June 26, 2009
Ffestiniog and LLandudno – Say that fast
Today we mostly spent traveling from Ffestiniog to Liverpool, with a pause to visit another mine, this one four thousand years old. We also bade Wales goodbye after eight very pleasant days and not a bit of rain. The Welsh with whom we made contact were gregarious and pleasant.
The railroad journey north from Ffestiniog (on the standard-gauge Welsh railway system) was a beautiful one of mountains, forests, and farmsteads that took us to Llandudno, a popular resort town on Wales’ north coast and site of the Great Orme Head, a mountainous penninsula north of the town.
You can (and we did) ride a cable car system to the summit, changing cars at a halfway house. Once there, we had lunch at the summit house, then hiked down a trail a short ways to the Great Orme Mine. This copper mine was worked in the ninteenth and twentieth centuries, but in recent decades has been excavated (starting by removing the modern dumps) to reveal a four thousand year old mine that may have been the largest mine in Bronze Age Europe.
The Great Orme’s ores were extracted by people using rock hammers, bone picks, and candle illumination. The archaeologists think they recovered about 1700 tons of ore from exceptionally rich diggings, first at the surface, then by following the veins into the depths.
Of course with stone and bone tools, these folks desired to extract as little rock as possible. This meant following the narrow and twisting veins, often into places only a child could reach. Keeping with the idea of moving as little as possible, the ore was rough sorted undergound, and smelted and manufactured into bronze by combining it with tin at the surface. The self-guided tour into the upper two undergound levels and around the surface workings was very interesting.
Also, as we emerged from the undergound we came across a film crew visiting the site. The support crew was the usual assortment of scruffy types, while the on-camera personality was a young woman in a mid-length dress and two-inch heels. She’d even picked out a hardhat colored to match the dress. To my surprise, once they’d finished their surface bit, the lot of them, heels included, proceded undergound. We didn’t see an ambulance or a chopper racing up there on our trip back down, so I guess heels got through it alright.
After we finished the Orme Mine tour, we climbed back up to the top of the hill and rode an aerial tramway, featuring inspiring views, back down into Llandudno. From the tramway station we worked our way back to the railroad station by way of the waterfront promenade. This too was impressive in its way.
Llandudno was one of the most popular British beach resorts during the Victorian era. It was heavily invested in and visited by the English. The waterfront consists of a mile-long row of gloriously and unabashedly Victorian hotels. When they ran the world, the British knew what to do with their profits!
From there goodbye to Wales on a quick trip to Liverpool, checkin at a nice B&B—hotel a few blocks from Liverpool Central station, and a good meal and brief walk around the waterfront before dark.
June 25, 2009
Trains, buses, and more trains. Oh, my!
Time for some two-foot narrow gauge. We left Caernarfon this morning aboard the Welsh Highlands Railway, currently partially restored. This was a pleasant ride south through the Welsh countryside most of the way to Porthmadog. In September of this year they hope to have the line completed into Porthmadog and a connection with their other railroad, but we had to take the bus across the gap.
It was worth the trip. The second two-foot gauge line, the Ffestiniog Railway, runs from the harbor town of Porthmadog to the sub-alpine slate mining town of Blaenau Ffestiniog (second word: fes TIN e og; a local told me nobody bothers using the first word) high in the Snowdonia Mountains. The Welsh Highland road is scenic and fun, but the Ffestiniog line is spectacular.
After a short level stretch to clear the city, it pounds steeply up hill for most of its thirteen miles. Its route includes the only loop in Britain, and innumerable flange-squealing curves. We sat a third of the way back in the second car and so sharp were these curves that at numerous places I could take a good shot of the engine. I’d ride this one if I were you.
The Ffestiniog Railway was originally built to haul slate from mine to pier, an origin similar to many of the early railroads of Britain. Due to its engineering, however, it also quickly became a tourist attraction. Though two of the slate mines at Ffestiniog are still active, along with the rest of Britain they have switched to moving their cargoes by truck. But the railroad still thrives in summer (with the help of many volunteers) hauling tourists.
After alighting at Ffestiniog, we checked into a very nice B&B right above the station, then walked a mile or so out of town to visit one of the slate mines. There we took an underground tram tour and spent some time talking to one of the guides.
The town is pretty much all about slate, with slate fences, buildings, monuments and markers, and slate rip rap in the streets, though the main products were slate shingles for the cities of Europe, and the famous slate tablets that all of those Victorian kids used to master their three Rs.
