One thing you'll learn if you ever decide to live in rural Wales, and you decide you're comfortable living up to an hour from the town you're actually centered in, is that Wales is full of road side food stands.
I will take some herb plants for my hike please
In particular, I think it may be required that every household with a patch of land has to have free range chickens, either that or there are native wild chickens roaming 50% of the Welsh countryside. As you cruise along the highways, bi-ways, bridleways, backroads and, yes, hiking paths, you'll be sure to run across at least one unmanned roadside stand selling free range eggs. Some also have selections of jams and jellies, water, herbs, cakes, candies, and once I also saw rhubarb on a stone wall with a sign on it - all paid for by the honor system.
We first got a sample at our second Airbnb stay, a converted goat shed with a lofted bedroom and cast iron stove heating (yay!), which was also part of an organic farm, complete with cows, free range chickens, and a place to fix up old VW buses (which was also the specialty of our first Airbnb stay). In any case, our hosts kept a free range egg stand, complete with a rooster-shaped crockery on the tiny backroad from the B4577 to Llangeitho, and on our first night we got a free sample (they also made us a layer cake, and we got organic tomatoes and cucumbers - but the eggs were wonderful!).
Dear Americans (and anyone else). Free range eggs are amazing. They're so good, that I now make sure to carry change whenever I go anywhere, because I plan on stopping at every road side stand I run across, to sample what they have to offer. Since we got here late in the fall, and I don't think anyone wants to buy frozen eggs they find on the side of the road, I suspect I won't have much more to choose from until spring.
But I will continue to carry my spare change in hopes of finding the best Welsh egg ever (and probably in the meantime finding some decent preserves as well).
1. "Wales has what you Americans would call a 'manana' culture - it's pretty much like Mexico here if you would like something done quickly."
2. "Wales is like England 50 years ago, so if you like that, you'll love it here."
3. "A hurricane in the United States? You all haven't seen real weather until you've seen a winter storm in Wales." [I bit my tongue at this one, having just read about people on the island my parents live on in New England who in the 1950s lashed themselves and their children to trees for two days as a hurricane washed their houses past them]
4. "In England you find a hill with a tiny stone outcrop on it, and they give it a name, rope it off, build a parking garage, sell tickets to it and open a souvenir stand to commemorate your visit to the Most Amazing Hill ever. Here in Wales we don't even know that stone outcrop exists because we're busy looking at real mountains."
5. "Well if you like sheep that much, you'll love Wales."
Chances are if you've done any tourist-level research into Wales, you've seen a picture of the arch at Strata Florida Abbey. It's the one with only the arch left standing, indicating the abbey's formerly gigantic western doorway.
Wait a second... Where are the manatees?
Founded in the 12th century by Cistercian monks, the abbey is well on the tourist trail. It being a rainy September day mid-week, however, P and I found an almost deserted ruin, albeit an almost deserted very wet ruin. This of course allowed us to play the interactive video games in the visitors center all by ourselves, though we held off dressing up in the costumes we found in the corner.
Even better, being there alone meant we had time to discuss becoming members of CADW with the woman at the desk - CADW being the Welsh owned organization that maintains historic properties in Wales. Given my intent of seeing a whole lot of history while in Wales; that P and I could together get a pass for 50 pounds; and the high cost of admission to most sights, it made a lot of sense. Also we got a free car decal with two children playing with swords on it - so totally worth it.
The Rain on the Plain of the Bloom
Hey, this isn't Disney World!
Anyway, after playing with the toys provided at the visitor center, we took a look around. Although there wasn't much left of the abbey, the setting made what was left all the more beautiful, even in the rain. In the summer, the abbey probably lives up to its name, which is the latinized version of Ystrad Fflur, or the 'plain of the bloom', as the land where it was originally located was called. Apparently in springtime every rock is covered in flowers, which must be gorgeous.
For now, we focused on the parts of the abbey that we could see - besides the large doorway, the abbey boasts a segment of the best and most intricate tile-work of its day found in the UK. These were really neat to see and very well preserved.
It doesn't just look interesting. . . But I digress
I mean, I guess Florida does have a lot of old people, but this seems excessive
But for me, it was even more interesting to learn about the importance of the former 'Westminster Abbey of Wales' to Welsh history, and why several princes are buried here. I'm sure I haven't gotten it all right, but basically when, in 1212 the abbey was found to have been supporting Llewelyn ab Iorweth, prince of Gwynedd (who also built Castell y Bere that we'd just been to see), it was fined the tremendous sum (at the time) of 800 pounds, which I think is about two bazillion pounds in today's terms. Then, in 1238, Prince Llewelyn gathered all the princess of Wales together in the abbey to swear loyalty to his son Daffyd. The Abbey was burned by Edward I in 1294, rebuilt by Henry IV, and then brought entirely to an end due to the Dissolution of the abbeys by Henry VIII in 1539.
Basically, the abbey at the time was a center of Welsh culture and politics - so obviously when others came in to conquer Wales in whatever form it was taking at the time, the first things they would destroy are these cultural landmarks. Of course it's simple to say it's a shame when you think about it from a purely tourist 'I want to see old buildings' standpoint . . . But it's also a shame that it's so hard, as a foreigner, to get a sense of what this all actually means to Welsh people. It happened so long ago, and the country is in parts in so many ways anglicized, and moreover is considered anglicized by much of the rest of the world, it's hard to really understand what all this means.
Daytona Beach has similar tiles, I think?
But some other time, maybe after I've had a Welsh language class, I'll go on more about this train of thought. For now, I'll just say we wandered around the Abbey and viewed the burial slabs of monks and princes; beautiful medieval stone tiles; a massive and intricately worked 12th century Norman arch; and the resting place of one of Wales' greatest medieval poets Dafydd ap Gwilym.
And while that was wonderful, sadly I have to report that I failed to remember that I had heard that in the nearby graveyard is a headstone that reads 'The left leg and part of the thigh of Henry Hughes, cooper, cut off and interred here June 18th 1756'. So I didn't get a chance to pay homage to Mr. Hughes, who, even with one foot in the grave, nevertheless eventually left Wales to live in America, where the rest of him is buried. Which would have been great, for the terrible joke alone - but c'est la vie.
As an Italian, when I first heard 'reconstructed Italianate village in Wales' my first thought was 'complete disaster.' Then we actually visited Portmeirion. And now it's my favorite place in Wales.
