Why Did We Visit Wales in 1990?

By Rhuddlwm Gawr

Before you go back to the home page or to a particular day of events, please read the following information.  It will help you understand the people and their customs:

ABOUT WALES
Wales has always had its share of visitors. Some had been unwelcome and had later been called invaders or conquerors, but others came as friendly pilgrims and soon caught the welcome of the Welsh and were touched by the warmth of their reception. The Romans stayed and conquered; but they too left, eventually, but not without leaving behind evidence of their culture and civilization. Others, after them, have come and gone.  Some have stayed. Today, the roads, airports and ports of Wales connect Wales with the outside world more adequately than they do the north and south of the country.

The massive Severn Bridge was opened in 1966 and over the next ten years road communications to and within Wales greatly improved. It is now possible to drive from London to the heart of West Wales within a few hours along the M4 motorway and dual carriageway while in North Wales the A55 is being made, by
miraculous feats of engineering, into a dual carriageway from Chester to Bangor. For air services, in addition to its major airport in Cardiff and a small one at Swansea handling business and charter flights, Wales is able to look to London, Manchester and Birmingham, all within easy road access. The railroads make the passage into Wales easy. There is a main inter-city service from London to Swansea passing through Cardiff, Bridgend, Port Talbot and Neath. There are good connecting services, from Cardiff to Barry, Penarth, Caerphilly and the valleys north of Cardiff. From Swansea, trains run to the West, to Llanelli, Carmarthen, Tenby, Pembroke, Haverfordwest and Milford Haven. There are other ways into Wales too; one railroad connects Bristol to Cardiff and another from Crewe to Cardiff through the 'Marches' country of Shrewsbury, Hereford and Abergavenny. Whichever way, the small houses of the industrial landscape or the white farmsteads, the stretches of sea which peep along the way or the green hills or distant rugged rocks seem to spell Croeso, the Welsh word for "welcome". There is the rail 'ourney which connects Shrewsbury with Swansea passing through beautiful hill and river scenery and serving the inland resorts of Knighton, Llandrindod Wells, Llanwrtyd Wells, Llandovery and Llandeilo. The Aberystwyth line from Shrewsbury forms the principal artery for Mid Wales; at Machynlleth it is possible to strike northwards along the opposite shore of the lovely Dovey estuary to Barmouth, Harlech, Porthmadog and Pwllhell. The rail line forms a margin to the coast. There is also the line from Chester to Holyhead, that busy little town on Wales' largest island which touches the Irish waters. The first railway station that one sees after crossing the Menal Strait into Anglesey has the longest name in the world - Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Say that word correctly and you can almost pronounce anything in Welsh. On the route from Chester one is able to leave the train at Llandudno and take the Conway Valley line running from Llandudno to Betws-y-Coed with its fairy-tale falls and Blaenau Ffestinlog that grey, rain-swept town which the writer John Cowper Powys
breathed to his last.

The sea-links are older, of course, and the Irish had felt the pull of the Welsh hills many, many moons ago.  Today, the traveller from Ireland can make his way from Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead, from Rosslare to Fishguard and from Cork to Swansea. Since Wales is surrounded on three of its four sides by water, it is not surprising that its ports are very busy; today they serve more trade than passengers. Centuries ago the estuaries and inlets along the South Wales seaboard afforded anchorage for invaders; Caerleon still has the traces of a quay which brought in Roman goods. The Danish and Irish invaders sailed up the rivers. But it was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that maritime trade really grew, as a result of the upsurgence of metallurgical industries near Newport, Cardiff, Neath and Swansea and the exploitation of coal resources in the old Monmouthshire, Glamorgan, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire (now Gwent, Glamorgan and Dyfed). The large ports at Swansea, Port Talbot, Barry, Cardiff and Newport import from and export to the major ports of the world. North-east Wales is served by Merseyside's deep-water ports and in the north-west, Holyhead is a deep-water container port with extensive facilities. And even though, as we shall see later, the economy of Wales is geared to the roads, the railways and the ports, some travellers have stayed at the landing-place to sell their wares. In the docks area of Cardiff there are citizens whose skin is as black as the coal once exported from there, but now they speak with Welsh accents and the children sport leeks and daffodils, the national emblems, on St David's Day, March 1st, celebrating the festival of the patron saint. Wales has always had great talent for absorption.

But, having reached its borders or its shores or its inland, what does the traveler find in this mountainous country lying to the west of England? Despite its proximity to a nation whose language and literature, institutions and traditions command the respect of the civilized world, Wales has preserved its identity in
character, in language and in traditions. It is nothing less than a miracle of survival.