One interesting sidelight about these mines is that they were selected as a secret repository for Britain’s art treasures during World War II because of the blitz and the potential invasion, Goering being something of a collector.
June 24, 2009
Back in Devon and on to Wales
Sorry, we have been in hotels and B&Bs lately that don’t have internet. We are eating at a pub with internet tonight.
My post is out of place, sorry. I am still catching up. I will reorder everything as soon as we have access to internet again.
Our last day in Totnes was spent seeing the sights actually in town. We had already found and see several of the sights listed on the walking tour, but still had a few more to see. At St. Mary’s church,we saw the plans they have for re-invigorating the space. All the wooden pews will be taken out, replaced in the front of the church with individual chairs. In the back half of the nave? they will put a small building with a cafe and gift shop and space on top for the choir. The alter will be brought out in front of the rood screen. They would probably remove that, but it is a historic screen, so they will leave it behind. Totnes’ Elizabethan house is bettter than Dartmouth’s, even without a visit from Charles II. It is bigger and has more furniture from the period in addition to little rooms given over to apothacary items.
I even had time before the train to have a Devonshire Cream Tea. Eric was surprised when I drank my tea black. I explained that the cream is what I spread on the scone along with the jam. I had a Cornish Cream tea at the cafe at Pendennis Castle in Falmouth. Each time, the cream was made by the local recipe, which is probably the same, but the cows it comes from are native to area. I love cream teas!! The cream is churned/whipped until it is thicker than whipped cream, but not quite butter. The jam provides the sweetness. Double yum!
Nice train trip to Cardiff. When we arrived, we decided on walking to our hotel. One disappointment on the trip so far has been that no one seems to be lowering their prices to attract tourists. The B&Bs we have stayed at have all been over £50. For Cardiff, I used Priceline and while there wasn’t any hotel that would accept my very low bids, I did get a good deal for the Holiday Inn Express – Cardiff Bay on their regular site. I will be trying again in Liverpool, Glasgow, and London. Maybe we can do better, but I doubt it.
Cardiff Bay is a relitively new development. The area used to be tidal mud flats with a few channels cut for the coal ships to get loaded, but it is now a happening place! A few of you have watched the “Doctor Who” and “Torchwood” tv shows and have seen the Cardiff Bay area. There are some pictures of me in some of the places important to Torchwood. Unfortunately the area that the Doctor lands the Tardis, was taken up by an outdoor activities fair. I wanted to see it empty and figure out where the Tardis landed, but I had to give that up. I did discover the outside stirs used in the “Runaway Bride” episode, the tunnel used in “…..Planet” and the high-rise projection where Capt. Jack goes to look over Cardiff and ponder the universe, or whatever. Eric thinks I’m totally crazy about this, but, now I can say I have been there or seen it person. I also spent the £6 and went through the Doctor Who exhibition. I’m glad Ididn’t pay £7 at Land’s End for their exhibition. This one had some costumes – amazing how simple the material and construction is compared to how it looks on tv. Same goes for the props, including the regeneration box used for the “Lazarus Experiment” episode.
The first night we had dinner at Pizza Express in Mermaid Quay. The English do pizza differently. They don’t have the think tomato sauce. It is usually chopped tomatoes. And they have really weird stuff on top like lettuce, eggplant, or feta cheese. But we found a pepperoni which we liked. We walked around the quay a little, but it was cold and windy and went back to the hotel soon.
Next day was spent at the Rhondda Heritage Museum. Pronounced “Ron-tha” it was an old coal mine with real former miners who lead the tours. It was interesting. We only went down one level or so. At the end was a simulated dram ride that was worthy of Disneyland. Dram is what they call the mine cars in these here parts. Our restaurant this evening advertised itself as having the best in Welsh, Italian, and Spanish food. We tried some “local” food. I had a cockle and lavabread tartlet and Eric had the cawl (cawl = soup) and bread to start and then we had another pizza! Lavabread, I later learned is a dried seaweed. The tartlet was good. The cockles and lavabread tasted a little like liverworst, I thought.
June 24
Caernarfon (Care nar VON) Wales. Our landlady insists that Welsh is much easier to learn than English because it’s all phoenetic. Oh I beg to differ, and offer the name of her town in evidence. I finally sort of figured it out after two days, but there are names of other places around here that I dare not even attempt. Barbara worries that if she should pronounce something correctly, they’ll assume she’s native and launch into it. I can’t imagine I’d ever face that problem.