Fallen Buildings no longer
In early October, we'd just moved into our fisherman's cottage in Aberdovey. Looking outside it was an absolutely gorgeous day, bright blue and sunny and not at all October-like. Assuming that this wouldn't last forever, and having read in my guidebook that architect Clough Williams-Ellis' pastel 'Home for Fallen Buildings' is simply 'bizarre' in grey weather, but is overrun in summer, off we went.
The best little tourist attraction you've never heard of
So, British people know about this place - first because it's a crazy, bright and beautiful architectural showcase set in stunning scenery, and second because it was the backdrop for the 1960s cult classic tv show 'The Prisoner.'
Would you care for some human chess perhaps?
Now, I'd heard of The Prisoner simply because I remember telling my parents about a particularly strange episode of The Simpsons that I didn't get at all - Homer made a gossip website and mistakenly makes up a story - flu shots are actually mind control - that turns out to be true. He's then kidnapped and wakes up on 'The Island', dressed in a black sport coat and being called by a number. Every time he tries to escape someone drugs him or he's chased by a giant floating attack orb, and hilarity ensues. It made no sense at all until my father told me that was based on the show The Prisoner, but whenever we talked about it no one but him seemed to ever remember watching as a child in the U.S.
Fast forward a decade later and my parents showing me a few episodes of the actual original Prisoner show online. Amusingly, as the entire plot was about why Patrick McGoohan's character suddenly left his job doing super-secret things for Britain, my parents said it reminded them of me having suddenly run off to North Wales, minus, of course, having worked for a spy agency.
Cheerier than the one at the State Department
Although I could probably do without constantly being knocked unconscious and drugged by a giant white guard balloon, at this point I don't think I'd have much of a problem being kidnapped and confined even in The Prisoner's version of Portmeirion. At least they got to wear fun outfits and the occasional game of human chess would certainly liven things up.
Meanwhile, back in real Portmeirion
It took around an hour to get there from Aberdovey, and while the entrance fee was a tad high - the setting and uniqueness of the village made it well-worth it.
Killing me with flowers
To back up a bit as I've already taken several tangents without explaining why Portmeirion is here in the first place - in the 1920s British architect Clough Williams-Ellis was traveling in Italy, and came across the Italian sea-side village of Portofino. When he returned to the UK, he was determined to recreate the beauty and harmony of the architecture and landscape at home in Wales. (PS yes, we Italians are so amazing we are constantly inspiring crazy people. I mean creative people.)
After searching for an island to build on and not finding one, he finally found a precipitous piece of land that tumbled into Tremadog Bay. For the next 50 years - yes, he spent 50 whole years building this town - he found derelict buildings from Britain and abroad, broke them down, transported them to north Wales, and rebuilt them into the unique Welsh-Mediterranean town that is now Portmeirion.
Yes, this definitely belongs here
Built around a central piazza, the town really does have the unique hallmarks of buildings throughout Europe - and not just the Mediterranean. There is a campanile and a duomo, but also what could easily be a Dutch canal house and a British wood paneled home. Walking around, brightly handprinted signs (a favorite color here is a light teal-ish/aqua) point toward hidden corners where you'll find a giant Buddha, a golden idol dancing on a pillar that could be straight out of Burma, right across from a tiny firehouse that would be at home in Mr. Rogers' neighborhood.
But more than that, everything is just so bright, which, although we live in brightly painted Aberdyfi, is not a theme entirely common to Welsh villages. Bright paint, bright flowers, bright trees framing bright patches of sunlight catch your eye in every corner. It can be hard to take in.
Just as you start to walk into the town, there is a audio recording of Mr. Williams-Ellis describing his vision for the town. Most people seemed to keep walking, but it was worth waiting a moment under the archway to hear about his dream of being able to diverge from the norm of Welsh town planning at the time, and to show that building something truly unique and beautiful was possible - that drab and grey were not the only options and art could have a place in every facet of daily life.
Just like Italy. If it bordered the Netherlands. And Wales.
As I've always had a dream of buying acres of woodland in which to build a giant hidden garden labyrinth, with dozens of secret gardens connected by paths, and each based on the unique horticultural practices from across the globe - let's just say Mr. Williams-Ellis' vision spoke to me. [Also if you know of cheap woodlands for sale, give me a ring.]
Even the shopping is adorable
Anyway, everything in Portmeirion is touched by this dream of whimsical beauty. Even home goods stores. Now, I'm still not entirely sure why, but a large portion of what you would think would be gift stores in Portmeirion are devoted to home goods. While you can actually rent the cottages in the village to stay in, I can't really believe there would be that much of a demand for potholders and tea sets among the visiting tenants.
Home of a famous hanging ram
That said, it turned out to be very convenient for P and I. Having just moved into our semi-furnished home in Aberdovey, we were lacking several key household items. As northern Wales is largely rural and the closest largish home goods store is 45 minutes away, while the truly large box stores are at least 2 hours away, we took the opportunity to do much of our housewarming shopping while being tourists in Portmeirion.
I'm now, among other things, the proud owner of a lovely teal coffee maker, local slate coasters and a hand glued wooden cutting board, all available at Portmeirion. I came very close to buying a flower-patterned china tea set. When in Wales.
Not being true shoppers, but being true beer drinkers, we eventually by sheer force of gravity found ourselves at seal level at the Portmeirion hotel, having made a full circuit through the town. Glasses sparkled on tables under square white umbrellas, and beautiful green lawns sloped down to white carved balustrades framing the sweeping blue estuary.
Oh, were you trying to sit here? Funny how that happens.
In this setting clearly tables were at a premium. Not being sure whether the tables were self-service or whether there were waiters, we hesitated for a moment to sit down at the single open table. However, noticing some people come up behind us, my better Italian instincts kicked in. I quickly used my inherent ability to 'innocently' steal a table out from under someone else's nose by meandering casually over to it, blocking everyone behind me, and sitting down, while appearing to be wholly unaware not only of my having blatantly stolen it from someone else headed in the same direction right behind me, but also giving off an aura of blissful ignorance of literally anything else in the universe.
And I tell you know, even if the beer was horrifically overpriced, it was worth it. We could have been sitting at a grand hotel in Portofino in the sun.