The Principality of Wales, shares the English monarchy and government, but it has its own distinct culture.  Indeed, Wales is the nearest "foreign" country to England. Yet British subjects don't need a passport to visit, and there's no language barrier, although Wales, of course, has one of the oldest languages and literatures in Europe. Wales is Celtic from the moment you pass the "Croeso i Gymru" ("Welcome to Wales") signs on the border.

In fact, some people argue that place names like Llanrhaeadr (the village of the waterfall), Betws-y-Coed (the sanctuary in the wood), and Llangollen (pronounced Lan-goth-lan) were invented just to trip up the English.  The visitor, however, will encounter no problems. Everyone speaks English-although for many it's a second language. In Gwynedd, the most northwesterly county, for example, around 75 percent of the children are monoglot Welsh until they go to school, and in the morning the village streets echo to hails of "bore da" ("good morning"). The most obvious remnants of the Celtic heritage are people's names: first names like Angharad, Delyth, Gareth, Bet, Rhiannon, Thomas, and Megan are coupled with centuries-old surnames like Jones, Roberts, Evans, Lloyd, and Davies. These are all unmistakably Welsh. And besides its own patron saint, David, celebrated on March 1, a national flag and emblem (a red dragon on a green and white background), and its own postage stamps, Wales lays claim to the eisteddfod (pronounced eye-steth-vod), a festival of music, poetry, and dancing that is a significantly large part of the country's tradition. There are several such jamborees held throughout the country every year, but the two most famous are the National Eisteddfod (the first week in August) and the International Music Eisteddfod (held every July in a field just outside Llangollen).

Although there is no official geographical north/south division of Wales, the two areas are different. It's even said that a northerner finds it difficult to understand a southerner and vice versa-when conversing in Welsh.  Rock-solid community spirit runs high in North Wales. When a villager dies, for example, it's not unusual for 500 to turn out for the funeral. The North also has the edge on rural solitude-apart from a pocket of heavy industry on the banks of the River Dee, most of the area is devoted to mountains, lakes, hill farms, rivers, crofts (country cottages), and sheep-farming pastures (Wales grazes a total of 6 million sheep). Perhaps the most distinctive feature of Wales is its language. For there is, still, in Wales spoken at home, studied at schools, colleges, universities, used on radio and television to discuss everything in a language which has, its origin back in the cradle of European civilization. And the facts of history which I have summarised briefly have helped to mould it, have helped to destroy it ... and have helped to preserve it.

The vernacular of Wales has, for centuries, been Welsh, a member of the Celtic branch of the Indo-uropean family of languages. During the Roma occupation, Latin became the language of government, civil and military administration, trade, commerce, education, the Christian religion and to a 'derable degree, of the large civil settlements and of the market and consi garrison towns. The vast ma'ority of the rural peasantry, however, spoke the parent Welsh language. The native intelligentsia gradually became LatinWelsh bilinguals, a bilingualism which remained well into the seventeenth century. The prestige of Latin left its mark on the native language and the Latin element in Welsh is quite considerable. But the most prolific source of borrowing has undoubtedly been English from the Anglo-Saxon period down to the present day. The Norman-French period brought with it vocabulary and idioms and there must have been a certain amount of Welsh-French bilingualism. But with the sixteenth century and the political domination of England and the greater contact between the two peoples, English idioms, vocabulary and syntax found their way increasingly into the native tongue. The poets who had been the careful custodians of the ancient Welsh The National Library of Wales, language had safeguarded the literary language but gradually with the Aberystwyth left Anglicisation that followed the Act of Union, to which I have referred, the upper classes withdrew their patronage of the poets and poetry gave way to prose with a didactic purpose. The Act had decreed that'no Person or Persons that use the Welsh Speech or Language shall have or enjoy any Manner, Office or Fees within this Realm of England,
Wales or other the King )s Dominion, upon pain of forfeiting the same Office or Fees, unless he or they use and exercise the English Speech or Language'. It certainly was not rigorously enforced ... but it was in the Statute Book.

The majority of the Welsh population lives in the more heavily industrialized south, particularly around Port Talbot and the capital city, Cardiff. Here steel making and manufacturing have provided most of the employment for as long as anyone can remember, and the once green and peaceful valleys are havens of coal production, which at one time supplied the rest of Britain. In its mid-19th-century heyday, the thriving Welsh coal industry attracted workers from England, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain, but as competition grew the Welsh mines went into steady decline; by the end of World War I many coal-mining villages were silent and deserted.