Today we explored the town of Caernarfon, particularly its castles. The one built by Edward I starting in the 1290s is one of the great surviving examples of a mideaval castle, and is now a World Heritage Site. The particulars of how it came to be built are a big part of that whole English—Welsh fracus.
Story is that the Prince of Wales, Llywelyn, to assert his independence, declined to pay hommage to Edward in the appropriate venue. Today’s history lesson is that Edward I was the wrong guy to mess with. He promptly undertook two costly but successful wars, in the course of which Llywelyn was killed. After 1300, Edward I declared his own son Prince of Wales, and the British monarchy has been doing it that way ever since, not to everyone’s entire satisfaction.
In order to avoid more wars, Edward built a series of castles and fortified towns along the north cost of Wales, spaced a day’s march apart and situated so as to be resupplied by sea (the genius part) making them largely invulnerable to siege. Edward, widely traveled, adopted the best in European castle design, and, aware of Welsh respect for their previous Roman conquerers, conspiculously employed Roman symbolism.
The castle at Caernarfon is the keystone of these structures, and since the nineteenth century it has been devotedly preserved and restored. It has twice been the site of the investiture of the Prince of Wales: of the future King Edward of Edward-and-Mrs.-Simpson fame in 1911, and of Prince Charles in 1969.
It is a remarkable place, but bring good shoes and a superior sense of direction, because it’s one spiral staircase after another, and truly a labrynth. The fort system cost the Crown the then staggering sum of L80,000, but it did quiet the locals and since the two wars had cost L100,000, it turned into something of a bargain.
After Caernarfon Castle and a spot of lunch, Barbara went to look in on the Celtic shop and then back to our B&B to plot our forthcoming adventures. I trooped up the hill to get a look at the digs of the original occupiers.
The Romans began to establish their fort, Segontium, on the hill overlooking the present fort and walled city in AD 78, after defeating the strongest tribe of north Wales, the Ordovices. Their occupation of Segontium lasted until c. 390, when they retreated from Britain.
There’s a nice little museum there, and the remains of at least foundation markings. These consist of suspiciously tidy low stone walls, so I suspect that the Victorians may have been at work again. But they certainly found some legitimate stuff, including a vault, an office complex, numerous barracks, and a Roman bath.
After the Roman ruins and a few shots of Caernarfon Castle and the local narrow gauge railroad (we ride tomorrow!), I wandered back to the B&B, then Barbara and I went to dinner at a local pub, which claims establishment c. 1522.
One way to beat the pricey bistros is with pub food. The pubs are informal, relatively inexpensive, and serve basic cuisine; just our speed. I’m trying to be a good tourist and order the local dishes (pizza I can get Stateside), so sausage and mash, Welsh pie (actually spiced Welsh lamb and mashed potatoes dumped on a plate, but excellent), fish dishes (staying away from the tasty but fatty fish and chips when possible) and soups.
I’m doing very well ordering soup and bread combinations; though often listed as appetizers (“starters”) they are usually quite sufficient for me. There are certainly international food options here. I’d put the Italian influence in the lead, with American and Chinese second and third.
What the Americans chiefly provide at mealtime, however, is the music: from Sinatra through Ray Charles to the occasional boy band abomination. There are European offerings obviously—British, of course, and we were accosted by ABBA in a pub a while back. But the American influence is significant, pleasant, and to me a nice contribution to the world’s culture.
Random thoughts: *I mailed a second cinder block of books to the States today for a prince’s ransom, so tomorrow I’m back to traveling as light as I have since we got here. It’s only money (he said blithely before seeing the final bill), and Mr. Back was beginning to creak like a wooden trestle. I also sent these surface, meaning that they too will make the Atlantic passage and that we might beat them home. *One of the things mentioned in the art exhibit we toured in Cardiff a few days back was that Rubens often assigned the apprentices (the graduate students of their day) to paint most of the lesser figures. So Stephen Ambrose wasn’t the first of the masters to yield to that temptation.
June 23, 2009
A Wale-ing we will go
Spent the day mostly on the rails, riding the “Heart of Wales” line from Swansea, Wales, to Shrewsbury, England, then back along the north coast of Wales to Caernarfon, where we’ve holed up for the next couple of days.
