The Other Mr. T

For the past week I have been travelling with Dad and Bridget (my stepmother) around Wales and touring York. It was a fabulous trip. I would definitely do it again in a second.

Dad and Bridget started out their trip in London. They did London for a couple of days, and then, on Friday the 26th of May, they met me in the ancestral Treharne hometown of Llanelli in South Wales. I took a train from Hull to meet them. It was an extremely boring 7-hour train ride from Hull, but I made it to the hotel without any problem. I even made the 7 minute train change at Swansea (the usual recommendation for a change is 10 minutes). The fact that they didn't even have a driver when I got on board helped, but I could have made it anyway - the trains were on opposite sides of the same platform. It took 10 - 20 minutes for the station to find someone who could drive the train. Even with the delay, I was the first one to arrive at the hotel because of the traffic problems Dad and Bridget ran into between London and Llanelli. We finally hooked up around 8 or 8:30 and went to eat at one of the local pubs. We got to the pub about 2 minutes before they
stopped serving food. It was a decent meal, but by no means the best we ate on the trip. After dinner we went back to the hotel, and Dad and I decided to plan out the next day a little bit before calling it a day. We decided to take a scenic route and follow the coast to our next hotel.

The following morning, Saturday the 27th, we drove around Llanelli a little bit before heading out. We stopped and got some pictures of the local buildings in the Town Center. Then, before hitting the road again, we got a picture or two of the rolling hills surrounding Llanelli. We hopped back in the car and started to make our way to Llandrillo by way of St. David's.

On the way to St. David's we stopped at a little rest stop by the side of the road for one of many Kodak moments to come. Beside the road there was a stone wall that swept down to a beach on a little cove or bay. Off to the right there was a bluff jutting out into the water.
It was beautiful. Dad and I got a number of pictures from the wall, and then decided to climb a path that took us up to the top of the bluff. We were both surprised by the wind when we reached the top. There were cliffs on the other side of the bluff, and to get a good picture we had to brace ourselves against the wind so we wouldn't fall over. Heck, to hold the camera still, we had to brace ourselves. After finishing there and getting some refreshments, we jumped in the car and took off for St. David's. St. David's is on the western-most tip of Wales, and it is a very picturesque little town. We didn't spend much time there, but what we saw was extremely interesting. After travelling up the coast for a bit, we turned inland to head for our next hotel.

The hotel we were staying at is right outside the little town of Llandrillo. Before we could check in to our hotel, we had to *find* our hotel. The brochure we had included a map, so it wasn't as hard as it might have been. Still, it would have been easy to drive right past it had we not been paying attention. The hotel wasn't really a hotel as much as an inn or Bed and Breakfast. It was called the Tyddyn Llan, and it was easily the best place we stayed on the entire trip. One interesting thing was just outside the driveway of the inn. In the wire fence beside the road there was a raven that was... um... nevermore. It was just hanging from the barbed wire. The inn itself looked like nothing more than a quaint house in the Welsh countryside. There were only 10 rooms, so there was an intimate atmosphere that you just don't get in larger hotels. My room was in the attic, but even that was better than most hotel rooms I have stayed in. Not only did they make my bed every morning and pull the curtains back, but they turned down the bed in the evening and closed the curtains. Also, tea was brought to my room every morning instead of it just being left out all day and night. It's the little things like that which elevate a hotel, inn, or B&B from just okay to the best possible place to stay. Our hosts all knew our names and gave us the best treatment possible. The night we got in Dad got a drink from the bar, and they already knew who he was and what room he was staying in. It's not that difficult to do with only 10 rooms, but the effort to make you feel like a guest instead of a room number is what counts.

On the morning of the 28th, Dad and I got up early, and after an excellent breakfast, we headed out to do some sightseeing and picture-taking before coming back to pick up Bridget. The ride through the countryside was absolutely breathtaking. The trip took longer than it should have because we stopped so many times to take pictures of the area we were driving through.