The land area of Wales is just over 8,000 square miles (20,720 square kilometres), about the size of Massachusetts, half the size of Switzerland. It has 750 miles of coastline. It is mainly upland country and a quarter of it is above 1,000 feet (305 in.). It has a population of 2.73 million. Its capital city is Cardiff which boasts a really fine civic centre; it is the heart of the most populous region of Wales. Indeed over 70 per cent of the total population of Wales -live around it . . . a population that grew with the explosion of the Industrial Revolution. Before that, Wales was mainly pastoral and even now, outside the industrialized areas, Wales is a country of small farms. Agriculture and tourism are the predominant industries in the rural areas. And so there is much green land as soon as one leaves the heavily terraced rows of cottages and new houses which, for convenience sake, grew and grow near the business centres. To add to the pleasant countryside but with utilitarian ends, there are new lakes and new forests. Indeed, managed forests now cover some 8 per cent of the land area. But they have been blended well into the landscape and provide exquisite scenic beauty.   It is convenient to talk about the areas of North, Mid and South Wales . . . . and physical features have given them qualities of their own. One thinks of the rugged hills and mountains of the North, gaunt and majestic as they look up to Mount Snowdon, at 3,560 feet, the highest point in all England and Wales, surrounded by the Snowdonia National Park comprising some 845 square miles. There, in the North, were the slate quarries with their enormous mounds of yesterday's unwanted slate, making pyramids that stand as memorials to a craft that has largely passed by. There are narrowgauge railways, marvellous mountain drives, old market towns, dignified ones like Caernarfon which yell out tales of history; it was there that the Prince of Wales was presented to the people of the Principality. And not too far away are the popular seaside resorts of Llandudno, Colwyn Bay, Rhyl and Prestatyn which hold conferences and caravans and thrill the throngs when the sun is out. Mid Wales is quieter with its gentler slopes, its scattered whitewashed hill sheep farms and its beautiful black and white timbered cottages leaning in the direction of the border country. And to punctuate the green are the long lazy-looking man-made lakes which supply water and make the Welsh 'ealous of their rights.

SOUTH WALES

South Wales has the exquisite Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and the devastatingly beautiful Gower Peninsula whose breezes filled the lungs of Dylan Thomas and Vernon Watkins, Wales' two greatest modern English language poets who turned Gower beauty into phrases of poetic brilliance for the world to witness.  But South Wales has its scars, too, from its coalmining past. Thankfully they are healing now and the valleys are greening again. Their warmth now derives more from the hearts of the people than from the fine coal once produced there. And even those packed places have a beauty all of their own. Over the mountains are the ma'estic Brecon Beacons where Welsh ponies roam and where the reservoirs for the valleys are lovely and grand. And although one does not always recognise it, the climate of Wales is mild owing to the closeness of the Gulf Stream. Wales is so small that the sea is always within easy reach. Seaside towns have obvious appeal to families. To the north, there are the brash and breezy Rhyl, the dignified Victorian resort of Criccieth, dandy Colwyn Bay, and elegant Llandudno. In mid-Wales, there's Aberystwyth, and to the south, Tenby, where massive low-tide sands and gaily painted houses lend an almost Caribbean flavor. Much of the seashore between Harlech and Pwllheli is peppered with recreational vehicles, campsites, and chalets. The rock pools and woody river valleys of the Gower Peninsula in the south, the first area in Britain to be designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, are also popular with vacationers.

Despite its humble proportions, Wales manages to squeeze three of the United Kingdom's ten National Parks into its borders, each one an ideal retreat for the touring motorist: Snowdonia, at the top of the map, Brecon Beacons, in the southeast (nudging the border with England at Ross-on-Wye), and Pembrokeshire in the southwest. Although designated "national," the name does not mean that the land is state owned; but there are still plenty of public footpaths to go round.

NORTH WALES

Although all of wales can be tackled in a two-week fast paced trip, like we attempted, the next time we discovered it is more sensible to concentrate on one particular part at a time. We found out the north, and particularly Gwynedd in the scenic northwest corner, makes a perfect introduction. In high summer this is the most popular area with vacationers. The best time to tour is in the spring, when the slopes and fields are covered in daffodils and blossoms, or in autumn, under a crisp blue sky, when the leaves are turning orange brown, sharp frosts turn the bare landscape white, and early-morning mists lend the mountain peaks and river valleys a ghostly air. From October through March most tourist attractions are closed, but the uncluttered landscape more than compensates.

The coast from Prestatyn to Barmouth is strung with popular holiday towns, and from June through August the broad, shallow, sandy-pebbly beaches, particularly the sweeping arc at Colwyn Bay, are crowded with those digging for clams with their bucket-and-spade. The giant flumes in Rhyl's Leisure Centre, one of the largest amusement parks in Britain, echo to the sounds of frenzied screams, and the seafronts can generally be relied upon to display all the traditional characteristics of the English seaside: pinball machines along the pier, donkey rides, Punch and Judy shows, brightly colored changing huts, formica-topped cafe tables, and brass-band stands. But out of season the only sounds are the gentle crashing of waves and the screeching of scavenging sea gulls as the towns sink into hibernation, building up energy for the next summer's onslaught.