The “Tunnel of Trees” line might be more descriptive of the first leg, though it probably wouldn’t sell as many tickets. Very frustrating to photograph; every time I’d see something photogenic, by the time I’d get the camera unlimbered and traned out, we’d be back behind the hedges again.
So you’ll have to take my word for it that it was beautiful country. Small farms and pastures surrounded by hedgerows, mostly in sheep. It is mountainous, in the Adarondacks not the Rockies sense, with rolling, tree-covered hills and narrow valleys, but you can see how the Welsh chieftans could use it to frustrate the Romans and Normans for all of those centuries.
Once you leave Wales approaching Shrewsbury, the landscape immediately flattens out and becomes much more open (by British standards). The trip along the coast into northwest Wales is also picturesque. Passing south of Liverpool, to the right lies the Irish Sea, and to the left the tallest mountains in Wales or England, looking considerably more jagged than those to the south.
Here, our new landlady informs us, is the true heart of Welsh Wales. Here Welsh is the primary language (certainly more in evidence than down south). She reports that the elementary grades are taught exclusively in Welsh, and that children who err into English are “persuaded” to speak Welsh instead (I remember being “persuaded” a few times in school myself).
Landlady says that the real tumult was in the 1960s, with the nationalists beginning to win the point (bi-lingualism) in the 70s. She thinks the compulsory ed started in the 1980s. Thereafter, she says, peace has largely prevailed; though they still have a few “incidents,” as when a local resturanteur insisted that her employees speak only English last year. Protests ensued to the extent that she had to sell the business. (Not that it was better that they caned you for speaking Welsh at school, as happened in the landlady’s day.)
Landlady also reports that they’ve chased away most of the rich English who used to own the resort homes up here, and I couldn’t help noticing that the Caernarfon Castle flies two Welsh flags but not the British.
Frankly, even down in Swansea, Welsh is spoken first announcing the trains and such. When the “first” language used is spoken by only twenty percent of the population, the preference for it is a political decision, not a linguistic one. As such, it doesn’t bode well for the future of a united kingdom.
Random thoughts: *Many fewer dogs out for walks (and in pubs and such) in urban Wales than in southwest England. The border collies also largely disappeared, alas. In urban Wales the tendency is toward the genus mutt. *Since getting soaked in Plymouth, I’ve been hauling our ponchos everywhere, meaning that we’ve had perfect weather. *Posted the first ocean liners book and some conference papers to swim back to the States for a sobering twenty bucks. I’ll have to take the others down to the PO tomorrow and see what the damages are. Sprained back or sprained wallet? Tough call!
Eric, June 22: Today was our one-day visit to Swansea (22.5 hours to be precise), home of iron and steel and coal and shipping, and the world’s first great industrial copper smelting site. Not much of the latter exists any more, so off we went to the National Waterfront Museum where I hoped to learn more. Again, not so easy.
The two great disasters for museums are not enough money and (though rarer) too much money. This museum has the latter problem. Boy oh boy, they’ve got bells and whistles (or at least recordings of them that they boom at you), lights and sirens, virtual realities, video displays, interactive activities . . . and it’s very hard (at least for an old guy) to figure out what the focus or the story is.
Barbara eventually had to retire from the cacophany (seagulls cawing, phones ringing, crowds roaring, you name it). I tried to brave it out, picked up a few interesting points, and took some how-not-to-do-it pictures for the kids in the museums class. Still, more frustrating than illuminating. (After we got back that evening, Barbara talked to our landlady, who had sadly reached the same conclusion about what they’d done to her nice old museum. In museums “sensational” isn’t always a good thing.)
After the musem blitz we visited the old resort at the south end of town known as The Mumbles, named for a couple of small islands off the end of the beach. After we saw the sights and stuck our feet in the sea, dinner in a pub and back to our lair before we head for the hills (of central Wales) tomorrow.
Eric, June 21: Today was an easier local day around Cardiff. We went on the city tour bus loop trip; I find these both touristy and exceedingly useful. Among other fun facts: Cardiff was a town of a thousand inhabitants in 1800, and 100,000 in 1900, and the difference was the coal empire of the Bute family. The main feature of our day was a visit to the Welsh National Museum.
We spent the late morning touring their paintings, including a small exhibit of impressionist works. Never really a visual arts guy myself, but the paintings, impressionist and otherwise, were very impressive. Amazing how they could draw faces in incredible detail, with no evidence of brush strokes. Personally, though, my favorite painting was “The Steelmills: Cardiff at Night,” but I’m a little strange.