For me, one of the most incredible things was the fact that we would go from seeing the ocean to mountains in about 2 to 5 minutes... oh, and the sheep. I can't forget the sheep. I have never seen so many sheep in my entire life. They are everywhere in Wales. There was one on a rocky slope that had managed to find the only bit of grass in a field of boulders and rocky mountain slope. We even saw one (maybe two... I don't remember if it was the same one or not) black sheep in the bunch.

The sea was very pretty, but it is the mountains that lead me to say that North Wales is some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen. For the most part, the Snowdonia Mountains are not the tree covered variety that I am used to. They are immense mounds of rock standing in majestic defiance of civilization and everything else surrounding them. They simply blew my mind. The only vegetation besides the occasional small tree was grass on all but the steepest slopes, the cliffs, and the boulder gardens. It gave the whole area a look reminiscent of the countryside in the flashbacks from the Highlander films or the childhood scenes in Braveheart. One of the best scenes I saw was of a house sitting at the foot of one of the mountains. The house was maybe half a mile from the road, and for me it just put everything into perspective. The house looked like a model against the backdrop of the Snowdonia mountains. Compared to the mountain that loomed behind it, this regular sized, one story house had the appearance of a child's toy. Unfortunately, the road we were travelling on prevented me from getting a picture of this spectacle. Unless we wanted to take our lives in our hands, there was no place to stop and get a good picture. I did get a snapshot of Mount Snowden, though. This is the tallest and most majestic mountain in the range. These mountains alone made the trip more than worth it.

After crossing the Menai Bridge, Dad and I arrived at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwll-llantysiliogogogoch. This town holds the record of the longest name of any town or city in Britain. The name means "Saint Mary's Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel Near a Rapid Whirlpool and The Church of Saint Tysilio of the Red Cave." We poked around a shopping center there before taking a few pictures of the welcome sign and hopping in the car to head back to Llandrillo. We made it back to Tyddyn Llan about 2 o'clock and picked up Bridget to go see Caernarfon Castle. We stopped for lunch at one of the little restaurants in Llandrillo and had one of the best meals of our journey. I had the salmon, and it was delicious. The Black Pudding wasn't bad either, although it was not the best thing I had to eat on the trip. Leaving Llandrillo sufficiently satisfied with our choice of restaurants, we made it to Caernarfon Castle only to find that it was closed. It had closed earlier than advertised, so we were just out of luck in that area. The trip wasn't a complete waste - Dad and I did get to walk around the castle and take some marvelous pictures of its outside. When finished there, we climbed back in the car and headed for home. On the way we stopped to take a picture of one of the numerous lambs by the side of the road. On the way to Caernarfon Castle Bridget had spotted them on the edge of a car park, and on the way back Dad stopped to get a picture of them for her. Dinner that night at the hotel was delicious - I had one of the thickest, tastiest steaks I have eaten in a long time. The rest of the night was a quiet one.

On Monday the 29th, the three of us got up and had another tasty breakfast before packing everything in our little Ford Focus and checking out. On the way to York, we stopped in Bews-y-coed. This is a small, tourist oriented town in North Wales. There we found a couple of souvenirs for various people. Then it was on to York. We decided that the best and most picturesque route to take would be along the northern coastline of Wales. This also proved to be a remarkably slow route. Monday was a bank holiday, so everyone was at the beach and traffic was not what we thought it would be. Finally, we pulled into York and found our hotel, the Viking Moat House. Bridget decided to stay in the hotel room while Dad and I went to the Old Orleans Restaurant. It was an interesting place. It had the Chili's or Bennigan's atmosphere you find in the States. I really enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in York.

