Day 5 - South Wales

We really did not have enough time in our schedule to see much of Wales. We would have loved to tour the mountainous National Parks, especially those in the North. But time would not allow. So instead, today was mostly a travel day - driving from Bath to "somewhere" close to where we could pick up the ferry on the following day and connect to our train to take us to Dublin, Ireland.

That being said, we had one of those adventurous travel days full of fascinating surprises. We woke to more stereo-typical weather for this region and time of year; gray skies and sporadic rain. We decided to go to Cardiff for lunch and a tour of the Cardiff Castle. Driving into Cardiff was a little bit intimidating (I'm sure the locals will get a smile out of that comment!). It is a big city with considerable traffic. Maybe it was just more than we were expecting. We negotiated our way to a parking lot in the downtown area and figured out the somewhat obscure system of payment. And then walked a few blocks to the castle entrance.

The Cardiff Castle is basically a wall complex surrounding a very old, first Roman, then Norman, stronghold. The old Norman Keep still sits on a hill, surrounded by a moat, in the center of the large enclosed space. And while the exterior of the castle looks somewhat hodge-podge, the interiors are intricately and meticulously decorated. Each of the rooms has a theme and the architecture is fantastic. We enjoyed our friendly tour guide as she walked us through the various rooms explaining their history and design. At the end of the tour we walked about the large courtyard and climbed the steep and narrow stairs to the ruins of the Norman Keep. You enter through a small and once heavily fortified gate and into a small sparse courtyard. Ivy climbs parts of the rounded walls. You can climb a set of wooden stairs to the upper level and then a stone spiral staircase up the tower to the highest ramparts. The view from the ramparts is wonderful. You can see the entire castle complex set against the surreal backdrop of the modern football (soccer) stadium. After climbing back down to ground level, we wandered most sections of the extensive wall and then exited the castle and returned to "modern day" Cardiff. This was a very enjoyable stop and we were sorry that we didn't have more time to spend in Cardiff. You'll hear me say this a lot in these travel logs... We'll just have to go back some day!

After leaving the castle and making our way back towards the car, we found a funky little juice shop for a wholesome smoothy. Then we jumped back in the car and navigated our way back out of the city and onto the main highway towards Swansea.

We decided to stay in Swansea because it was a location recommended to us and it is an easy morning's drive to Fishguard where we are to pick up the ferry to cross St. George's Channel to Ireland. We arrived in Swansea and had a plan for finding accommodations (this was one of the few cities in which we had not made reservations ahead of time). Most seaside towns seem to have a strip along the beach where there are many hotels. Swansea is no exception. And since we were there well out of the high tourist season, there were many vacancies. We really had our pick of rooms. So we chose something simple and inexpensive, dropped our luggage, freshened up and drove the coastline down to the Mumbles. This is a quaint and idyllic town that we really enjoyed. We had an early dinner and beer at the local White Horse Pub. We wandered around a bit browsing through the various shops. We bought, wrote and sent a few postcards to friends and family back home. Then we climbed the hill to Oystermouth Castle. This was similar to, but larger than, the Norman Keep we saw earlier in the day, in Cardiff. Admission was very informal with an inexpensive "donation" to the Friends of Oystermouth Castle. There is a self guided tour as you follow numbered placards throughout the castle. Again, the views are very nice from the ramparts. We spent about 45 minutes exploring the remnants of this once grand monument, climbed around the surrounding grassy hills and then returned to town.

We knew that the next day was also going to be filled with much travel. So we stretched our legs walking on the beach back in Swansea and headed to bed early.