Snowdonia National Park
A few miles south of Colwyn Bay on A 470 lies Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri ("Land of the Eagles"), the Welsh name for the 840 square miles that lie within the boundary of the Snowdonia National Park, tucked into Wales's northwest corner. It includes Snowdon itself, the "monstrous peak," as Daniel Defoe described it, at 3,560 feet the highest mountain south of the Scottish border, as well as 13 other summits that are more than 2,900 feet high. The park roughly covers the Medieval kingdom of Gwynedd, a military stronghold ruled by Owain Glyndwr, one of Wales's greatest heroes. It is a fascinating geographical site, studded with glaciated U-shaped valleys, lakes, razor-sharp mountain edges, and other legacies of its Ice Age torment. It is a Mecca for outdoorsmen, walkers, backpackers, climbers, pony trekkers, and white-water canoeists-but even the most sedate tourists will find the peaks, forests, lakes, raging streams, and undulating lowland scenery spectacular.

It wasn't long before a quick-thinking entrepreneur established a restaurant, bar, and shop on Snowdon's summit. The Snowdon Mountain Railway, one of the steam-driven, narrow-gage "Great Little Trains of Wales," will take you on a 41/2-mile run from Llanberis almost to the top of the mountain at half-hour intervals throughout the summer. But it is arguably more pleasant to climb.

The easiest route is from Llanberis, 31/2 miles away from the base, while Dolgellau and Betws-y-Coed are excellent starting points for more challenging, spectacular walks through the park itself. It's no coincidence that it was here that Sir John Hunt's victorious Everest team of 1953 did their training; nor that 88 years earlier Edward Whymper chose the same region to prepare for his conquest of the Matterhorn. The best views of Snowdon are from the Llanberis Pass, where it is easy to pull off the road (if you don't mind appearing sedentary as teams of climbers scale the rocks). On the descent to to the wooded valley of Nant Gwynant, another site gives views westward over the shimmering lakes of Gwynant and Dinati. But the finest views of Snowdon are from the parking lot in the tiny village of Rhyd-Ddu, where you feel on top of the mountain, rather than overshadowed by it.

The one-street town of Bala, a favorite with ramblers, is easily outshone by its mile-long lake, known as Bala Lake. Access is easy, and its possible to completer circumnavigate it by road. One of the few hotels in town to raise its head above mediocre modesty is Fron Feuno Hall. Built as a hostel for monks in the 16th century, it was later enlarged to become a family house. There are three large bedrooms, each with its own bathroom and views over the gardens, woods, and lake.

Betws-y-Coed is a major gateway to the national park and, as such, is crowded in summer, particularly on week-ends. Among its gray stone buildings are a handful of Welsh woolen and craft shops, such as Pennant Crafts, which sells local Derlwyn pottery, with its characteristic white-flower pattern on a dark blue background. As a major tourist spot, the town is well served by hotels and guesthouses. It even has its own Fairy Glen, a waterfall, a mile from the village on the A 470 road to Dolgellau and reached by a footpath up from the whitewashed Fairy Inn. This was especially sacred to us for various reasons.

The village of Portmeirion, situated about 10 miles south of Snowdon on A 498 on a wooded headland near Porthmadog, is best known as the setting for the cult television series "Tbe Prisoner." The village itself, at the end of a private road, was the fantasy creation of an eccentric architect, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, who bought the site in 1925, and it resembles more a stage set than a popular holiday village. The community's center point is the 14-room Portmeirion Hotel; still in the Williams-Ellis family, it was closed by fire in 1981 but reopened in April 1988. In fact, 20 of the pastel pink, yellow, and blue houses in the village are self-catering units belonging to the hotel, interspersed with the occasional shop, restaurant, and even a town hall, and leading down to a beautiftil sweep of beach and a residents' swimming pool.

Llangollen, buried at the heart of the Dee Valley on route 5, m es an important appearance on the international map everyjuly with its International Music Eisteddifod. Hotels are booked up months in advance, hardly surprising when participants include the likes of the Vienna Boys Choir. The town also stirs when orange-and-yellow-coated canoeists hold slalom races on the River Dee. But most of the time Llangollen is the quintessential quiet Welsh town, enough of a backwater for the local laundromat to double as the video store.    It attracts a small but steady flow of visitors exploring the valley, calling in at the woolen mill or the pottery works, climbing up to the ruins of the 12th-century fortress castle Dinas Bran, which towers over the town-or taking a ride on a horse-drawn barge from the wharf along the canal that parallels the river. The Dee flows through town, and the gardens behind several hotels and restaurants end abruptly at its banks. One such is Gale's, a restaurant and wine bar on Bridge Street; another is Caesar's Restaurant, right beside the bridge.

