Wales - Cruise Line Fans: Cruise Forum, Reviews and Chat From Real Cruisers

PagodaSwan · 11-13-2005, 07:00 AM

The Romans mined for gold here, the Tudor dynasty was founded here, and the Normans built castles here. Each of the major periods of history has left its mark on Wales, some more attractive than others. The scars of the industrial revolution are now being healed by a forward-looking people with their own National Assembly. But the sense of past can still be felt all around Wales: from a windy hilltop with a half-ruined castle, to the quiet darkness of a mine miles underground.

Prehistoric Sites

Wales's history of human settlement stretches back into the mists of time - as far back as 250,000BC. The country is dotted with mysterious prehistoric sites, burial chambers, standing stones and hilltop forts.

Excavated prehistoric sites reveal much about the beliefs and practices of our ancestors. Anglesey and Pembrokeshire are particularly rich in megalithic sites. Barclodiad y Gawres Burial Chamber near Rhosneigr is one of Wales's finest neolithic (New Stone Age) tombs. Excavations here in the 1950s revealed rare examples of prehistoric rock carvings. Pentre Ifan Cromlech near Newport, Pembrokeshire, is another impressive chamber that still has its great 16½ft (5m) capstone in place. Iron Age hillforts are also plentiful in Wales - the massively fortified Carn Goch, near Llangadog, is one of the largest.
The Celts

A Celtic heritage has survived in Wales for thousands of years. It has an undeniable resilience, despite the hammer blows dealt by Roman soldiers and, later, Saxon invaders and Anglo-Norman warlords. This heritage has become an indelible part of the Welsh spirit. You can discover more about its roots if you visit places like Castell Henllys in Pembrokeshire, where a reconstructed hillfort provides an insight into Celtic tribal life. Similarly, the Museum of Welsh Life near Cardiff has recreated the typical circular Celtic dwellings that reflect life in the Iron Age.
Celtic Crafts

The Celts loved decoration. Art, magic and fantasy were part of everyday life and all kinds of objects - from household goods to jewellery - were decorated with complex, intriguing designs. Many fine examples survive - the intricate metalwork, motifs and patterns to be seen on items at Cardiff's National Museum, for example, and the wonderfully carved Celtic crosses which survive from north to south. This rich Celtic heritage still inspires craftspeople. Welsh woollen weaves are patterned with Celtic motifs, and designers like Rhiannon at the Welsh Gold Centre, Tregaron, make exquisite Celtic jewellery.
Celtica

Celtica at Machynlleth takes you on an enthralling journey back to the times of the Celts in Wales. An imaginative audio-visual tour takes you back in time to a Celtic village where characters tell you in their own words what life was like in Wales over 2,000 years ago. Then comes the exciting Vortex, where Celtic legend leads you from the past into the present and future. This handsome heritage centre also contains well-presented displays and exhibitions on Celtic and Welsh history - and its tearoom is renowned for its delicious home-baked traditional cakes!

PagodaSwan · 11-13-2005, 07:02 AM

Roman Roads

You can still follow in the footsteps of Roman soldiers. They were compulsive road builders, connecting their forts and camps throughout Wales with far-reaching and well-engineered trackways. It's easy to find them with a good map. Some - such as the typically straight-as-a-dye minor road running westwards from Trecastle, South Wales - are now part of our modern road network. Others still survive in their original form. The Romans' most famous Welsh road is Sarn Helen. To see it at its authentic best follow the stretch through the Brecon Beacons from just north of Ystradfellte to Coelbren.

PagodaSwan · 11-13-2005, 07:03 AM

The sea surrounds Wales on three of its sides. Its 750-mile (1,200-km) coastline is infinitely varied, a succession of beaches and bays, headlands and harbours. Much of the coastline is rich in natural beauty - Pembrokeshire, for example, is home to Britain's only coastal-based National Park, and there are hundreds of miles of seashore which have been declared 'Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty' and 'Heritage Coast'. From north to south the coast is dotted with award-winning beaches where the cleanliness of the sands and waters complements the superb surroundings.

PagodaSwan · 11-13-2005, 07:05 AM

Isle of Anglesey

You'll soon appreciate why the Isle of Anglesey is an 'Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty'. Start at Newborough on the south, where the beach is almost as big as the views across to Snowdonia. Rhosneigr, Trearddur Bay, Holyhead, Cemaes, Amlwch, Moelfre, Benllech and Beaumaris are the best-known places, but wherever you look you'll discover hidden bays and beaches large and small - that's the beauty of Anglesey.

