To Wales: Congegrating in Conwy

The nearly complete and absolutely gorgeous Conwy city walls.

I got pooped on by seagulls twice in two days in Northern Wales while staying in Conwy. Other than it, it was one of my favorite stops!

Conwy Castle as viewed from the other end of town. Notice the evil Welsh seagull.

This is where I stayed. My window is the one that looks like the second floor, on the right.

Very tiny but all hills and city walls. The first night at dinner, I was writing furiously in my journal, and the couple next to me while we were both finishing our food finally were like "hey what are you writing?" We chatted for about an hour before finally asking for our respective checks. Very friendly!

Legit moat around Beaumaris

The next day I trekked to Beaumaris Castle. It was interesting. Huge and obviously built for defense--not thrills. It got a bit repetitive after a bit--all of the turrets were copies of two floor plans.

Potty or merely sitting spot? Draw your own conclusions.

Tons of potty holes, very narrow passages.

I'm sorry, I got quite obsessed with figuring out how people in the past used to go to the bathroom.

You can see here how the castle was left unfinished. One side was completed, the other was never finished, not destroyed.

On to the next one! Caernarfon.

Fixed up and restored--it was only ever partially finished, too, and not used for a very long time which just seems so silly. Such a waste of a building project. This was the "Prince of Wales" castle so there was a lot of royal history, including recent royal history. Well as recently as the 50s anyway.

Well? Trash hole? GIANT TOILET?

After that, I went on a train up Snowden, getting there the easy way. The view at the top was like a cloud, but the views on the ride were nice.

I stayed in Conwy the last day and saw Plas Mawr, which is a gorgeous Elizabethan house, all restored and painted and well-furnished.

Detailed and gorgeous high chair.

A lot of the decorations were gaudy like this. It's so interesting to think about people of the past living in such bright places, because we usually assume they were subdued for some reason.

Cat hole. I want one.

Then I went in Conwy castle.

I think I might have finally been getting castle-weary by this point.

Still, I found the unique beauty in it, like the way it rose right out of the chunky harsh bedrock.

Also saw the smallest house in Britain which I thought about moving into with Puck. It was two stories but teeny tiny. I do not have a picture of this but it was really quite small, although certainly doable for a girl who was in the middle of traveling with nothing that can't fit in a backpack for a month. :)

The toilets hanging over the city wall in Conwy. I'm in love. Sadly, this was like the one part of the wall where you couldn't walk along it.

Northern Wales reminded me a lot of Maine--Maine WITH CASTLES. So it clearly resides near the top of my running list of favorite places in the world. They were similar in terms of weather (misty but still nice), homey, fierce people with funny voices (including saying something like "hiya" as a greeting which sounded really Mainiac to me), the sea and moody outlooks and rocky shores, adorable communities without sprawl, sheep, lobster traps, and a town called Bangor.