I am an American living abroad. I have been out of the USA since 2008, and right now am living in North Wales and going to grad school after 9 years of working abroad.
I wanted to share some history and photos of North Wales as a distraction... and also because I am at my wit’s end with frustration over the cognitive dissonance of some Americans who think 45* is great and all the news about Russia is not true. I am anxiously awaiting results of the Special Counsel’s investigation and hoping that soon the national nightmare is over and rebuilding can continue/begin (it’s continuing with Democrats winning elections already and the blue wave will be a good thing in November too, to help begin to rebuild.)
So here are a few photos and a bit of history for y’all.
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Let’s start with a map of Wales and I can highlight each area on the map as I write about it.
Wales (outlined in red, thanks Google Maps!) has a little more than 3 million people and about 1 million sheep. The capital is Cardiff, in the south.
Wales is a coastal country and part of the United Kingdom. It borders England on the east and the Irish Sea, St George’s Channel, and the Bristol Channel on the coastal sides (north, west and south). The languages here are Welsh (Cymraeg) and English. Learn about the Welsh language strategy, policies and more here. There is also a Well-being of Future Generations Act (2015). Find out more and learn about the well-being goals for their citizens at the link.
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Now for the tour! We can start at Portmeirion. This tiny village is modelled on the Italian village (town) of Portofino. The logo of the village is a mermaid, and their official village tourism website is Portmeirion-Village.com. This village has a cool history, as noted on the website, Visit Snowdonia:
Clough Williams-Ellis, Portmeirion’s creator, was born in 1883 and built Portmeirion Village in two phases: between 1925 and 1939, and from 1954 to 1976. The following is a very brief history of the Italianate village which is beloved by local people and visitors from all over the world. …….. Portmeirion Village was Clough’s dream for more than thirty years. As a small boy of five or six, he had already made his mind up to be an architect and a town planner. He decided that one day he would choose a site and build a group of buildings for his own satisfaction. ……. After changing the estate’s name from Aber Ia, which he felt sounded ‘chilly’, to Portmeirion – “Meirion” giving its county and “Port” placing it on its coast” – Clough decided to create his village as a tribute to Portofino, the Italian village with which he had fallen in love.
The TV show, The Prisoner, from the 60’s, was based here. Patrick McGoohan is also buried in the Village. If you want to watch The Prisoner you can get it on the Internet Archive. Other TV shows, including an episode of Doctor Who have been filmed here. My favourite discovery over Christmas this year was that Siouxsie and the Banshees filmed their video, The Passenger, here too. Other videos are here on the tourism website.
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Now let’s go north from Portmeirion to Caernarfon.
Caernarfon is an interesting town with a huge, UNESCO World Heritage designated castle, Roman ruins, and an amazing coast, too.
The current castle is part of the Iron Ring, the series of castles that Edward I of England commissioned starting in the 1280s.
A detailed history of the castle is on Wikipedia, with some cool plans, too.
A full day can be spent at this castle as there are several towers to climb, and the views of the water and surrounding area are stunning. I have visited twice, once on a sunny day and once when it was cold and rainy. Try to go on a nice day. The steps and stones are slippery! One thing I love about living in a place like North Wales is that there is so much history — from castles, to Druids!
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From Caernarfon, let’s go toward the Isle of Anglesey (called Ynys Môn in Welsh, more on the name in a bit.) Anglesey is the last place where Druids were officially based, attacked in AD60 by the Romans.
About 60% of Anglesey speaks Welsh, and traditionally this island has been the breadbasket of Wales (Mam Cymru, Mother of Wales, in Welsh) as the land was much better for agriculture than other areas around this part of Wales. There are a a lot of sheep here and a few cows and lots of farms.
It is the largest island in the Irish Sea.There is a port at one end, Holyhead, with ferries that go to the Isle of Man and to Ireland.
Anglesey sits across from the mainland of Wales — the Menai Strait separates it. On the Strait, there are 2 bridges, the Britannia Bridge and the Menai Bridge (also known as the Telford Bridge after Thomas Telford, the architect of the bridge). It was built 1815-1830.
Anglesey has her own castle, Beaumaris, and an airport at RAF Valley, for the Royal Air Force, and numerous megalithic monuments and menhirs are present on Anglesey, testifying to the presence of humans in prehistory.
The small town of Menai Bridge is quite cute, and according to Wikipedia:
The town of Menai Bridge existed as Porthaethwy for centuries and still has a house which dates from the 17th century. The name derives from Porth (harbour) + Daethwy (the name of a local Celtic tribe and later of a local medieval commote). It is likely that a community existed here in Roman times as it is the shortest crossing of the Menai Strait. St Tysilio lived here as a hermit on Church Island.
The area around Menai Strait supports mussel aquaculture, tourism, bird watching, salt production (famous Halen Môn sea salt), formal gardens, and hosts the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University.
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On Anglesey, there are number of little villages and beaches and places to walk. In fact you can do an entire walk all around the Isle of Anglesey — The Coastal Path. The path, according to the tour website is:
Length: 130 miles / 200km
Total height gain: 4,174m / 13,695ft
Official start point: St Cybi's Church, Holyhead
Average no. of days to complete: 12
Villages directly on the path: 20
Possible to complete all sections using public transport: Yes
(I can attest that you can take buses and trains to get places on the island).
One of the villages and a place on the Coastal Path is Llanbadrig (St Patrick) Church and cemetery. It has great views of the sea, and even rainbows! It is situated on Llanbadrig Point near Cemaes Bay on the north coast of Anglesey. Per the linked website here, “the old church was established in the 5th Century AD and local legend insists that St Patrick was shipwrecked on Middle Mouse the small island just offshore from the site of the church (also known as Ynys Badrig).”
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From Anglesey, now, let’s go back over to the mainland and up to Conwy, home to another lovely castle and a cool walled city!
According to Wikipedia, “the name 'Conwy' derives from the old Welsh words 'cyn' (chief) and 'gwy' (water), the river being originally called the 'Cynwy’….
Conwy Castle and the town walls were built, on the instruction of Edward I of England, between 1283 and 1289.”
This town is very cute, more pedestrian friendly than Caernarfon, and you can walk on the walls, and take a tour of the castle and climb, again, a lot of steps. All of these places have such amazing views and a sense of history, I wish I could share a lot more photos.
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And this ends the tour of North Wales. I hope you have enjoyed a distraction from the cognitive dissonance happening with the memo b.s. and other things. Now, back to homework, too. Cheers, all.