Wye Wales

Exams are over so its time for a quick couple trips before heading back to Austin. This week, I went to Cardiff for a night. I was off remarkably late (the train ticket price dropped around 10 am) to Cardiff on Thursday and arrived around 2:30. After dropping off my bag at the hostel, I headed straight to Cardiff Castle. The castle was originally the site of a Roman fort and incorporates some of the Roman walls. The first keep, on a motte surrounded by a moat was built in 1091. The castle also includes an elaborate Victorian mansion commissioned by the Marquess of Bute. The rooms are gorgeous and each has a theme and often many references to the family's Catholicism. Both the older keep and newer mansion are pretty awesome. The castle complex is also pretty huge so I was there fr several hours.





By the time I finished in the castle, everything had closed. But these days it stays light outside until around 9. So, trying to make the most of my time in Cardiff I wandered around the city. I went by the city hall and Alexandra Gardens and wandered by the Millennium stadium, which is pretty modern-looking. Finally, I headed back to the hostel.




My next day in Cardiff I had booked an all day tour of the Wye Valley. Lucky I choose the company I did because a number of people joined us who had originally booked another tour company but their guide had cancelled it because his wife was going into labor. The tour was very nice even though I wasn't particularly fa into Wales, in fact we headed back towards England. Our first stop was Chepstow Castle in Monmouthshire by the River Wye. Built in 1067, today it is the oldest Norman stone castle. It also is home of the oldest Castle gates in Europe.




Next we visited Tintern Abbey, which is amazing. The Cistercian abbey was founded in 1131 but like many churches was destroyed by Henry VIII. The ruins though are so cool. The abbey is know for inspiring William Wordsworth's poem "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey", Alfred, Lord Tennyson's"Tears, Idle Tears", and painting by Turner. It really is great.








After a quick lunch stop, we were off to a lookout spot in the forest of dean called Symonds Yat. From there we could see pretty far into Wales on one side and England on the other. It was really cool to get to see some of the countryside. At the viewpoint where we stopped there were also a bunch of people with binoculars who were watching a pair of peregrines near the cliff. They very nicely let us all look through their binoculars and told us about the peregrines. We also might have see one flying, we definitely saw some kind of predator bird gliding. It was nice to see some of the forest although we didn't stay longer enough for any patronuses to lead us to hidden swords, as is apt to happen in the Forest of Dean (and J.K. Rowling would know, she grew up around the Wye Valley).


Finally, we went to a town called Caerleon, which translates to 'Fort of the Legions'. Unsurprisingly this was the site of a Roman garrison. They had a little museum of Roman finds from the area, Roman baths, and an amphitheatre. The baths weren't as impressive as those in Bath and unlike them would have been cold. The remains of the amphitheatre though, were pretty cool and we walked around it for a while even through it started raining on us.


The tour was great and I got back to Cardiff just in time to have dinner and catch the train back to Brighton, Unfortunately one of the trains was a little late causing me to miss my other connecting trains and so I didn't get back to campus until after 1 am. Still totally worth it.