After the paintings we had lunch, then Barbara sat in the resturant and worked on computer stuff, while I tried to discover the mysteries of the Welsh. Not as easy as it sounds. The national museum seems to cover everything except the story of the people themselves, but from the archeology exhibit I was able to piece together the gist of it as:
Four main Welsh tribes existed when the Romans showed up in the 100s AD; Britain being about the last place they annexed. The Romans did manage to gain at least nominal control, which was apparently accepted, as archaeological evidence suggests that most of the Roman forts weren’t occupied for more than about fifty years.
They don’t seem to know much about the history of Wales from the time the Romans departed c. 400 until the Normans tried to move into the area starting in the 1070s. The Normans tried to gain control fitfully until Edward I finally dropped the hammer c. 1300. Complete annexation did not come until the 1530s, with Henry VIII’s decree joining Wales to England (whether they wanted it or not).
After the museum, we headed for the waterfront, took in the tail end of a kayaking show and demonstration, then went to the adjacent mall and community center, Barbara to visit the “Dr. Who” museum (a popular television show, much of it shot in Cardiff), and me to scout out the bowling alley.
The lanes, apparently part of a chain named Hollywood Bowling (can you think of a game less likely to be played in Hollywood?), were filled with players (this being a Sunday) pedominately using the American system (fling the ball down the middle as hard as you can and see what happens).
I thought about playing a game, but got cured by the price of four pounds, twenty-five pence per (about seven bucks)! One of the commandments I try never break is: “Never pay more than three bucks a game for bowling.” But the joint was jumping, so the recession must not have reached the bowlers of Cardiff.
Big city prices generally have been eye opening to your hayseed reporter from the provinces. After the museum adventures, we had a dinner that would have cost us over sixty dollars (for two, no spirits!) had Barbara not snagged a two-for-one card for the place earlier. I’m trying to avoid my cheap professor guilt vibes by not looking. On the bright side, I should get this trip paid off in time for our retirement return trip in twenty-five years or so.
Eric, June 20: Today we spent at the St. Fagan’s National History Museum, a few miles to the west of Cardiff, Wales. They have about thirty buildings on site, salvaged from around the country, as well as several exhibits in their large main building. We looked over the agricultural exhibit, then busted through as many of the buildings as we could manage, ending with the Castle.
The most interesting buildings to me were the tannery (nasty job, that), boathouse, and a block of ironworkers rowhouses that they had decorated to varous dates at about fifty-year intervals, from 1800 to 1985. Nice castle too, if you’re into wealth (a photo showed a household staff of twenty-six).
The main building also had an exhibit on the revival of the Welsh language. Like many places, in recent years it has become a vehicle for the reassertion of ethnic pride. Wales is now bi-lingual, with most signs and placards and such in both languages. Welsh is also compulsory in schools, and apparently a difficult language to master. The exhibit estimated twenty percent of the population now speaks it, and you certainly do hear it on the street, on trains, etc. (One of the bits in the exhibit was a Welsh Scrabble set from 2005, with Ll and other exotic letter combinations on the tiles.)
The vote to reinstall Welsh as an official language was actually quite recent, if I read the exhibit correctly, 1997. And it was surprisingly close, the measure passing 559 thousand to 552 thousand. Those parts of Wales closest to England, including Cardiff, tending to vote against—as well as Pembrookshire, all the way west, strangely enough. The middle part of the country voted in favor. This dents our guidebook’s notion that the division on assimilation was north and south.
Still having a good time, though fighting callouses, blisters, back twinges, and a certain amount of tourist fatague. My shoes are at last coming around. I started a new pair on 1 May, since I didn’t think my old pair would survive the trip. A good move, but I should have started breaking them in a month earlier. But after torturing my toes for ten days, I think I’ve finally worn them into servicability. My back’s been a little twitchy, but hanging in there. After I finish writing this, however, I’m going to go take a hot shower that will cause a water shortage in southern Wales.
Random extra bits: *Tomorrow is the solstace. Tonight the sun set at about 9:30, and it got absolutely dark about 11. Can’t wait for Scotland two weeks hence; my kind of country. *They have the BBC Wales channel in our hotel room, much of it conducted in Welsh. Saw a comedy show, but didn’t get any of the jokes. *Forgot to mention on the English part that our friend Stephen Fry (from Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster) seems to be holding up the TV beam almost by himself. He had three different shows in the week we were in town. He has an American travelogue show, of which I only saw one episode, unfortunately (always fun to see what outsiders think). He also has a drama called “Kingdom,” in which he plays an attorney and village elder of the same name. And he is the avuncular host of a show called “QI,” a sort of game-celebrity-chat show, where the questions are really a pretext for jokes and discussion, with the “winner” determined by Fry through an unfathomable scoring system at the end. At one point, the man was competing with himself on two of the different channels.