The 143-year-old Ffestiniog Railway follows a route alongside which heaps of slate were once piled from the massive quarries at Blaenau Ffestiniog. Vacationers now trundle the 26-mile round trip from Porthmadog.  A small railway museum in the station supplies history and details. The journey currently takes 21/2 hours, but there are plans to extend it to Blaenau Ffestiniog, one of the most famous slate towns in the heart of the Lianberis quarrying area.

Blaenau Ffestiniog is popular for the underground flo6dlit tours (helmets provided) of the ride by Land Rover through part of the tunnel system and a newly opened Narrow-Gauge Railway Centre, with both locomotives and rolling stock.

One of the largest studio pottery works in rural Wales is down the road, housed in a converted mill that used to grind flour for ships' biscuits. Pottery is for sale, but you can also tour the workshop and watch craftsmen molding, baking, and painting the earthenware-they'll encourage you to make your own with the help (or hindrance) of a potter's wheel. The building can't be missed; its entire outer wall has been painted by Ed Povey with a mural called Pots, which includes the figure of Lloyd George and other less-famous local personages.  Snowdonia Information Centres are located in Llanf*st, Llanberis, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Harlech, Bala, Conwy, and Dolgellau.

WELSH CASTLES
Some 700 years ago, King Edward I of England built 17 massive castles to dissuade the fiery Celts from challenging his authority. This enormous campaign to Anglicize Wales cost the king dearly, yet the money was well spent. Apart from one major revolt, his castles succeeded in keeping the peace for the next 100 years.  Built by a small army of workers under a French master mason, the castles marked the end of Welsh independence. But Edward's fortresses (Caernarvon, Conwy, Harlech, and Beaumaris, all in North Wales, are the four most noteworthy) are not the only castles Wales has to offer the visitor. Even earlier, after William the Conqueror had sailed from Normandy in 1066 and seized the English throne, the Normans looked westward from their newly acquired position of strength along the English-Welsh border and spotted a country torn apart by civil war and ripe for conquest. They stormed the land, building castles as symbols of their power. At first, these were simple wooden affairs on top of grassy mounds (or 11 mottes"); later came massive multiwalled buildings that were the last word in military technique. Today Wales is stocked with an abundance of Norman and Gothic castles, their aged battlements illustrating more than anything else the country's turbulent history. Politics aside, castles are a vital part of both the heritage of Wales and its glorious landscapes. When they were built they became obvious focal points for civilian settlements, giving the rural Welsh their first taste of urban life. In North Wales they are particularly varied and magnificent, and constitute the most concentrated group of Medieval castles in Europe. A large proportion of them are now maintained and managed by Cadw, the Welsh equivalent of English Heritage.

"Put yourself in the mind of an attacking force," advises the Welsh Office, the government body that administers the country. "It's the only way to understand just what castles are all about." The hefty, seemingly impenetrable gateways are nowadays the easiest of entrances. In Medi eval days there would usually have been a long ramp followed by a drawbridge. You can probably see just where the drawbridge would have hinged into its original pivot holes. The next line of defense was the portcullis, its sliding grooves still clearly visible in the castle walls, followed by the stout doorways of the gate passage. All along the journey attackers would have been picked off by archers and would have had boiling water poured on them from aptly named murder holes.

Harlech Castle

Whether you approach the little town of Harlech (off A 496 in Snowdonia) from the north or the south, the view of its castle as you round the last corner is breathtaking. One of Edward's coastal fortresses, Harlech was built in the late 13th century. It commands the most impressive location of all Welsh castles, perched 200 feet above sea level at the foot of a cliff, overlooking the grand sandduned sweep of Tremadog Bay and the Royal St. David's Golf Course. It was the last Royalist castle to capitulate to the Parliamentarians in 1647 and in Elizabethan times was gulls on their battlement perches. In Conwy's High Street, Plas Mawr, an Elizabethan town house, now serves as the headquarters for the Royal Cumbrian Academy of Art; theVisitor Centre, in Rosehill Street, has exhibitions, film shows, and a crafts store. Down on the quay, Conwy possesses what is reputed to be the smallest house in Britain, furnished as a mid-Victorian Welsh cottage.

Guests at the award-winning BodysgaHin Hall Hotel should ask for a room that looks out over the Conwy Valley. Hidden in the woods and hills just south of Llandudno, Bodysgallan Hall has been recently restored by the Historic House Hotels company, which rescues decrepit but architecturally worthwhile buildings and turns them into top-class hotels. Bodysgallan is a mainly 17th-century building, its dark oak paneling, antique bits and pieces, stone-mullioned and leaded windows, and massive fireplaces defining it as a world apart., The hotel's chef works wonders with salmon from the nearby River Conwy and with game from the surrounding estates.