After a thoroughly enjoyable hour of sharing 'No seriously, where are we?' thoughts over our glasses of beer and a pleasant tour inside the hotel to hear the harpist - because of course there's a harpist - we did do one of the pleasant meandering walks through the woods around the peninsula. There we found small, brightly painted follies throughout the woods, massive wildly gnarled trees, giant hydrangea bushes, something that seemed like a spaceship that you'd find in a children's playground, and of course sweeping sea views down the Llyn peninsula.
Frankly, I'm still not sure where you are when you go to Portmeirion. It really does seem like another world. Another beautiful, well-landscaped world where everything is bright and cheery and you can buy all the home goods you'll ever need.
Saving the planet from inside a converted slate quarry
October 14, 2016
The 1st, less than efficient windmill
I may be one of very few Americans who went to Europe’s foremost eco-community and felt like it reminded them of home. But then I grew up in a timber framed glass-fronted house built into a hillside with wood stove heating that my father built himself (I was the 6 year old foreman of course). So that probably explains it.
The Center for Alternative Technology (CAT) was founded in 1974 during the oil crisis, as a place centered creating and moving forward environmentally friendly technologies. When we arrived we were some of the only outside visitors for the day, though there was a conference of ‘returnees’ happening. In any case we got an extended description of the Center from the nice gentleman in the ticket booth who joked about our ‘Aussie’ accents. I’m sure we’ll be hearing that one again.
Basically, the Center initially focused on environmentally friendly energy creation - like solar, water, or wind power. The first attempt at a windmill (admittedly, we were told, not super efficient) are still on display.
A later, far more efficient windmill
Over time, however, much of the focus became energy-saving techniques that would be more suited to urban living - in apartments where you’re not going to be able to build your own windmill, for example. While many of the ideas may seem commonplace by now, I at least am old enough to remember energy-efficiency and recycling being seen as fairly radical ideas. Possibly living in the glass energy-efficient house had something to do with my noticing this as a child.
In any case, the main idea that was instilled in us before entering is that innovation can only come from learning from your mistakes. Apparently that’s something of a credo in a community where a lot of good ideas end up not being sustainable, and some good ideas end in ways you never expected.
Framed herbs and spices + solar cells
Eco-friendly houses, and buildings, and flowers, and more flowers
Unfortunately the small water-counterweighted funicular wasn’t running that day, so we took the slightly challenging walk up to the premises. We watched the short film about the community’s beginnings and advances through the years, and stepped out to see several sample buildings. These included cutaway walls, in some cases using materials like hay bales as the core.
Now, I’ve heard of that before - but in places like New Mexico. In other words, places that are dry. But apparently it’s possible to use compressed hay as a cheap and eco friendly building block even in wet, rainy climates like Wales. Though I’m not entirely sure how they deal with the moisture, apparently there is a way.
I went a bit crazy on flower pictures
There’s one house that boasts several feet of insulation - the heat loss ends up being miniscule. But then, because the house is so well insulated - it turns out they now have to combat a damp problem. Which they are, of course, working on.
Now, I know this place probably isn’t for everybody. But for me, I have to say that I truly adore a place that has a garden made of herbs on frames to look like an art gallery, an entire room devoted to pellet stoves and other efficient heating mechanisms, an underground display area that is pitch dark that you will eventually find a giant painted mole in, provides community classes and even architectural degree programs, and has working water, solar, wind, and even compost displays that you can play with.
No really, this is flower picture 2 of about 250
Ok, a lot of those are probably for children, but I really don’t care - there’s a reason I loved having sleepovers in the Boston Science Museum as a child, and wish they had such things for adults. Maybe with whiskey.
But my favorite part, even with all the neat buttons to push and things to play with - were the gardens. We may have been visiting in October, but the community devotes a lot of its effort to growing its own produce, and the gardens they have set up are quite lovely. There were gourds the size of my head, tomatoes, and flowers everywhere (I don’t know how it happened, but my flower pictures all seem to have come out amazing. If you can believe it, I didn’t retouch them at all. Must have been something in the air). They had a pleasant pond with a comfortable wooding viewing platform to relax in.
The Zen garden
As directed by the man who sold us tickets, we even found the hybrid cucumber-apples and picked one for ourselves. I at least thought it tasted interesting.
Slate quarries and walking trails
Many of the displays on the Center’s history describe the site before the Center came there as a massive, defunct, and crumbling slate quarry. The slate quarries were the lifeblood of Wales for a long time, but they certainly left scars in the hillside. Apparently trying to do something with such a broken down place didn’t hurt for getting planning permission.
Slate piles - what they started from
Not only has CAT done eco-efficient work more broadly - they’ve also worked to clean up much of the area around the Center, including in recently creating and maintaining some walking trails. The short trail that we followed took you to where you could see more evidence of the quarry than at the Center itself. Part of the walk takes you to where the hillside is gouged out - and part of it is effectively a discarded slate pile, now well covered in vegetation. Apparently only about 10% of mined slate was actually suitable for use - so there was a tremendous amount of waste left when the mines closed.
We spent several hours meandering through the grounds, ate at the cafe, walked the trails, and checked out the area where you can go for building and other advice (because you never know when you might need it). It was really amazing to see what, with a lot of hard work, a small group of like-minded people could make from what had effectively been a giant post-mining wasteland. Almost gives you hope.
You probably didn't realize it, but Wales is full of second-hand book shops - and some towns have more than others. I didn't realize it either - then one day, when P was deciding which school's offer to accept in the UK, I ran across a list of various festivals in Wales, and found something sometimes referred to as 'the Woodstock of the Mind'.
This wasn't, as I had hoped, a festival where we all sat around contemplating Roger Daltry as a shirtless young man playing Woodstock, as I've often done since I was 15. It was, however, the next best thing - Britain's leading literary gathering, in a Welsh town dedicated almost exclusively to second-hand bookstores (Caveat: I am at least 30 younger than Roger Daltry. That doesn't mean I couldn't appreciate him as a 15 year old. Give me a break, watch the movie Tommy sometime and tell me I'm wrong. Also, get me Elton John's boots while we're at it.)
If I remember right, P and I's conversation went something like this:
Your typical castle-lawn bookshelves
"Oh my god, P, there's a town in Wales that's dedicated solely to second hand bookstores."
"What? That's awesome. So I'm going to school in Wales?"
"Scotland be damned. Yes. Let's go to Wales."
This, of course, was a totally reasonable way of making a major life decision.