Llandudno

Llandudno is Wales's premier seaside resort. Dating from Victorian times, it has preserved its period charm in a way that is rare in Britain. There's a delightful sense of harmony - and refreshing absence of garish amusements - along its splendid seafront and sandy beach, which lie neatly framed between two headlands. Take a drive around the Great Orme headland and you come to a second beach along the quieter West Shore.

North Wales Coastal Resorts

Superb sands and a host of family entertainments are on offer along the perennially popular North Wales coast. The beach at Colwyn Bay sweeps around in a great crescent to its quieter neighbour, Rhos on Sea. There's an endless choice of seafront amusements at Rhyl, together with an excellent sandy beach. Neighbouring Prestatyn offers more of the same, with a long beach running to Talacre at the mouth of the Dee Estuary.

Llyn Peninsula

Llyn's magnificent coastline is an 'Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty'. There's coastal spectacle all the way from Black Rock Sands near Porthmadog in the south to the huge beach at Dinas Dinlle in the north. Highlights include Criccieth (small resort), Pwllheli (resort and marina), Llanbedrog (sheltered sandy beach), Abersoch (resort and sailing centre), Aberdaron (beautiful coastal village), Porth-oer ('Whistling Sands'), Porthdinllaen (sandy bay) and Nefyn (small resort).

PagodaSwan · 11-13-2005, 07:10 AM

Pistyll Rhaeadr and Wrexham steeple,
Snowdon's mountain without its people,
Overton Yew-trees, St. Winifred wells,
Llangollen Bridge and Gresford bells The anonymous nursery rhyme listing the so-called seven wonders of Wales was probably written by an English visitor to North Wales sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century. Many would argue with his choice of so-called wonders, but as they are all found in the same general area, from our base in Chester, handily situated on the border, we can visit them all in turn in a day or two and also add a few of our own on the way.. Should the visitor wish to stay in Wales, then Wrexham (but 12 miles distant), provides an ideal center: look for the Belmont Hotel on the road with the same name. Chester, nestled within a great curve in the River Dee (Afon Dyfrdwy), was once named Deva, the headquarters of the 20th Roman Legion in the 1st Century A.D. There are many Roman remains to be seen here, including part of the excavated amphitheatre, the hypocaust, and a few surviving baths. It is of more interest to us perhaps, that there are Chester laws still extant (dating from the late Middle Ages) that proscribe the actions of Welsh people within the city gates. Fortunately these laws, (dealing mainly with the times that the Welsh are allowed into the city and what weapons they are limited to carry) are not currently enforced by the current chief constable, a Welshman!! The famous Rows-- galleries above the main streets, are said to have been built to protect the shops at street level from Welsh cattle drovers with their flocks of sheep and geese and herds of cattle.

The high city walls that encircle the old city for two-miles were first begun almost two thousand years ago by mercenaries in the pay of Rome. From the northwest corner, the hills of Wales can be seen in the distance, the most prominent being Moel Fammau in the Clwydian Range. Our first destination, however, is located in the peaceful, green Berwyn Mountains (famous for their succulent Welsh lamb), southwest of the Vale of Clwyd. It is the waterfall known as in Welsh as Pistyll Rhaeadr.

PagodaSwan · 11-13-2005, 07:11 AM

Wrexham Steeple

PagodaSwan · 11-13-2005, 07:12 AM

It is a short distance by modern super highway from the English city of Chester to the Welsh market and industrial center of Wrexham, by far the largest town in North Wales. The steeple of the famous rhyme, which can be seen for many miles as the tallest building in the town, turns out to be not a steeple at all, but the 16th century tower of the Church of St. Giles. The impressive church may look familiar to many American visitors, for an exact replica is found on the grounds of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Yale is the anglicized version of the name of a prominent Welsh family from nearby Plas yn Ial, (near Bryn Eglwys) among whose members was Elihu Yale, one of the benefactors who helped found Yale University.

The richly-decorated tower, 135-feet high, with its four striking hexagonal turrets, was begun in 1506. It is graced by many medieval carvings including those of an arrow and a deer, the attributes of St. Giles. The interior of the church also contains many late medieval carvings and monuments. On a window you can find the words of the 1819 hymn by Reginald Heber, "From Greenland's Icy Mountains." Just outside the church, west of the tower is the grave of Elihu Yale, with its long, fanciful epitaph containing the following lines:

Born in America, in Europe bred,
In Africa travell'd, and in Asia wed,
Where long he lov'd and thriv'd;
At London dead.

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of Yale's gift, his tomb was restored in 1968 by the university bearing his name. An interesting epitaph to a Daniel Jones, found within the church, tells us that not only his flesh was buried there, but also his beard.

