My North Wales roomie Casey and I got up bright and early in our day in Llangollen to walk around after a delicious breakfast with free eggs (we didn't realize we had to pay for them, but the B&B owner just shrugged it off (people in Wales are SO nice!!)). We wandered into a very weird looking garden complete with a very ornate house and shrubbery carved into odd shapes. We felt like we were trespassing, but it was beautiful so we followed a path down by a little stream with fairy tale bridges and an old healing well type thing. We later learned that this was the home of two women who decided to live together, and now their house is a museum because there was a lot of mystery surrounding their lives. We then wandered well down a country road past sheep fields almost heading into the hills.
When we returned, we loaded up our stuff into our coach and set off on a study group hike up a hill to the ruins of Castell Dinas Bran. As soon as we got to the top it was like we entered a wind tunnel, but the ruins were like a giant playground. We started running all over the place, climbing up on the ancient castle walls (probably illegally, i wonder what professor Geier thought of us desecrating a national heritage site). The rain started but the beautiful view of Llangollen was unavoidable. We sat perched on the rocks for a good amount of time, just enjoying each other's company. Many a good group photo resulted from that adventure.
We had some freetime to wander around the town, so Casey, John and I explored a giant used bookstore then grabbed some lunch. I had a bit of a feud with the cafe ladies; Casey and I ordered soup, and it came in paper cups, which was a bit confusing. When we sat down to join John, a woman came over to us and told us it costs more to eat in. I offered to pay the difference, but was told that it was another 4 pounds to sit there. I figured we would just leave, but John had ordered to sit in. We left with our cups of soup and John joined us after figuring out what to do with the Cafe ladies. I was annoyed, and it was raining, but the soup was delicious (even though we had to eat it in an alley). We then wandered to the site of the International Eisteddfod, an annual music, poetry and literature competition held in Llangollen. It was a bit underwhelming and under construction (and still raining) so we didn't stay long. We ran into Jackie and Paikin and went to have some afternoon tea at a nearby tea room (clotted cream!!!!!!!!!) after checking out a great local art gallery and drooling over the white water kayaking companies.
We got some fudge and hopped back on the bus for the drive to Caernarfon, stopping on the way at the Pontcysyllte aqueduct and the horseshoe falls. At the aqueduct the sun finally came out, and we enjoyed ourselves by making jokes about sticking various people into the aqueduct to see how deep it is. The aqueduct is a feat engineering, as it is one of the tallest, and it definitely gave us vertigo as we walked across. Specially made aqueduct boats also cruised past us, which was really cool.
The drive to Caenarfon was beautiful as well, and I was very jealous of the HUNDREDS of white water kayakers I saw along the way. We checked into our adorable B&B in Caenarfon when we arrived, then went to dinner where we ate enough food to feed a small army. Literally. We had been pre-ordering our food in our class periods prior to the trip, and since we had a 20 pound limit, we tried to order 20 pounds worth of food. Well 20 UK pounds of food is about equal to 20 pounds of food (as in the weight). We never quite got it right; some meals, we got about three salads because we didnt realize our meals came with a salad. I think I literally staggered home to bed every night.
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