So, obviously, once we got settled in one of our first day trips was going to be to Hay-on-Wye, the town where a man named Richard Booth opened his first bookshop in 1961, and now has over thirty bookstores. Of course, being us, and (to be fair) being new to Wales, we failed to plan particularly well. First, we live on the (western) coast of northern Wales, whereas Hay-on-Wye is somewhere in the middle to south east, literally right on the (eastern) border with England.
("No worries", we said "we'll get up early and drive there!")
Failing to have gotten up particularly early, we ran into the second issue, that part of the beauty of this country is that it doesn't have straight, super-efficient highways. The main roads usually have space for two lanes (one going in each direction), but then there are the sharp curves around the mountains, and there are also the parts of the roads that only have space for one car, but are still two way roads.
("But it isn't that far," we said "it'll only take us an hour and a half!")
Two and a half hours later, we found ourselves driving through the town of Three Cocks. Testament to the fact of how badly I had to go to the bathroom, I don't have a picture of myself in front of the 'Three Cocks Inn', or any of the number of other landmarks of the tiny town next to Hay-on-Wye that I had been giggling about while pointing maniacally at Three Cocks on the map for the last two hours.
("When we get there," we said, "we'll just find a bathroom, have something quick to eat, and then go to a shop.")
Beer, Castle, Books...
Arriving at around 1:30, we found we needed to pay to get into public bathrooms (from what I've come to expect in Wales, this is a total aberration. Possibly a travesty). We realized at that moment we of course didn't have any change at all for the bathroom turnstiles. As I was literally about to explode, we found a store close to the parking lot that sold used CD's, and bought two - a compilation of The Who songs, as well as a 'best of' selection from the Wagnerian opera 'Tristan und Isolde'. Since we had just bought a 2004 Ford with a radio that didn't pick up much (as we had only very recently learned while slowly driving secondary roads through Welsh mountains with the radio continuously on scan), we thought some 70s rock and German opera would come in handy eventually, as we'd failed to bring any non-digital music from the States.
("I'll just run to the bathroom" I said, "then we can look around.")
This will only take a minute
After several wrong turns, 'just taking a look' in the micro-brew store, and perusing a few outdoor shelves at the castle, at 2:30 we went into the first bookstore we could find. It was everything you could hope for in a second-hand bookstore. In other words, it was full of second-hand books, sold by a man who spoke only in whispers.
("These look good," we whispered "but we should take a look around, get something to eat, and maybe come back.")
Which is how we ended up in the antique map store. P and I quickly learned why we should not be allowed to go to antique map stores together. First of all, both of us are scared to touch anything. Second of all, we want to look at everything. Third, we are both shocked by anything more than about 50 years old. Combined, this quickly turns into a lot of wide-eyed pointing, urgent whispering, and furtively looking around at the owner to see if we're going to get into trouble for looking at the things the owner clearly wants us to look at so she can sell them to us. We ended up with a 1920s Ordinance Survey hiking map of where we live in northern Wales, and also an engraving of the northern Cambrian coast that's older than the United States, neither of which I feel like I should own because, like Indiana Jones, I righteously believe everything old should be in a museum.
("I think it's going to rain," P said "we should probably get inside and eat so these maps don't get wet. Also I'm starving.")
Not even remotely fake
After mistakenly walking into two places that didn't actually serve food, and into one vegetarian place where we walked out saying 'Tibetan Nut Loaf?' to each other, forty five minutes later we found a lovely pub called the Blue Boar that served food all afternoon (rather than just until 2:30 or 3:00 as per usual). There I found not only the most startlingly red foliage of a climbing plant I've ever seen on the facade, but I also ate one of the best beef stews I've ever had. Don't get me wrong, it probably didn't hold a candle to whatever the Tibetan Nut Loaf was in the other place, but oh my goodness - the fall off the bone meat that went amazingly with the English mustard, and the vegetables were ridiculously fresh.
("Oh my goodness," I said "I had my face in that stew for so long I wasn't even paying attention to what time it was. It's almost 4:30 and except for the one in the cinema, these stores definitely close at 5.")
Wiping drops of stew off my face, and thanking the gods of Welsh pubs that you pay for meals up front rather than waiting for the bill afterwards, we ran back to the one bookshop we'd been to. I bought my copy of Dr. Zhivago and we made some joke that made the shopkeeper laugh in the quietest giggle I've ever heard. Of course, in the interim we'd been distracted by discovering the shop's combined IRA and Egyptology section upstairs, and on walking out, it hit 5:00.
("Huh," we said "when they say they close at 5, they mean they close at 5. Also, does that sign say 'ISIS Coffeeshop'? That's unfortunate.")
Something tells me this was unintentional
Not wanting to give Russia a justification for bombing a Welsh coffeeshop by investigating this further, we moved on to the Cinema Bookshop, which is much larger and has later hours than most of the other bookshops in town. Wandering around, I found uncomfortable British missionary diaries from Rhodesia, Art Nouveau compendiums translated from French, and seemingly every book that was ever written about Ernest Hemingway (although I was looking for, and not finding, anything written by Ernest Hemingway). There was a lot more to find here, but given our failure to actually leave enough time to browse, we creakingly wandered the aisles for only an hour or so, and I walked out with La Morte DArthur and Ursula K. LeGuin's fourth book of the Wizard of Earthsea series - Tehanu, which I hadn't even realized existed.
However, even the joy of finding a female fantasy writer's coup-de-grace thumb-your-nose at society's work for a few dollars paled in comparison to the discovery of a 1938 Ward Lock & Co.'s Aberystwyth and North Wales (Southern Section) Illustrated Guide Book. Don't get me wrong, the 40-odd pages that the current Rough Guide devotes to the area are quaint - but I do think I'm going to thoroughly enjoy using this 200+ page pre-war book with hand-drawn maps as my authoritative guide to the area I currently live in. Also I am thinking of mail-ordering some of Dr. J. Collis Browne's Chlorodyne, as according to it's catchy slogan 'It would be difficult to name a more complete or reliable medicine to keep at hand under all climatic conditions' (I've since learned chlorodyne was a mixture of a form of opium, cannabis and chloroform, so... yes), and I may also send a telegram to the Standard Bank of South Africa, Ltd, to ask about investing in Northern (and southern!) Rhodesia.
("Hey, this place is closing too" we said "we should get going, though I'm sure if we drive the other way back will be quicker.")