To enter the churchyard, you pass through the magnificently-carved wrought-iron gates, completed in 1719 by the Davies Brothers of nearby Bersham, who were also responsible for the even more elaborate gates of Chirk Castle, perhaps the finest example of wrought-iron work in Britain. It is well worth a short diversion to the little village of Chirk to view these gates; their painstaking detail makes us wonder why they were not given an honored place as one of the so-called seven wonders of Wales. The only comparable ironwork is found in two other sets of Davies Brothers' gates: at Sandringham, one of the English monarch's residences and at Leeswood Hall, near Mold in Flintshire. Near Wrexham,too, is the village of Acton, where Judge Jeffreys, the infamous hanging judge of the Bloody Assizes of 1685 was born in 1645.

Bersham is a small village that holds special importance for historians, for not only did it house the workshops of the Davies Brothers, it was one of the cradles of the Industrial Revolution. This is the place where British iron making began in 1670 and where John "Iron-Mad" Wilkinson set up shop in 1761. For many years the area was one of the most important iron manufacturing centers in the world. Today, the Bersham Industrial Center tells the story of the man who bored cannon for the American War of Independence and cylinders for James Watts' revolutionary steam engine.

Two miles south of Wrexham, and well-marked on all the major highways, is Erddig, a mansion owned by the National Trust, who consider it one of their most important properties. Though badly damaged by mining operations nearby and by neglect of the owners, the eccentric Yorke family, the house has been beautifully restored. Erddig was built in the 17th century, with additions in the 18th. As the Yorke family never seemed to throw anything away, the house and grounds are an antiquarian's (and antique collector's) delight, full of the most curious and fascinating objects, a treasure-trove of a family's interests, hobbies, work-tools, and curios. Apart from the huge kitchens, filled with the labor-saving devices of their time, of special interest is the basement hallway (the Servants' Hall), the walls of which are lined with portraits of the staff, accompanied by verses honoring them and their work.

Philip, the last squire of Errdig died in 1973, bringing to an end 250 years of continuous occupation by the Yorkes. Not too far from Erddig is Chirk Castle, still inhabited by descendants of the Middleton family who have been living in the gloomy pile for four centuries. The castle, situated in magnificent parklands, is entered through the famous Davies Gates; it may have been begun around 1290 by the architect responsible for so many masterpieces of castle-building in Wales -- the Savoyan James of St. George. The castle and its grounds, offering a glimpse of aristocratic life through three or more centuries, are open to visitors. From Chirk, it is a quick trip back to home base and time to rest before starting out on our journey to the next, and most spectacular of the seven wonders, Snowdon's Mountain.

PagodaSwan · 11-13-2005, 07:13 AM

Snowdon's Mountain

There are many roads that can take us to Snowdonia National Park in Northwest Wales. One of these is the new highway that travels high above the Dee Estuary, bypassing industrial Deeside, historic Flint and Holywell, skirting the holiday resorts of "the Welsh Riviera," and tunnelling under Conwy and Penmaenmawr before reaching Bangor. Here we leave the main London to Holyhead road and enter the mountains.

It is hard to imagine Mt. Snowdon today "without its people"; it is climbed by approximately half a million each year, on foot, in wheelchairs, on crutches, roller skates, on horseback, bicycle, piggy-back, and by men and women on stilts. Perhaps the words of the little rhyme should be changed to include Snowdon's mountain with its people , for on no time of the day or season of the year are they absent from its slopes. Heavy erosion from the sheer mass of people is fast taking its toll of the footpaths and ridges of this, the most magnificent yet most abused of our seven wonders.

Snowdon gets its English name from the Saxon Snow Dun, the snow hill or fortress; it is but one mountain inside the largest of the three national parks of Wales (845 sq. miles). Within the park (Parc Genedlaethol Eryri) are several mountain ranges, with 15 peaks over 3,000 feet. For many US visitors, the park, whose Welsh name Eryri means "home of eagles," resembles a miniature Western Colorado because of its extremely steep and rugged slopes. Though tiny by world standards, the precipitous heights found in many areas of the park helped train the British team that conquered Mt.Everest in 1953 The highest point is Yr Wyddfa (3,560 ft), named after Rhita Gawr, a giant killed by King Arthur said to be buried in a cairn (Gwyddfa Rhita) on top of the mountain. Into one of its lakes, Llyn Llydaw, the mighty Excalibur,(Caledfwlch) was thrown by Arthur, mortally wounded nearby. Other heights on the same mountain massif are Crib-y-Ddysgyl, Crib Goch, Lliwedd and Yr Aran.