Caernarfon Castle

This "camp on the land opposite Anglesey," as the name translates, shot to modern-day fame with the investiture of the present Prince of Wales in July 1969. on the day of the ceremony 500 million television viewers worldwide tuned in to the castle.

Caernarfon, which is just across the Menai Strait from the isle of Anglesey in Northern Wales, looks the part after all, it was Edward I's royal seat of government for North Wales. Shaped like an hourglass, its interior once housed a 100-foot Great Hall where all of the castle's residents could eat, drink, and be merry-though perhaps their mirth waned when the food arrived stone cold after being carried from the kitchen on the far side of the courtyards deliberate segregation because of fire hazards. In the Eagle Tower you can now see a Prince of Wales exhibition and trace the royal family tree. And you can see how the crafty Edward made his own son, born in Caernarfon, Prince of Wales after subduing the Welsh princes.

The mammoth Caernarfon Castle and its towering cliff walls are best encompassed from the opposite bank of the River Seiont. Its pretty bands of red sandstone were inspired by the spectacular fifth-century walls at Constantinople, which King Edward had admired on his travels.

Caernarfon Town, on the Menai Strait, is small and quiet, little more than a square, a modest handful of stores, the Black Boy inn, and a castle. But drive directly south on route 487 and you cross the neck of the Lleyn Peninsula. Although on the map it looks as if its landscapes will be flat, on the ground you are in for surprisingly bumpy scenery. This neglected limb of land, the "Land's End of Wales," basks in accolades as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, as well as boasting David Lloyd George's boyhood home at Llanystumdwy. His simple grave on the banks of the River Dwyfor is much visited, as are the stone cottage opposite the Feathers public house that was his home until 1890, and the town museum, which contains many mementos of his political career.

Other Castles
Criccieth Castle stands above its tiny timeless seaside town on the Lleyn peninsula's southern flank. It is backed by the mountains of Snowdonia and fronted by the broad sweep of Tremadog Bay. On a clear day you can see Harlech Castle in the distance. Although there's some disagreement about who actually built it, majority opinion seems to support the view that it is a native Welsh castle to which Edward added a few strengthening touches. Its main feature is a twin-towered gatehouse, a rare type of structure built by Llewlyn the Great. It is certainly a much simpler, more irregularly shaped,and altogether far less sophisticated affair than any of the pure Edwardian castles.

If Dracula had owned a Welsh pied-y-terre it could well have been,,Dolwyddelan Castle, about 5 miles southwest of Betws-y-Coed on A 470. Not that there's anything remotely Gothic about this native Welsh structure, but if you see it wrapped in patches of mist and bathed with eerie shafts of light, its simple solitary square tower is quite awesome. The castle is barely penetrable, even today. its first line of defense is a five-bar gate, followed by a farmyard full of barking dogs. Next there is a trudge up a steep track, through a siege of chomping Friesian cattle (and a final slosh through mud if there's been any rain), and then a perilous climb up the inside of the tower to its battlements, from where the view over the Lledr valley is, literally, breathtaking. it clearly wasn't weaponry that kept the enemy at bay here-physical exhaustion sufficed.

Rumor has it that Llewlyn was born here, but it is more likely that he was born in a castle built earlit somewhere down in the valley. It is almost certait however, that he built Dolwyddelan. The reason may be difficult to fathom, since the castle's isolated position seems to bestow no defensive role whatsoever. But it did, in fact, guard an old road, the Medieval pass from Meirionnydd to the Vale of Conwy. From the battlements, restored by the Victorians, its location makes much more sense.

All of Edward's castles had the sea in common, at least a river leading to it. Since the English communities were so isolated in the midst of hostile terrain, it was clearly impractical to bring supplies overland across  miles of Wales, and utterly impossible to reach the castles in times of siege. At Rhuddlan Castle, a mile or two inland from Rhyl, an army of diggers worked six days a week for three years to divert the canal, which is still the main artery of the River Clwyd as you see it today.

North Wales contains a number of weird and won rftil 19th-century shams. From the outside Penrhyn Castle, on the A 55 Conwy road 2 miles east of Bangor, looks like an ancient monument, with its insurmountable walls, toothy battlements, turrets, and the castellated like. But its roots date no further back than the 19th century, when the architect Thomas Hopper built the neo-Gothic struc ture for an army of servants rather than soldiers. It is an utter fake, an extravagance designed to reflect the enormous wealth accumulated by the Douglas Pennants from their sugar interests in the West Indies and later from the nearby slate mines.  outside, the grassy banks are awash with nodding daffodils throughout the spring, while inside there is hardly an undecorated surface in the entire place. The furniture, wall panelings, and mighty doors were all made especially for the house, mostly from oaks grown on the estate, and carved with motifs that echo those found on the exterior walls. There are highly polished slate fireplaces and even a slate bed, weighing nearly a ton, on which Queen Victoria refused to sleep. The castle houses a huge collection of dolls. Whether or not the style of Penrhyn is to your taste, one thing is certain: you couldn't possibly ignore it.

