Weekend in Wales
Tony finished his job on Wednesday so we took a long weekend and went to North Wales. Which was rather exciting because Tony organised it all and didn’t tell me where we were going until we got there (I obviously got a pretty good idea when we crossed the border from Shropshire and the road signs were in a different language…and the ‘Welcome to Wales’ sign helped…).
We stayed in the Castle Ruthin (Castell Rhuthun) Hotel in Ruthin, about an hour from Snowdonia. Which was very nice. We started off in a pleasant room with a teeny four-poster bed but had to move upstairs to a grander room with no four-poster but with a large Sony LCD TV - which impressed Tony no end. Slightly bizarrely, our room doubled as the emergency exit in case of fire (through the bathroom window and out on to the roof) but, fortunately, wasn’t required to fulfill that capacity during our stay. We were, however, woken each morning by the cries of a very persistant peacock that sounded a lot like our cat Gizmo.
We counted about 3 male and 2 female (plus 3 chicks) peacocks, which live in the gardens and among the ruins of the 13th Century Ruthin Castle.
Friday, we drove down to Snowdonia with the aid of trusty ‘Jane’ (Tony’s TomTom), where we went for a ride round Lake Padern on the Llanberis Lake Railway. After lunch we visited the National Slate Museum, which is more interesting than it sounds, and included a demonstration of how they split and shape slates to make roof tiles. In the evening we drove up to Caernarfon for a wander around and dinner.
Saturday, we walked in to Ruthin town and went to the small market in the Ruthin Gaol, then went back to the castle for a leisurely sit in the sunshine in the castle gardens. Later, we visited the Valle Crucis Abbey (the ruins of a 13th Century abbey). There, we looked for some time at a series of small walls…actually there’s more left of it than that and worth seeing if you like that sort of thing.
Today, we came home. The cats have finally come in from the field. They are disdainful and Bailey has ‘lost’ his collar.
Posted by Laura on 25-06-2006 at 09:06 pm
Tagged with: cats • holidays
1 Comment »
http://www.castlewales.com/ruthin.html has lots more information about the old part of the castle