In 1896, the Snowdon Mountain Railway was completed from its starting point at Llanberis. Some of the little steam engines date from that year. The railway replaced the local guides with their sturdy mountain ponies which for decades had been taking Victorian tourists to the summit to watch the sunrise. The engines run for about five miles on a narrow gauge rack-and-pinion line, the only one in the British Isles. The journey covering a maximum gradient of 1 in 5.5, is completed in about two and a half hours, with half an hour allowed for refreshments at the little wind-swept cafe just below the cairn on the summit. When the weather allows, for Snowdon is notorious for its sudden mists and complete lack of visibility, the views are as spectacular as any in the whole British Isles.

The railway got off to a bad start. On opening day, Easter Monday, 1896, Engine No 1 (named the Ladas) fell into a ravine. The coaches did not fall, but two badly-frightened passengers jumped out, and one was killed. In the one hundred and one years since that time there has never been another accident connected with the railway; neither has the company ever again used a No. 1 engine. The trains do not operate in high winds or in severe weather during its season between Easter and the end of October.

One of the most well-known climbers who chanced the weather and his luck on Snowdon's mountain was the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, 83 year-old William Gladstone, who gave a speech (ironically on freedom for small states including Wales and Ireland), from a large rock that was then named after him. Before Gladstone, Wordsworth's Prelude had described the author's experiences climbing the mountain before sunrise. Despite the indignities heaped upon it by decades and multitudes of climbers, indifferent to its history, to its legends, and to its place as a refuge for Welsh armies defying the might of Edward 1st, Yr Wyddfa's majesty, as well as its position as the highest peak in the British Isles outside Scotland, make it deserve its inclusion as one of the true wonders of Wales.

To return to our hotel, we take a more leisurely way home through delightful mountain and moorland scenery. From the foot of Snowdon at Llanberis, (where a plaque erected by the National American Welsh Foundation commemorates the ancestors of Thomas Jefferson, whose home was located nearby), we head through narrow, rock-strewn Llanberis Pass for Capel Curig before reaching the overcrowded, gift-shop- littered Betws-y-Coed. Luckily, however, we can leave the hordes of holiday makers behind by turning off the main road at Pentrefoelas and heading for Denbigh. Be sure to look for Ugly House (Ty hyll), built between the hours of sunrise and sunset and thus eligible to be claimed by the family who put together the huge undressed stones.

Our journey now takes us over the bleak, tree-less, sheep-filled moors to Bylchau (the Passes), where a pleasant stop at Tafarn y Heliwr (Tavern of the Hunter) allows us to take in spectacular views of Clycaenog Forest and Llyn Brennig, and as we partake of refreshment in the highest pub in Wales, contemplate the fate of the ruined hunting lodge behind us, silhouetted stark and grim on the horizon and shrinking year by year as it is battered by winds, snow and rain. We then descend into the Vale of Clwyd, fight our way through the narrow, traffic-clogged streets of Denbigh, bypass Rhuthin (well worth a separate visit), to rejoin the main highway to Chester or Wrexham.

PagodaSwan · 11-13-2005, 07:15 AM

Pistyll Rhaeadr

Translated as the spring of the waterfall, the impressive cascade, at 240 ft (74 metres) is the highest in Wales. It is also the most difficult of the seven wonders to reach. From Chester, we take the A483 road to Oswestry (Croeswallt), a town east of Offa's Dyke (the eighth century border between England and Wales), but one that stubbornly has held on to its Welsh identity right up to the present. From Oswestry, it is but a short journey to
the Tanat Valley.

To reach the secluded falls, after a pleasant drive through mostly uninhabited countryside we reach the village of Llanrhaeadr ym Mochnant (A translation is the Church of the waterfall in the village of the stream of the Pigs). This village was once the parish of vicar (and later Bishop) William Morgan (1545-1604), the place where he worked on his translation of the Holy Bible into Welsh that became one of the deciding factors in the survival of the language. A narrow single-lane road, unsuited for coaches, and barely managed by automobile, leads to the falls, about 4 miles distant. Traffic must drive very slowly, for passing places are few and far between.

In the farmhouse at the base of the falls, though there is a little tea shop. It is a blessing to find no tourist offices, welcome centers or gift emporiums, thus the falls can be enjoyed without interruption in their natural splendor as they descend down the steep, rocky hillside in a series of leaps. The water drops first into a rock basin, and then descends under a natural arch of stone. Of the justly-famed falls, 19th Century author and traveler George Borrow remarked: " I never saw water falling so gracefully, so much like thin, beautiful threads as here."