THE ISLAND OF ANGLESEY AND BEAUMARIS CASTLE
It can be snowing in Snowdonia, they say, while daffodils are blooming in Anglesey. Separated from the Lleyn Peninsula by the Menai Strait but easily reached on the Menai Suspension Bridge or the neighboring Britannia Bridge, the island of Anglesey has 125 miles of coastline. The clear blue waters at Trearddur Bay are ideal for swimming, sailing, and water-skiing, while the cruising center at Holyhead, the chunk of northwest Anglesey that got away, bursts at the seams every August for the Menai Strait Regatta Fortnight boat races.  Away from the water there are five golf courses, a sports center at Amlwch, and a bird-watching reservoir 3 miles long. And if you thought Snowdonia had the monopoly on heights, you'll think differently after a bracing walk up the main street of Moelfre village.

Anglesey's Beaumaris Castle, in the town of Beaumaris, sits right at the end of a street of Georgian houses, making the town one of the prettiest in Wales. It used to be one of the busiest, too, in the days when its ferry was Anglesey's only link to the mainland. Since the construction of bridges, however, Beaumaris has become a peaceful backwater.

The immediately obvious difference between Beaumaris and the rest of Edward's castles is that it doesn't perch on a haughty rock. it stands on a flat, seemingly vulnerable stretch of marshland, so all its barriers had to be man-made. The most perfectly designed concentric castle in Britain, Beaumaris is a highly compact unit- thus defenders on the higher inner walls could fire their missiles over the heads of their fellows on the outer wall. Today the fields are full of passive bowls players and a few gardeners.

Beaumaris, built in the 1290s, was Edward's last Welsh bastion, and it remains unfinished. Edward had competing demands on his resources, and since peace was established in this part of the world at about this time, Beaumaris was no longer a priority. As you leave Anglesey, pick up a platform ticket from the railway station in the village of Llanfairpwll. No ordinary ticket this, it contains all 58 letters of the town's proper name: LlanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllIlantysyliogogogoch, which roughly translates as "St. Mary Is (church) by the white aspen over the Whirlpool and St. Tysilio's (church) by the red cave."

SOUTHWEST WALES
The smallest of the three national parks in Wales, Pembrokeshire's 225 square miles mainly hug the southwest coast in the form of the Coast Path. The path follows the ups, downs, ins, and outs of the shoreline of Britain's only coastal national park for 167 miles, from St. Dogmaels in the north to Arnroth in the south, taking in the enormous sweep of St. Bride's Bay. Tne ragged outline and craggy cliffs of Pembrokeshire resemble the coastline o Cornwall, but this beautiful corner of Wales remains far less known and visited. Even during the peak holiday season it feels remote, a wild seascape where you can wander for hours on end without meeting a soul. Go there in the depths of winter and you could be at the very edge of the world.

Apart from the beauty of its landscape, the Pembrokeshire coastline enjoys the year-round presence of beautiful wild flowers and hordes of seabirds, including cormorants, shags, choughs, guillemots, and razorbills. The area is also a favorite haunt of geologists, who come to examine rocks that date back 2,000 million years; even the untrained eye will appreciate the elemental forces that have twisted and folded the land masses, and the erosive power of the sea that has created caves, arches, stacks, and other geologic features. Although now rather a remote, thinly populated region, the coast path abounds in evidences of Early Man in the flint chippings, left by Stone Age people some 10,000 years ago, and in the Iron Age forts built on several promontories.

There is a halfway point on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path-in culture as well as in miles. The so-called Landsker Line, drawn inland at Newgale, marks the northern limits of Norman influence in Wales. To the south are bold, castellated church towers, English village names, and a relatively dense pattern of settlement. To the north the villages are more scattered, the chapels more modest, and the village names Welsh.

The path can be overgrown in places, especially in the season when it is little used. Wear long pants to protect yourself from the gorse and brambles. Since many of the villages are little more than a clutch of cottages, chapel, and pub, accommodation has to be planned carefully. St. Bride's Hotel in Saundersfoot, on the edge of the park, is an excellent place to start or finish a trip along the path. Weary walkers will find a night of modestly priced luxury-perhaps a two-hour soak in a bath. You need to wear something smart for dinner, but it's worth the effort just for the views over Carmarthen Bay.