So, popping in our newly purchased 'Best of Tristan und Isolde' cd, we made our way… east. Because the 'other way' home involved driving into England before driving back to Wales. Ultimately, being able to tell whether this way back to Gwynedd was quicker or not was hampered by three self-created problems.
("This is a wooden bridge," I screamed "This is a freaking wooden bridge! It's going to collapse, I'm telling you, it's only for pedestrians!")
First, we thought it would be fine to take what the map told us was a toll road back into England. Toll road is apparently a British English term for potentially pre-18th century wooden bridge that if it were in New Hampshire would be the centerpiece of a booming maple syrup candy business, but under no circumstances would you be allowed to drive over it. Basically you pay someone a pound to cross from Wales to England while certain you are going to collapse a historically significant bridge.
("Hey, it's just about dusk, you know what that means?" I asked 45 minutes later "It means what better time to go find some druid standing stones in a farmer's field off the highway, am I right?")
Second, sometimes I have terrible ideas. These usually happen when I have a very zoomed out paper map in my hand, and it has a marking on it I don't fully understand (which consequently is why I absolutely love paper maps). In this case 'The Four Stones' was clearly marked just north of the A44, off of a tertiary (quartiary?) farm road connecting two villages. Given that even the primary and secondary roads are rarely well lit here, the tertiary, single lane hedge-rowed track was already well sunk into darkness even as we arrived at sundown. Oddly enough, this made it particularly hard to find said standing stones by sight, and we had nothing to guide us besides the words 'The Four Stones'. After 15 minutes driving north and peering into the darkness we gave up and turned around.
In a last ditch effort I told P to stop the car, get out, and look down the left hand side of what I thought was a promising field. Getting out, looking, shaking his head no, and getting back to the car, we started to drive back toward the highway, when I saw the Four Stones. Unfortunately for P, they were right where I'd just told him to look. Sighing as only someone who has to spend another two hours in a car with someone telling them they weren't looking close enough can sigh, he stopped the car, and we peered through the hedgerow, into the dark, at the vaguely visible outline of four Standing Stones, put up a long time ago for some unknown purpose.
("Oh my god!" P yelled 45 minutes later "I swear this cd is perfectly timed to scare the crap out of me.")
I shall return
Thirdly, as it turns out, 'The Best of Tristan und Isolde' is not the cd for a relaxing drive home. While a magnificent Wagnerian opera, it does, as such, consist at times of a series of phrases being sung in over-emphatic and shockingly loud German. (Also, being as it was written by Wagner, it is potentially super-racist - as I don't speak German, I'm going to just hope this isn't the case, but Wagner being Wagner…) In any case, listening to it while driving the unlit curvy mountain roads through forests and small villages of Wales is something like walking alone down a silent, dimly lit street of massive, narrowly spaced Tudor houses, creakily leaning together over your head, and suddenly having a giant blonde woman wearing a gold-horned helmet jump out from behind a telephone box and screaming 'Tristan!!!' directly into your face. Also, somehow this kept happening every time the road turned unexpectedly into a one lane, went over a tiny bridge with no sidewalk, or whenever a giant tractor trailer would pass us around a blind corner.
Only too happy to reach Machynlleth and again get radio reception, we then were treated to a BBC radio documentary on the Singer company, including a seriously distressing and graphic recounting of the New York Triangle Shirt Factory fire. I finally learned my lesson and turned the radio off.
While the soundtrack could use some work - as could our planning skills - the trip to Hay-on-Wye was overall wonderful. I'll definitely be going back - whether as part of another drive there (preferably with an overnight stay), or as a stop off on the Offa's Dike path. In any case I know where I'll be getting my beef stew - although I don't know if it will carry well in a backpack.
On our way north to Cymer Abbey and the Panorama Walk north of Dolgellau, we stopped off at a roadside stand I kept passing on the A493 at speeds too high to feel comfortable pulling over quickly. But this time there was no one else on the road and we were prepared for the turn, and there was plenty of space to wait on the side road without getting run over by traffic.
I do all my shopping on the side of the highway now
The 'Cil-y-Sarn' stand is rather high tech - it has a fairly permanent place to put change and coins, and - thieves beware - the stand is watched over by video. Seriously, why would you steal from a farm stand in the first place? What's wrong with you?
Anyway, thrilled to be at the stand I'd driven past so many times, I picked up a half dozen free range eggs of varying sizes (one of which looked like it might contain Godzilla's Welsh cousin), and P picked out the Seville Orange & Clementine Marmalade. Most of the other marmalades had some spice in them, which of course I would have loved but might have offended P's delicate palate.
We of course sampled them at the first opportunity, and rather than containing Godzilla's cousin, it turns out Gargantua the Egg actually had two yolks. Two delicious, thick, creamy yolks that I wish I were still eating right now. P made crepes with some of the others, and they came out very sturdy - I've since decided that we need to fix our crepe recipe to account for the consistency of these eggs - everything you make with them comes out thicker and creamier. Seriously, if it isn't one thing, it's another. :)
In any case, the crepes were very tasty, and the marmalade had a nice amount of real orange rind in it to make it interesting.
Altogether even though they cost a bit more than the normal roadside stand eggs, I feel like the size of Godzilla justified the price.
Plus, did I mention these were eggs from a roadstand? How awesome is that? For real!
Hey, if you're going to live and work in a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve (link: here) - the least you can do is make a good gin. That's what I always say.
OK, I've never actually said that. But if you ever stop off at the Corris Craft Centre - possibly on your way to King Arthur's Labyrinth or the Corris Railway and Museum - you'll start saying it too.
Having only recently moved to the area, I decided we needed to stop in to see what the craft centre had on offer. Right in the middle of the Dyfi Forest, the craft centre in a former slate mine has some very nice craft stalls - including one that focuses largely on wooden furniture where I made a mental note to try to take the furniture-making classes that were on offer.
Come for the crafts, stay for the gin
But after you've walked through all these you'll find the Dyfi Distillery. Don't be fooled by the size, or the amount of concrete. Tiny for a distillery, if you ask you'll be given two tasting options - Original and Pollination. The Original won a silver medal at the 2016 International Wine and Spirit competition, and is a very smooth gin. Also it is made with something called bog myrtle, and who wouldn't like that. The Pollination is chock full of herbaceous tones from what we were told were hand-foraged wild flowers, aromatic leaves, fruits and conifer tips. Trust me, if you like a flavorful gin, Pollination is a great one.