Eric, 19 June: This morning we headed for Rhondda Heritage Park, a coal mining site up the Rhondda Valley north of Cardiff. Pre-coal they estimate a thousand people lived in the valleys of the Rhondda, and at coal’s peak about 160,000. This rush also spurred the industrial revolution into a gallop (the local chauvanists call Wales “the first industrialized nation”), and made Lord Bute (“boot”), who owned most of the land, one of the richest men in the world.
This, of course, at the price of much hardship (I haven’t found anyone yet who pulled off the industrial revolution smoothly). The guy who ran our tour had worked at this particular mine, the Lewis Merthyr Colliery in Trehafod, for a number of years before it shut down in 1983. Among the tourists was another old miner, and the guide mentioned to him (me overhearing) that he’d had an uncle killed in another mine in the 1950s, whereupon his grandfather climbed out of the hole and never went back. Most didn’t have that luxury in a one-industry town, of course.
Most of the general tour bits were familiar to us experinced mine-tour types, although it was all done in a very polished way, with three video presentations interspursed with tales from the guide. They couldn’t resist thowing in a coal car thrill ride for the kiddies at the end, but I guess we can’t fault them much for a little Disneyfication.
After we got back into town we spent the remains of the day cruising Cardiff’s waterfront. This features a spectacular piece of architecture, castle-like really, that housed the Bute Docks Company. He did have some dough. Much of waterfront Cardiff was redeveloped by the Luftwaffe in the early 1940s; fortunately this masterpiece survived for me to photograph. Had dinner nearby, followed by a nice long walk back along the waterfront to the hotel.
A Wale-ing We Will Go
Spent the day mostly on the rails, riding the “Heart of Wales” line from Swansea, Wales, to Shrewsbury, England, then back along the north coast of Wales to Caernarfon, where we’ve holed up for the next couple of days.
The “Tunnel of Trees” line might be more descriptive of the first leg, though it probably wouldn’t sell as many tickets. Very frustrating to photograph; every time I’d see something photogenic, by the time I’d get the camera unlimbered and traned out, we’d be back behind the hedges again.
So you’ll have to take my word for it that it was beautiful country. Small farms and pastures surrounded by hedgerows, mostly in sheep. It is mountainous, in the Adirondacks not the Rockies sense, with rolling, tree-covered hills and narrow valleys, but you can see how the Welsh chieftains could use it to frustrate the Romans and Normans for all of those centuries.
Once you leave Wales approaching Shrewsbury, the landscape immediately flattens out and becomes much more open (by British standards). The trip along the coast into northwest Wales is also picturesque. Passing south of Liverpool, to the right lies the Irish Sea, and to the left the tallest mountains in Wales or England, looking considerably more jagged than those to the south.
Here, our new landlady informs us, is the true heart of Welsh Wales. Here Welsh is the primary language (certainly more in evidence than down south). She reports that the elementary grades are taught exclusively in Welsh, and that children who err into English are “persuaded” to speak Welsh instead (I remember being “persuaded” a few times in school myself).
Landlady says that the real tumult was in the 1960s, with the nationalists beginning to win the point (bi-lingualism) in the 70s. She thinks the compulsory ed started in the 1980s. Thereafter, she says, peace has largely prevailed; though they still have a few “incidents,” as when a local restaurateur insisted that her employees speak only English last year. Protests ensued to the extent that she had to sell the business. (Not that it was better that they caned you for speaking Welsh at school, as happened in the landlady’s day.)
Landlady also reports that they’ve chased away most of the rich English who used to own the resort homes up here, and I couldn’t help noticing that the Caernarfon Castle flies two Welsh flags but not the British.
Frankly, even down in Swansea, Welsh is spoken first announcing the trains and such. When the “first” language used is spoken by only twenty percent of the population, the preference for it is a political decision, not a linguistic one. As such, it doesn’t bode well for the future of a united kingdom.