The Boathouse, Dylan Thomas's home from 1949 until his death in 1953, is 10 miles from Saundersfoot in Laugharne (pronounced "Larn"). it's now a "house of information," with relics and memoirs of the poet's life.  Nearby, fans can down a pint at Thomas's favorite watering-hole, Brown's Hotel, visit the churchyard of St. Martin's, where he is buried, and buy copies of his books in the local grocery opposite the Town Hall.

Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Information Centres are at St. David's (incidentally, the smallest cathedral city in Britain), Haverfordwest, Pembroke, Tenby, Fishguard, Broad Haven, and mlgetty.

SOUTH WALES
Brecon Beacons National Park
Wales's third national park is in South Wales north of Cardiff. Brecon Beacons' 519 square miles of high hills, crags, and bleak moorland, is effectively three distinct areas, namely, the western flank, an empty upland wilderness dominated by the Black Mountain; the shapely Brecon region; and the flat-topped Black Mountains in the east (not to be confused with the singular and solitary Black Mountain). Apart from the park's geographical high points, topped by the 2,907 feet of Pen-y-fan, the area contains wooded patches, farmlands, lakes, and the gentle valley of the River Usk. In common with its two sisters, it attracts a vast number of outdoor enthusiasts (particularly pony trekkers) as well as people who tour by car.

Good hotels are well spaced. The park's natural focal point is the town of Brecon, whose narrow streets and tiny shops are dominated by the massive 13th-century Priory Church ofst. John the Evangelist, towering high above the River Honddu. Brecon Castle, built by William the Conqueror's half brother, is best viewed from the gardens of the Castle of Brecon Hotel. Or head for the market town of Crickhowell, where the kitchen at the Bear Hotel, a family-run 16th-century coaching inn in the center, serves young salmon caught by fishermen in the coracles (traditional small, rounded boats made of intertwined willow and hazel), as well as local lamb, wild duck, and swein (an old Welsh word for swine). In Llangadog, guests at traditional Huyrnos (literally, late") evenings at the Plas Glansevin Hotel are welcoined by folk singers and dine on whole roast honeyed leg of lamb before being invited to join in the general merriment, including Welsh clog dancing. Clogs are provided. Brecon Beacons Information Centres are in Abergavenny, Brecon, Llandove'ry, and at the Mountain Center near Libanus.

CARDIFF
Wales is not a country of big cities, as the modest proportions of its capital city (population 277,000) testifies.  Even the most expensive hotels and restaurants, concentrated around the triangle of roads formed by Westgate Street, Castle Street, and High Street/St. Mary Street, charge prices comparable to those in a provincial English city.

Cardiff is an attractive, green city in South Wales facing England across the mouth of the Severn, helped along by the fact that its more prestigious monuments are built in local, white Portland stone and are floodlit during civic functions. Cardiff Castle, bang in the center of town, is really a three-in-one affair, a stylistic hodgepodge with thick Roman outer walls, a Norman keep, and a 19th- century wing full of richly decorated rooms. But the castle constitutes only one-seventh of the Civic Centre-its neighbors, all worthy of attention, are the Law Courts, the City Hall, the Welsh Office, the University College, the Institute of Science and Technology, and the National Museum of Wales. This latter is essential viewing for enthusiasts of all things Welsh, as well as for fans of French Impressionist painting.

Cardiff's covered "arcades" add a dimension of interest to the modern, could-be-anywhere shopping arteries.  Their Art Nouveau entrances are heralded by such names as Morgan, Royal, Oxford, and Dominion arcades.  Down these alleyways lurk specialist, antiquary, eccentric, and crafts stores, among them Lear's Bookshop (the largest in town) in Morgan Arcade and Castle Welsh Woollens in Castle Arcade.

GETTING AROUND
Some corners of Britain demand a car; Wales is one of them, The M 4 motorway runs from London to Newport, Cardiff, and Swansea (it takes roughly 21/2 hours to Carcliff). Visitors to North Wales can take the M 1 and M 6, and then join the A 5. Apart from the short stretch of M 4, there are no motorways in Wales, although the "A:' roads are fast and wide.

Regular InterCity trains run from London to Cardiff (two hours) and Chester, just across the border from North Wales (three hours). Cars can be rented at both stations.

As a more luxurious, stylish, and expensive alternative, the "Orient Express" runs from London throughout July and August for seven-day tours of Wales. En route the train calls at Caernarvon and Powis castles, Portmeirion and Cardiff, and includes a ride on the Ffestiniog Railway. Those unable to take a full week of Champagne and caviar can opt for the first or second half of the tour. Prices include all travel, meals, tour visits, accommodations in country-house hotels, and traditional Welsh entertainment, such as male choirs and harpists.