Tuesday the 30th was the big day for touring York. The first part of the day was spent at the York Minster. This was a truly amazing site. We went in and just barely caught one of the free tours of the Minster. Our tour guide was... well, verbose is a nice way to put it. He also loved the windows more than anything else. 3/4 of the tour was spent looking at and hearing about the windows. They were interesting, but if you're not careful, you can cross a line to too much information. Our guide ran full tilt across that line and didn't even see it. Even so, the Minster was definitely worth a half a day. If the tower and the basement hadn't cost money, we could have spent a full day there without any problem. Unfortunately, they did and we didn't. We visited the gift shop for a spell, and then Dad and I went outside to get some pictures from the outside. We started to walk around it, but then decided that we might be able to get better pictures from the City Walls. We retraced out steps, found the Walls, and followed them around to the Minster. We could not get the picture we had hoped for because of trees blocking our view. However, we did get one or two shots over the roofs of houses next to the Wall.

The City Walls themselves were impressive. They were maybe 20 feet tall and maybe 3 to 4 feet thick. When you walk them, you walk on the ledge behind the battlements. Unfortunately, we got to the Walls just after a group or two of school children, so we dealt with them as long as possible before passing them. Eventually we lost them all together when we turned back to meet Bridget. We could see certain places where the wall had been used in the past. It was really cool. On the way back to meet Bridget we passed through a room above one of the gates in the wall. It was empty except for a wooden structure on the wall that I can only suppose was a portcullis. As we walked through we saw a couple standing together. The guy had just proposed to the girl - at least we assume that's what it was since it was just the two of them (and us passing through, of course), and she was looking weepily at the ring on her finger and saying over and over how beautiful it was. That was kind of cool.

After dropping Bridget off at the hotel, Dad and I made our way to Clifford's Tower on the opposite side of York from the Minster. I had already been there on my first visit to York at the beginning of the semester, but my English Heritage membership got me in free, so I had no qualms about going in again. Plus, it's a castle (or part of one anyway) and I have a hard time getting enough of them. : ) I was able to get more pictures of the Tower this time, so that was an added bonus for going in. I also noticed some things I had not on the previous visit. This time I noticed that for some reason or other one corner of the Tower was lopsided. It was lower than the rest. I noticed this while I was standing on the top of the tower looking across it at the rest of the city. It was only a little bit disconcerting to realize that the structure I was standing on was losing support in one way or another.

Our next destination was the York Castle Museum across from Clifford's Tower. I had been there before, but I only got to see the first part of the Museum before realizing that Sharon, Erik, and I had to meet the bus to go back to Hull in something like 20 minutes. This time I got to see the entire museum. The Castle Museum is partially situated in the old women's prison and debtor's jail, and it houses many artifacts and has many rooms portraying scenes from the 1580's to the 1980's. One of the artifacts found within that time period is the most complete Anglo-Saxon helmet ever found. The hologram of this helmet can be seen in the Jorvik Viking Center. This museum also has a couple of street scenes from various eras in York's history. They show what the typical street would look like in the era they represent. This is a museum that was definitely worth seeing twice.

When we finished with the Castle Museum, Dad and I took our time walking back to the hotel. We explored York, walking past the York Story, the Jorvik Viking Center, the Fenwick shopping center, and getting some coffee from... you guessed it, Starbucks. On the way back to the hotel we scouted out various pubs as possibilities for dinner, but by the time we collected Bridget, they had all stopped serving food. This was a bit earlier than we expected (7:00) so we just went back to the Old Orleans Restaurant, and Dad and I had the opportunity to test out the menu a little more. After dinner, we called it a day.

The next morning, Wednesday the 31st, we got up early again, checked out of the hotel, and Bridget tried her hand at driving us to Hull. She did a good job. There were a few close calls - a matter of inches - while she was getting the hang of it, but by the time we got out of York the going was more or less smooth. After arriving in Hull we went and had lunch in The Old Grey Mare. All of us had tasty portions of Fish and Chips and we sampled some of the deserts on the menu. We were pleased with everything. With lunch out of the way, I gave Dad and Bridget the tour of The University of Hull. It didn't take long. We saw the Brynmor-Jones Library, the Drama Department in the Gulbenkian Centre, and the Students Union. They also got to see my house and meet 2 of my 5 housemates, Verena and David. After saying all our good-byes Dad and Bridget took off for their hotel in Manchester.