Random thoughts: *Many fewer dogs out for walks (and in pubs and such) in urban Wales than in southwest England. The border collies also largely disappeared, alas. In urban Wales the tendency is toward the genus mutt. *Since getting soaked in Plymouth, I’ve been hauling our ponchos everywhere, meaning that we’ve had perfect weather. *Posted the first ocean liners book and some conference papers to swim back to the States for a sobering twenty bucks. I’ll have to take the others down to the PO tomorrow and see what the damages are. Sprained back or sprained wallet? Tough call!
June 22, 2009
6-22
Today was our one-day visit to Swansea (22.5 hours to be precise), home of iron and steel and coal and shipping, and the world’s first great industrial copper smelting site. Not much of the latter exists any more, so off we went to the National Waterfront Museum where I hoped to learn more. Again, not so easy.
The two great disasters for museums are not enough money and (though rarer) too much money. This museum has the latter problem. Boy oh boy, they’ve got bells and whistles (or at least recordings of them that they boom at you), lights and sirens, virtual realities, video displays, interactive activities . . . and it’s very hard (at least for an old guy) to figure out what the focus or the story is.
Barbara eventually had to retire from the cacophony (seagulls cawing, phones ringing, crowds roaring, you name it). I tried to brave it out, picked up a few interesting points, and took some how-not-to-do-it pictures for the kids in the museums class. Still, more frustrating than illuminating. (After we got back that evening, Barbara talked to our landlady, who had sadly reached the same conclusion about what they’d done to her nice old museum. In museums “sensational” isn’t always a good thing.)
After the museum blitz we visited the old resort at the south end of town known as The Mumbles, named for a couple of small islands off the end of the beach. After we saw the sights and stuck our feet in the sea, dinner in a pub and back to our lair before we head for the hills (of central Wales) tomorrow.
June 21, 2009
6-21 Cardiff
Today was an easier local day around Cardiff. We went on the city tour bus loop trip; I find these both touristy and exceedingly useful. Among other fun facts: Cardiff was a town of a thousand inhabitants in 1800, and 100,000 in 1900, and the difference was the coal empire of the Bute family. The main feature of our day was a visit to the Welsh National Museum.
We spent the late morning touring their paintings, including a small exhibit of impressionist works. Never really a visual arts guy myself, but the paintings, impressionist and otherwise, were very impressive. Amazing how they could draw faces in incredible detail, with no evidence of brush strokes. Personally, though, my favorite painting was “The Steelmills: Cardiff at Night,” but I’m a little strange.
After the paintings we had lunch, then Barbara sat in the restaurant and worked on computer stuff, while I tried to discover the mysteries of the Welsh. Not as easy as it sounds. The national museum seems to cover everything except the story of the people themselves, but from the archeology exhibit I was able to piece together the gist of it as:
Four main Welsh tribes existed when the Romans showed up in the 100s AD; Britain being about the last place they annexed. The Romans did manage to gain at least nominal control, which was apparently accepted, as archaeological evidence suggests that most of the Roman forts weren’t occupied for more than about fifty years.
They don’t seem to know much about the history of Wales from the time the Romans departed c. 400 until the Normans tried to move into the area starting in the 1070s. The Normans tried to gain control fitfully until Edward I finally dropped the hammer c. 1300. Complete annexation did not come until the 1530s, with Henry VIII’s decree joining Wales to England (whether they wanted it or not).
After the museum, we headed for the waterfront, took in the tail end of a kayaking show and demonstration, then went to the adjacent mall and community center, Barbara to visit the “Dr. Who” museum (a popular television show, much of it shot in Cardiff), and me to scout out the bowling alley.
The lanes, apparently part of a chain named Hollywood Bowling (can you think of a game less likely to be played in Hollywood?), were filled with players (this being a Sunday) predominately using the American system (fling the ball down the middle as hard as you can and see what happens).
I thought about playing a game, but got cured by the price of four pounds, twenty-five pence per (about seven bucks)! One of the commandments I try never break is: “Never pay more than three bucks a game for bowling.” But the joint was jumping, so the recession must not have reached the bowlers of Cardiff.
Big city prices generally have been eye opening to your hayseed reporter from the provinces. After the museum adventures, we had a dinner that would have cost us over sixty dollars (for two, no spirits!) had Barbara not snagged a two-for-one card for the place earlier. I’m trying to avoid my cheap professor guilt vibes by not looking. On the bright side, I should get this trip paid off in time for our retirement return trip in twenty-five years or so.