Speaking to the woman behind the counter, we learned that the distillery had only recently opened, and it only had two 100-litre stills. It only ran - at the most - one distillation a week. According to their website: 'if we can't gather the ingredients we need, we can't distill. Commercially this is probably a mistake. But the result is a Welsh gin like nothing else: just as it should be.' Yessssss….. Only able to make gin 200 bottles at a time, the first batch of Pollination had sold out within the first few days it was bottled.
Now really, who would have though gin would have been so popular in Britain?
Turn left at the Misty Mountains to find the best bilberries
But in all seriousness, the distillery and the gin were both great. Not only was the distillery dominated by the most Lord of the Rings-like hand-drawn map of the Dyfi Biosphere that I've ever seen, but you could certainly taste all the local herbs, berries and conifer tips that went into the gin. We bought a bottle of Pollination - and the label tells us that it is from Batch 12 of 2016, and that it was bottled by someone named Pete, who has signed it.
Before I left, I wanted to warn the woman behind the counter that if American hipsters ever heard about an artisanal-hand-picked UNESCO-biosphere-sourced small-batch mountainside-Welsh-slate-quarry gin distillery that makes what is described as 'a wonderfully evocative restorative', they would likely be overrun within minutes. But I suppose that's the point.
All the Ales in Wales - or at least the pirate themed ones
January 12, 2017
On our second trip to Portmeirion in December - this time for the wonderful holiday food festival - we pretty much spent all our savings eating everything in sight and buying Christmas presents. And one of my favorites was, probably not surprisingly, the tent boasting the great 'Ales of Wales'.
The woman behind the counter was generous enough with the free samples that I may actually have gotten a little buzz just from standing there. Or possibly it may have been the two prosecco cocktails I'd already had while listening to the Welsh men's choirs. I guess we'll never know.
In any case, the added bonus of the lengthy free samples was that we had a nice chat about the brewery itself - the 'Cwrw Llŷn Bragdy' (if the seeming lack of vowels in the name concerns you, and/or you're afraid that that y looks a little orc-ish, 'w' and 'y' are both vowels in Welsh). She mentioned that it's on the north side of the Llyn peninsula - one of the remaining strongholds of Welsh language and culture, that it's open for tours, and that it really wasn't that far away. So I told P we were definitely going to head up there when it wasn't busy.
All the Ales in Wales
So, I thought it would be easy to make a detour to the brewery as part of our trip to use the gift certificate for the free bottle of wine at Dylan's in Criccieth that we'd also generously been given at the food festival. [Hint: For anyone reading this who owns a Welsh food or drink concern - much like I will follow random signs that I find on hikes (see my post on Bearded Lake) - if you give me a gift certificate, I will come. Hint hint. Hint hint. Hint.]
And so it was. Less than half an hour from Criccieth, on the north side of the peninsula, when we showed up at the brand spanking new glass and metal brewery, the non-functional part that would be for tourists looked closed. As, I believe, it was, as we hadn't made any kind of reservation and most things are closed in January.
Not the weather for a picnic
We peered in for a bit and had just turned to leave, when a young lady came speeding down the steps. Despite our insistence that we didn't want to be any trouble and it was fine, we should have called first, apologies, etc, etc, testament to Welsh people being the friendliest people ever she sat us down to a movie about the history of the peninsula and the brewery in a lovely little purpose built screening room, and went off to find someone working there to give us a tour.
History & ale: a nice combo
I probably would have learned more from the professionally produced movie and the informative signs around the room if I hadn't insisted on poking P, pointing and giggling every time I recognized some place in the movie. I did retain a few facts though.
First, they recently found a Bronze Age wooden relic of some sort in the area that had bits of grain in it, that archaeologists say indicate that there's been brewing in Llŷn for at least 3,500 years. Which, you know, is a pretty long time. So that beer's probably been skunked for a while. There were pictures of a recent party the brewery threw where they tried to recreate the beer that might have been brewed at that time, using the actual Bronze Age method. Bluntly, the brewery staff admitted that 'it didn't taste great', but that they'd done it for the fun, so it was a good time. Which, really, is as good a reason as any to make Bronze Age-style ale.
Ale - arrrrrrr.
Second, this brewery - the only brewery on the peninsula, was started as a sort of community cooperative project in 2011. It seemed like the kind of thing where a group of neighbors got together and said 'let's start a brewery in our garage', and so they did, and it actually worked out, and for many of them it's now their full time job. Which is always the best story to hear, really.
They'd only just moved into the current custom built modern premises in the late summer of 2016, and so the summer of 2017 will be their real first tourist season. The place seems very ready.
But most importantly - the Ales in Wales were lovely
Closing the place down. And opening it.
After the movie, we were shown the brewing area, and were told more about the history and the process. It's a small place - we're not talking about a giant internationally-known Laphroiag distillery after all - but we had a good talk and got a better idea of the community vibe of the place.
Then, after turning on the lights over the bar and finding some working kegs in the tasting room, we tried a few of the ales and chatted for a while (including about how one of the staff did part of his college work and practical trailing in agriculture in Ohio and Kansas, of all places). There are five styles, each with a little local history attached. The Cochyn Ruby Ale is definitely my favorite. Not just because it's pirate themed - based on a skull and crossbones found on a gravestone nearby, and that Black Bart from Pembrokeshire was the first to fly the pirate flag - but because I love this style of red ale and this one was particularly good.
Ale & graveyards: who knew?
So good, in fact, that after we left the brewery, we went to the nearby graveyard to find the 18th century tombstone the ale's all about. Or at least we think we found it. It was so cold outside we couldn't stay out searching for long.
Not, in fact, the brewery
If you ever manage to try the others - Brenin Enlli Legendary Bitter Ale (named after the 'king' of nearby Bardsey Island, where they used to brew beer so strong that the bottles sometimes exploded on the shelves); Seithenyn Golden Ale (named after the gatekeeper of the ancient land of Cantre'r Gwaelod who got so tremendously drunk one night that he forgot to close the sluice gates and during a storm the land was lost under the Irish Sea - oops); Glyndwr Beer (named after Welsh independence hero Owain Glyndwr); or the Y Brawd Houdini Pale Ale (named after a Welsh troubadour's song, which I think is an in-Welsh joke I don't really get at all) - and check them in on Untappd, you'll be able to brag about being one of only 3 or 400 check-ins at the most, which is no small feat in the microbrew world these days. But given they only distribute as far as Machynlleth (and then they're only on tap irregularly), and once sent one pallet to France, this beer really is still in the 'exclusive and undiscovered' club of microbrews.