The best time to visit, of course, is in spring, when the melting snows from Moel Sych (2,700 ft) and his companions feed the mountain streams. While the area you should also visit 4-mile long Lake Vyrnwy, formed at the end of the last century to supply water to Liverpool and drowning the village of Llanwddyn in the process. The lake, nestled among thickly wooded hills, has a visitor center in a converted chapel. To get there, return from the falls to Llanrhaeadr; then take the road to Penybontfawr and the new village of Llanwddyn. A motor road around the shores of the lake provides a pleasant, unhurried drive before we return to crowded Chester or to our hotel in Wrexham. A detour to Llangynog churchyard, on the road from Bala to Welshpool allows us to view three curious graves.

It seems that, long ago, a rope maker, a glass maker and a stone mason were on a pilgrimage to one of Wales' holy sites when all three fell ill and were close to death. They consequently made a pact that the survivors would provide a decent burial and a properly marked grave for the deceased. The rope maker died first, and he was duly buried by the other two, the mason chiselling a rope on the stone covering the grave. The glass maker was next to die, and the mason carved leaded windows into the cover on the second grave. The mason was now left all alone with no one to bury him or carve his tombstone. When he sensed death approaching, he lay down in his newly-dug grave and pulled the stone cover over him. His grave has a missing centre section, the piece that he pulled over his head!! (and, of course, it has no carving).

On the way back to Chester (or Wrexham), look for the imposing Iron-Age hill fort on the north side of the road as you by-pass Oswestry.

PagodaSwan · 11-13-2005, 07:16 AM

Overton Yew Trees

For many centuries, the pleasant village of Overton was located in Maelor Saesneg (English Maelor), a part of Flintshire entirely surrounded by English territory. It is now in the county of Denbigh as part of Wrexham Maelor, the new parliamentary district. On the way from Chester to Overton, via Wrexham, we should stop at Bangor-Is-Y-Coed (Bangor-on-Dee), whose 17th century bridge is said to have been designed by Inigo Jones, and where one of the very earliest monasteries in Britain was founded in the fifth century. After the defeat of the Welsh at the Battle of Chester in 616, the pagan king Aethelfrith (Ethelfrid) ordered the slaughter of the monks at Bangor, many of whom fled to Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island), off the Llyn Peninsular. The king is said to have asserted that praying against him was as bad as fighting against him. According to the English historian Bede, who was very biased against the Welsh and the Celtic Church, over 1200 monks were killed, and the monastery destroyed. As a result of the battle, the Welsh in Wales were cut off from their compatriots in Cumbria and Cornwall Thus the history of Wales as a separate nation can be said to date from this time.

At Overton, St. Mary's Church dates only to the 13th century, though there may have been a small Christian oratory on the site as early as the seventh century. One of the oldest features of the church is a Norman circle cross built into the western pillar of the Nave. On another pillar by the pulpit is an unusual brass processional cross that was brought back from Abyssinia by British soldiers in the 19th century. Rescued from a scrap pile in that unfortunate country, the inscribed cross may date to the sixth century. Some of the 21 famous yew trees in the churchyard date back at least to the 12th century, when the first stone church was erected.

Perhaps the yew tree, which begins again with new roots after the older tree has rotted away and therefore lasts for many centuries, has a pre-Christian tradition. It is certainly difficult to ascertain the importance to Welsh history of the Overton yew trees and their inclusion in the nursery rhyme unless one considers the honored place of Welsh mercenary soldiers in the armies of England. Yew's elastic properties made it the ideal wood for the longbow, for over three centuries the main weapon of the English army. Edward the 1st is said to have decreed that yews trees should be planted in all English churchyards to provide a plentiful supply of wood for the longbow. To effectively utilize its power, a large body of archers was recruited in Wales, a country with a long military tradition, and where the longbow may have been first developed. In the 14th century, these soldiers were paid six pence a day, much more than they could ever have earned on the farms or in the mills in their home villages.

Even during the heady years of Prince Llewelyn ap Gruffudd's brief rule over an independent Wales, as many as nine thousand Welsh archers were fighting for Edward 1st in his 1277 campaign to conquer the stubborn principality. After the Conquest, Wales had many more soldiers available to fight for a cause other than that of their native country, and they were heavily recruited by English kings. Welsh archers were prominent in the Battle of Falkirk in 1298; at Bannockburn in 1314; and were especially noticeable in the great victory over the French at Crecy in 1346, where they were dressed in green and white, and where the tradition of wearing a leek may have originated. Perhaps their greatest day of glory came at Agincourt, in 1415, when the skill of the Welsh archers helped the rag-bag army of Henry V to completely annihilate the flower of the French army. Such was the demand for skilled archers to serve in the armies of the Crown that in 1483 Richard ll ordered a general planting of yews to provide the wood for their longbows.