Cathedrals & Castles

Day Nine

Yesterday was an early start to make sure we had enough time to Liverpool Cathedral and St James' Garden. The Cathedral is an imposing building with awesome gothic detailing near its top.

St James' Garden is marvellously green & tranquil; exactly what you might expect from an old graveyard. Apparently it has become something of a local favourite for early morning dog walking. Something seemed oddly right about the otherwise quiet walk through a gravestone-walled garden being broken by little other than dogs barking. Surprisingly peaceful. :)

We checked out of Base2Stay and hit the road for Wales. Mostly A-roads for this trip so we drove through some gorgeous countryside, but the truly beautiful scenery appeared when drove over the top of our first Welsh hill. The over the valley was magic. Unfortunately there was nowhere to stop and get a good picture. You'll just have to take our word for it.

We dropped our bags at the "hotel" (more on that later), confirmed check-in times and hit the road again, headed for Conwy.

Conwy is a beautiful little coastal town, but we were there to see Edward I 13th century castle. Why? For HISTORY!!! :)

We climbed at least 3 towers and just soaked up the views and the sense of something completely "other" than the sense of "young culture" we get at home everyday (provided we could ignore the other tourists long enough).

Last thing to note from yesterday is Ruthin Castle Hotel

This stay is something we've been looking forward to since we started planning this trip. When first looked into my family history and found the region my great grandparents came from, we thought it might be nice to visit the area. The more we looked the more we found to check out but knew we only had a limited time. There's coastal towns & small villages galore but when she found this castle we kinda looked at each other and eventually said "why not? When will we even do this again?".

When we got back from climbing towers and checked in, the lady serving us said "You're in room 207, a lovely room."

"A lovely room?"

It's the best bloody room in the hotel!! It's the room the Prince Charles stayed in on the way to his investiture.

The room is amazing, the restaurant is first class (except for the coffee), and the grounds beautiful. Speaking of which I now need to go and wake my wife so we can walk around them some more. :)