Showing off my ale swag at home
Not that that's why I drink beer, but if you do. . .
In any case, friendly people, ale, local language and buying a 6 pint variety pack and cloth bottle carrier always makes for a great visit. It was made even better when looking at their website afterwards, I read about their two year battle with London to be allowed to produce pint glasses with the Welsh word 'Peint' on them, rather than the English 'pint'. As a former student of minority group politics, including in the UK, now I feel that I should have walked out with a peint glass as well. . . Oh well, there's always next time!
When we were leaving Washington, DC, a lot of friends said that though they envied the country lifestyle, they're not sure they could live without good city restaurants. Well friends, now that we've found Dylan's, we have both.
Granted, the restaurant is in Criccieth. And while according to GoogleMaps Criccieth is only 26 miles away from home it's nonetheless an hour and a half drive. But counting Metro waiting time, etc, really it's the same thing as living in Virginia and going to dinner in DC. Probably.
The main difference, of course, is that in Criccieth - unlike in DC - you enter a lovely art deco, glass-fronted restaurant on a gorgeous beach with sweeping sea and mountain views.
Planning my holidays around free bottles of wine
Hail will not stop us
As I mentioned in my blog about Cwrw Llŷn Brewery, after having quite a few proseccos P and I accosted several food stall staff at the Portmeirion food festival. This included a woman holding a sandwich board advertising the restaurant we'd just bought wonderful skinny fries from - Dylan's. As we learned after being way over enthusiastic Americans with her for a few minutes, this was the same restaurant that our property agent had told us about in our first few weeks in Wales, that we'd been meaning to get to.
Hearing this, she gave us a gift certificate for a free bottle of wine in the Criccieth restaurant in January or February. Enthusiastic about the fact that my birthday was in the normally horrid month of January and that this could give us something to do, she advised that maybe we'd want to stay the night if we were having a bottle of wine.
Overly suggestible, that's exactly what I decided to do, and that's how we found ourselves staying as the only guests at a promenade-front Criccieth B&B with panoramic sea, castle and mountain views, and walking along the beachfront through really painful hail to the Criccieth branch of the original Menai-Straits favorite local-ingredient focused Dylan's.
Did I mention we got free wine?
More out of focus than I remember
The restaurant itself was a lovely space, open, airy and with whole walls of floor to ceiling windows to frame the view (during the day - it being nighttime in the winter, of course we didn't actually have a view). Besides that, I was particularly impressed with the calendar of events on the table - they have lesser known wine region nights, Welsh cultural evenings, and all manner of reasons to come up and eat here.
I'm not much of a food writer - but sufficed to say everything was great. I *think* Dylan's is known for pizza and fresh seafood, so I got the 'Drunken Mussels' - mussels steamed in Welsh cider, leeks, bacon, and finished with tarragon and cream - with a side of the skinny chips. Although I got this as a second choice - as unfortunately they didn't have the grilled lobster I'd originally wanted (I know, I get fancy when you give me a free bottle of wine) - and although it really would have gone better with cider than with a bottle of red wine, they were really, really, really good. Delicious in fact. As good or better than many of the mussels I've gotten in France or Belgium.
The only problem is that they came with lovely sourdough bread, which wouldn't have been a problem except for the fact that we'd also ordered the bread platter as an appetizer, and may have slightly overdone ourselves on bread for two people.
Quick! No one's looking - take the bread!
So, debating whether to surreptitiously stuff the remaining bread in our pockets for our hike in the morning (because you can dress me up but you can't take me anywhere), I swore there was no way I could eat anything else. Which is how I ended up with an amazing 'Messy Môn' - it being my absolutely favorite style of dessert of summer berries, whipped cream and crushed meringue.
Knowing I couldn't stuff this in my pockets for the morning, I ate the entire, giant ice cream sundae-sized thing, despite being absolutely stuffed to the gills. Because it was. So. Good. I can only imagine it being better when summer berries are in season.
Another great thing I have to mention (but only a great thing for Americans, unfortunately this isn't a great thing for locals) is that with the current exchange rate we spent well less than we would have on a similar meal at home, even considering the bottle discount.
So we walked out into the driving hail and sleet stuffed, happy, and with empty pockets. Because I didn't actually line them with bread. I do have some limits. Also the efficient service staff probably took them away before I could, I really don't remember all that well - free drinks. . .
So I don't really like shopping. Never have, never will. But when I found myself with a gift certificate for a store in Capel Curig and too much fog to hike the trail I planned - I found myself doing just that in the 'Gateway to Snowdonia' - Betws-y-Coed.
I'd been planning a trip back to the area ever since we got a gift certificate from taking a class at Plas-y-Brenin, but given my dislike of shopping, had wanted to wait until I could actually do some walking. Once again using a 'Mountains of Snowdonia' guidebook - as in Craig-y-Garn, I had a whole day planned - drive, hike and shop.
Waterfalls and shopping - I like one of these things
Then I got to mid-Snowdonia, saw that semi-cloudy in Aberdyfi translated to low-lying fog in Capel Curig, and decided it was probably better to just spend the day trying to fulfill any parts of my wish list that I could remember.
The shopping and outdoors center of Wales
I hadn't spent all that much time in Betws-y-Coed on our last visit - in fact, I realized as I went back through the town that the last time I was here I could barely see given that it had been nighttime, pouring rain, and the windshield wipers had broken. Reminiscing about how different the various places we'd parked in town looked in daylight, when I was able to see out the windshield, and when I wasn't likely to get into a massive accident, I feel like I learned every nook and cranny of the town this time around. Of course this could be because I spent the first 30 minutes searching desperately for a bathroom, and then for a way to get 20p to pay for the bathrooms I'd found as I couldn't find any change in the car (answer: take out money at the Post Office, pay the bathroom attendant with a 10 pound note and get 9.80 in change.)