June 20, 2009
6-20
Today we spent at the St. Fagan’s National History Museum, a few miles to the west of Cardiff, Wales. They have about thirty buildings on site, salvaged from around the country, as well as several exhibits in their large main building. We looked over the agricultural exhibit, then busted through as many of the buildings as we could manage, ending with the Castle.
The most interesting buildings to me were the tannery (nasty job, that), boathouse, and a block of ironworkers rowhouses that they had decorated to various dates at about fifty-year intervals, from 1800 to 1985. Nice castle too, if you’re into wealth (a photo showed a household staff of twenty-six).
The main building also had an exhibit on the revival of the Welsh language. Like many places, in recent years it has become a vehicle for the reassertion of ethnic pride. Wales is now bi-lingual, with most signs and placards and such in both languages. Welsh is also compulsory in schools, and apparently a difficult language to master. The exhibit estimated twenty percent of the population now speaks it, and you certainly do hear it on the street, on trains, etc. (One of the bits in the exhibit was a Welsh Scrabble set from 2005, with Ll and other exotic letter combinations on the tiles.)
The vote to reinstall Welsh as an official language was actually quite recent, if I read the exhibit correctly, 1997. And it was surprisingly close, the measure passing 559 thousand to 552 thousand. Those parts of Wales closest to England, including Cardiff, tending to vote against—as well as Pembrookshire, all the way west, strangely enough. The middle part of the country voted in favor. This dents our guidebook’s notion that the division on assimilation was north and south.
Still having a good time, though fighting callouses, blisters, back twinges, and a certain amount of tourist fatigue. My shoes are at last coming around. I started a new pair on 1 May, since I didn’t think my old pair would survive the trip. A good move, but I should have started breaking them in a month earlier. But after torturing my toes for ten days, I think I’ve finally worn them into serviceability. My back’s been a little twitchy, but hanging in there. After I finish writing this, however, I’m going to go take a hot shower that will cause a water shortage in southern Wales.
Random extra bits: *Tomorrow is the solstice. Tonight the sun set at about 9:30, and it got absolutely dark about 11. Can’t wait for Scotland two weeks hence; my kind of country. *They have the BBC Wales channel in our hotel room, much of it conducted in Welsh. Saw a comedy show, but didn’t get any of the jokes. *Forgot to mention on the English part that our friend Stephen Fry (from Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster) seems to be holding up the TV beam almost by himself. He had three different shows in the week we were in town. He has an American travelogue show, of which I only saw one episode, unfortunately (always fun to see what outsiders think). He also has a drama called “Kingdom,” in which he plays an attorney and village elder of the same name. And he is the avuncular host of a show called “QI,” a sort of game-celebrity-chat show, where the questions are really a pretext for jokes and discussion, with the “winner” determined by Fry through an unfathomable scoring system at the end. At one point, the man was competing with himself on two of the different channels.
June 19, 2009
6-19
This morning we headed for Rhondda Heritage Park, a coal mining site up the Rhondda Valley north of Cardiff. Pre-coal they estimate a thousand people lived in the valleys of the Rhondda, and at coal’s peak about 160,000. This rush also spurred the industrial revolution into a gallop (the local chauvinists call Wales “the first industrialized nation”), and made Lord Bute (“boot”), who owned most of the land, one of the richest men in the world.
This, of course, at the price of much hardship (I haven’t found anyone yet who pulled off the industrial revolution smoothly). The guy who ran our tour had worked at this particular mine, the Lewis Merthyr Colliery in Trehafod, for a number of years before it shut down in 1983. Among the tourists was another old miner, and the guide mentioned to him (me overhearing) that he’d had an uncle killed in another mine in the 1950s, whereupon his grandfather climbed out of the hole and never went back. Most didn’t have that luxury in a one-industry town, of course.
Most of the general tour bits were familiar to us experienced mine-tour types, although it was all done in a very polished way, with three video presentations interspersed with tales from the guide. They couldn’t resist throwing in a coal car thrill ride for the kiddies at the end, but I guess we can’t fault them much for a little Disneyfication.
After we got back into town we spent the remains of the day cruising Cardiff’s waterfront. This features a spectacular piece of architecture, castle-like really, that housed the Bute Docks Company. He did have some dough. Much of waterfront Cardiff was redeveloped by the Luftwaffe in the early 1940s; fortunately this masterpiece survived for me to photograph. Had dinner nearby, followed by a nice long walk back along the waterfront to the hotel.
