shelters capable of housing 1800 people.  A system of ramps were used in order for people to get safely inside these thick walls when the air raid sirens went off.  It's fairly dark inside the tunnel, but you can benches, and bunkbeds.

A soup kitchen

The tunnel got lighter as we got closer to the end.  It was rather eerie in the tunnel.  You hear a siren and a radio announcement talking about the war, sometimes it gives details of a battle.  Gave me chills head to toe.  

There are 17 pictures here and we're not inside the castle yet; so I'll stop at this point here and do part II for the inside of the castle.  It's really something.

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.

Day 3, Part II, Touring the UK, St. Ives

Thought I would repost the picture of the map, so you can see where we are in our trip.  We're over nighting in Tavistock for 2 nights.   You can see St. Michael's Mount on the map that was part of the previous post for Day 3.

This was our Itinerary for Day 3: The plan for the day, be on the coach at 8 am, stop around 9:15 at the Jamica Inn, move onto Marazion for a picture stop of St. Michael's Mount, move onto St. Ives and have lunch; and be back at the hotel around 5.  Our tour director generally had this posted somewhere the evening before so we could plan a bit, but sometimes he didn't put it out until we were at breakfast, and sometimes he only had a copy on the bus...which wasn't as helpful.

So Day 3, Part II.  We proceeded from our photo op of St. Michael's Mount to the old fishing town of St. Ives, which isn't on the map, but is in Cornwall on the coast of The Celtic Sea.  Historically it was a seaport and fishing town.  It's turned into a hot spot for vacationers.  It boasts art galleries, good food, high-end accommodations, and is suppose to be the place to be.  

My friend, Jane and I were not impressed and felt it was overly crowded, dirty and really nothing specific to see.  I suppose if you were staying there and wanted to go boating, or fishing, or simply laying on the crowded beach in the sun; you might enjoy it.

We waited a long time to get a table for the standard fish n chips at one of the first restaurants we came to that didn't look as busy or crowded as others. 

The food was good, and we had a seat by the open area so could do lots of people watching and see the water.

Lunch took so long, we had very little time left so only window shopped as we made our way back to the car park to meet up with our fellow travelers.

On the uphill trek to the carpark we spotted this lovely Celtic Cross Memorial.

As you can see, it's to honor the men from St. Ives who fought in both World War I and World War II.

You get a feel for the narrow streets, and types of buildings in a rather hilly town as we were driving out of Cornwall making our way back to The Bedford Hotel in Tavistock.

This would be our 2nd night in this old castle looking old hotel.  We were pleased to see they had fixed the electrical problem and we had lights and were able to charge our phones.  The evening was our own, no group dinner this night.  We took some time to get things in order so that we could have our luggage out at 7 am the next morning before departing Tavistock.  We walked across the street to a courtyard area and had wood fired pizza and a glass of wine for dinner at Church Lane Pizza.  Once back in the hotel, we headed to the bar to order a nightcap to take to the room.  We ordered Manhattan's, but they didn't know how to make them.  However, the young gal was willing to make it per my directions.  It was quite tasty.

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.

Day 3 Touring The UK, Bodmin Moor, Jamaica Inn, St. Michael's Mount (Part I)

The plan for the day, be on the coach at 8 am, stop around 9:15 at the Jamica Inn, move onto Marazion for a picture stop of St. Michael's Mount, move onto St. Ives and have lunch; and be back at the hotel around 5.  Our tour director generally had this posted somewhere the evening before so we could plan a bit, but sometimes he didn't put it out until we were at breakfast, and sometimes he only had a copy on the bus...which wasn't as helpful.

Our itinerary had a bit more info:  Travel through the unspoiled beauty of Bodmin Moor: stop for photo's at Jamaica Inn, built in 1750 and immortalized in Daphne du Maurier's tale of daring smugglers.  Visit the coastal village of Marazion to see the romantic outline of St. Michael's Mount, an island topped by a spectacular castle.  In the old fishing town of St. Ives, take a walking tour to see it's cobbled streets, quaint cottages, art galleries, and surrounding sandy beaches.  Enjoy time to explore before returning to a free evening in Tavistock.

This was the view from our hotel window,(The Bedford Hotel) you can see how old the buildings are, and how foggy it was off in the distance.  We were staying in Tavistock.  Our hotel was without air conditioning, which is not uncommon in Europe.  It was also without an elevator, also not uncommon in Europe.  Both of those conditions caused several in our group some issues.  In my previous post I mentioned we were without electric our first night there and showed a picture of the hotel.

Our first stop was the Jamaica Inn.  You can see it was indeed old (built in 1750).  The beauty of Bodmin Moor that we were to enjoy on the way was a bust due to the fog and rain off and on.

The Inn had several rooms, folks looked around and some got a coffee, others of us made a bathroom stop and looked around in the gift shop.

Joss was the inkeeper, and the leader of a gang of smugglers who worked the Cornish Coastline.  The author Daphne du Maurier actually stayed at the inn and used it as her inspiration when she wrote the novel, Jamaica Inn in 1936.  Alfred Hitchcock directed a film staring Maureen  O'Hara, a period piece set in the 1815 time frame.  There was also a TV series staring Jane Seymour in 1983.  Apparently the TV series followed the novel more closely.  All I can find is Joss Merlyn was stabbed and found by his niece Mary.

I peered out at our coach before pulling up my hood on my rain coat, as it was raining a bit.  Another cute red phone box.

Before getting back on the coach, I wanted at least one picture of Bodmin Moor; but as you can see with the fog, our views were limited.

Not sure I would describe the view of St. Michael's Mount as "romantic".  But maybe if we could have seen the Castle on top?

From their webpage: what we weren't able to see.  This photo was taken during low tide, when you can walk to the island.  There are things to explore, places to shop and eat.  You need a ticket to tour the castle.

A view at night of the castle lighted.  You can get tickets for boat rides during the day or evening to get to the island during high tide.  The St. Aubyn Family gave the land to the National Trust in 1954, thought they have a 999 year lease to stay and live in the Castle and maintain the visitors business.  Our stop was about 15 minutes, long enough to attempt pictures and a few found time to use the restroom facilities.  People were quickly back on the coach due to the rain.

I'm breaking this day up for 2 posts, due to the number of pictures.  Please pop back in .

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.