The nicest meal in town
In any case, I learned that Betws-y-Coed not only boasts the 'most painted waterfalls in the UK' - Swallow Falls, and is considered the 'Gateway to Snowdonia' - with easy access to zip lines, hikes, and even an surfing pool, it also must boast the largest variety of outdoor specialty shops per square meter in the UK. Grudgingly (again, hatred of shopping) making my way through four or five different outdoors stores, I managed to find a headlamp, a hanging torch for the tent, a watch that's waterproof to 50 meters, and waterproof gear divider bags (among other things). I also found almost everything else on my list, including 572 varieties of rain jacket - but as I am wont to do when presented with too many choices, I decided to postpone any decision until I'd had a chance to narrow down my options out of the view of roving sales people trying to do their jobs and talk to me.
I usually realize I've had too much when I start thinking maybe I should buy really expensive specialty clothes simply to make any salespeople go away. It was at about this point that reminded myself I'd brought five suitcases of clothing, including hiking gear, from the US, and that maybe it would be a better idea to go home to Aberdyfi, pull out that gear and wash it, rather than spend several hundred pounds buying shiny new duplicates.
Scuttling quietly out of the last store with my head down, I later cursed my decision after having spent my Saturday afternoon largely in the bathroom, throwing my South African-bought down sleeping bag into a bathtub full of (what had quickly become) surprisingly brown water mixed with hand washing detergent.
I mean really, how could a sleeping bag that I hadn't washed once in ten years could possibly have gotten so dirty?
When I was young my parents rented a station wagon and drove the family to California and back for summer vacation. Not only was this an exceedingly far drive from the northeast coast of the US, but pre-internet, we actually didn't have all that much background knowledge to go on, outside of, if I remember correctly, some type of coupon booklet for hotels.
So when we got to Wall Drug in the Badlands and learned about the famous deer-horned jack-rabbit of the region (the jackalope), I can't guarantee we didn't believe it existed. I can remember that we sent several postcards home to people who definitely believed it was a real animal.
Of course, in Bob Sagat's America's Funniest Home Videos of my childhood (yes, youths, the voice from How I Met Your Mother had several jobs before that), America was taught via an adorable recurring jackalope puppet character that the jackalope was entirely a fantasy, a rodent version of the unicorn.
The fearsome Jackalope
So I was quite surprised when I found a jackalope in a castle in Wales.
Dolwyddelan Castle
Having spent the day buying gear and not walking in Betws-y-Coed, I decided to break up the 1h45m drive back to Aberdyfi with a visit to another of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth's (Llywelyn the Great's) 13th century castles in north Wales. Just like Castell-y-Bere, Dolwyddelan Castle is spectacularly sited on the slopes of Moel Siabod (I guess it's hard not to be spectacularly sited in north Wales).
Nice windows for the 13th century
Maybe halfway between Betws-y-Coed and Blaenau Ffestinog, there's a well-signed entrance and parking lot, and signs that point you along the 10-15 minute very steep walk to the castle. Although the signs point out that you have to pay to visit, I couldn't for the life of me figure out where - since the bunkhouse on the way looked closed and a sheep dog came bolting out of the only other house, bearing its teeth and barking madly at me. Although actually, it didn't matter for me as I conveniently became a CADW member at Strata Florida, so it would have been free anyway.
In any case, the walk was pleasant and slightly muddy, with mountain views on all sides and sheep running away from me every which way. When I got to the top I meandered around the ruined part of the castle, and then walked up the stairs to the castle door, assuming it would be closed but that I could take pictures from a higher angle.
I kind of wished it wasn't open
Well this is creepy. But informative. Creep-formative.
But when I got to the door it wasn't locked. There was a lock on it. But it wasn't locked. So inside I went.
I entered through the keep, which was restored in the 19th century and at that time used as a hotel. Nowadays, the keep is a large, dim, empty stone room with a fireplace you could cook a whole cow in (i.e. my favorite kind of fireplace, since I love big fireplaces and hate cows - see Bearded Lake).
There are several helpful panels describing the background of the Norman conquest of England, their push into Wales, and Llwelyn's subsequent rise to power and his relatively short-lived unification of the previously entirely separate kingdoms of Wales. This is not a period of history I recall learning about at home, so the display was quite welcome.
I don't feel like there's a danger of this happening
Anyway, having read all the panels, I was about to leave when I went to inspect a warning sign that looked like it was warning you to beware of standing on your head while a staircase fell from the ceiling on top of you. When I got closer I realized the warning sign was upside down, and it was warning you not to fall down the stairs. I further realized, obviously, that there must be stairs to which this warning sign related.
Close encounters of the jackalope kind
And that's when it happened. The cloudy sky wasn't letting much light into the keep's few tiny windows, and the stairs in the corner behind the warning sign were pitch black. Except for one narrow window.
On which was a single jackalope skull.
It's looking right at me
The creepiness of seeing any kind of animal skull in a window in an old castle wasn't helped by the wind screaming through the windows and all around the keep. But it also wasn't helped by the skull being so small. And having tiny antlers. And it was further not helped by said window being at the bottom of a pitch black staircase, with a thick, damp rope handrail, that lead a long way up to who knows what.
I didn't really want to think why that skull was there, or how it had gotten there. Thinking like that just makes you embarrass yourself by running as fast as you can away from things. I did, for a very brief moment, however, think that this jackalope looked like more of a sheepalope. Or perhaps a lambalope. But then I decided that it would really be better for everyone involved if I didn't examine this skull, or these thoughts, any further.
So, motivated by getting as far away from the skull as possible, I blindly groped my way up the seemingly never-ending staircase, hoping it didn't lead to a herd of live, adorably murderous jackalopes who had left the skull at the base of the stairs as a warning. That would be an interesting way to die, really, murdered in a 13th century Welsh castle by a pack of horned bunnies. I feel like there's a Monty Python movie in here somewhere.
Hill full of jackalope lairs
Luckily, it actually lead to ramparts with a really beautiful view - made even more beautiful when, as I was about to call it a day, the sun started to come out and actually lifted some of the mountain-top fog that had been obscuring everything all day. To the north, west and south were craggy mountains, some still with snow on top, and to the east were large grassy whale-back hills.
I took my time on the ramparts - partly because of the stunning beauty, and partly because I didn't want to go back down the dark stairs past the skull.
Obviously, I eventually made it out safely since I'm writing this blog about the experience. But I'll admit that some part of me kept looking in the rearview mirror the whole way home, convinced that at some point, like in a horror movie, I would suddenly see a jackalope sitting in the backseat, laughing maniacally.
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