Wales - land of Wrestling Fans

We had an extension on the car; this really was our final weekend. Guess we can start with the new wheels:



Picked this up off ebay from a retired bike cop. One week down – besides getting lost a couple times on back roads, it wasn’t too bad. We live just under 5 miles from work, so it’s a good ride.

Back to the weekend, we visited the land of Greame’s. The Welsh were an interesting people; it’s hard to pinpoint the accents – somewhere between Austrian/German and British. There were a lot of French around too..

We headed out straight after work on Friday and stayed in Newport, outside of the capital Cardiff Friday night. Saturday morning we had an appointment for a tour at the only Welsh Whisky distillery. Prince Charles is a big fan and has visited a couple of times. The distillery was located in the Brecon Beacon’s national park – in the middle of nowhere.

Opened in 2004, only the second distillery in 160+ years. Here’s some pics:

One of the two remaining bottles from the last Welsh Distillery. Prince Charles is rumored to own the other one.. although he won't admit it:

The staff was pretty entertaining. There was some weight-lifting junky that was running the place and we got into a conversation about football, American-football, rugby and oddly, Professional Wrestling – WWF or WWE (whatever it is now). This guy was a huge fan, telling us about how he holds Wrestlemania parties and stays up all night with his buddies eating pizza, drinking beer, and watching Wrestling! Ahhh, the Welsh. Not the best first impression..

Next, we randomly decided to take a side trip on our way to the coast. Stopped at the Aberdulais Falls for a quick education on the history of the Welsh Tin industry. This was the heart of the prosperity of Wales until America took over the business creating an influx of Welsh Immigrants..

Here are some pics of the ruins of this small Tin Industrial town – currently powered completely by the electricity generated from its water wheel. The unneeded power is pumped into the national grid:

Smoke stack remaining from the ruins of the old Tin factories:

They love the ruins over here... the different buildings that made up this Tin town:

The falls.. The National Heritage Society places a strong emphasis on renewable energy and it's pretty impressive that this site is entirely powered by water and then some:

Sidetracked, we headed back to our original destination, the coast! We arrived in Mumbles and snapped some pics:

The train that circles the bay:

Then we started out further up the coast in search of the elusive ‘Three Cliffs Bay’:

Three Cliffs:

Finally, we made our way to the small coastal town of Rhossili. Possibly the sweetest ocean front property in the world:

And we capped the day off sitting atop the cliffs in Rhossili, watching the sunset:

Yes, we were here, these are our photographs. Unbelievable:

There were some hang gliders and para-gliders hovering above us for a few hours as we sat and waited for the sun to go down:

It’s hard to top that, and unfortunately, Cardiff didn’t. On our way to the capital we stopped at the Welsh National Museum and visited a cheesy re-creation of a Welsh town:

Lots of baby lambs out and about:

Toll house of the 1700-1800's to raise funds to improve the notorious roads of Wales. They charged depending on the animal that was pulling your carriage:

And, of course, Ye Olde Cocke Fighting ring. They built an entire building just for this. Standing in the center of this place you can imagine the energy and entertainment this brought in those times:

On the outskirts of this “open-air museum” there was a small castle with beautiful gardens and cascading ponds:

Just a quaint little castle.. built by a rich lawyer at the time that never even bothered to live there after building it!!

After that random stop, we headed into the capital and explored what it had to offer. There’s a massive castle in the center of the city, surprisingly called, Cardiff Castle; without much else to do in town, we took the tour.

Here’s some pics of Cardiff and our castle tour:

The rugby cathedral of Wales. If you remember, we were in Ireland and watched the championship game of Ireland vs Wales a couple weeks ago. This came up a few times while we were in Wales - ahh the sad faces of the people we spoke to as Wales lost to Ireland in the last 2 minutes:

Cardiff Castle, right in the center of the capital:

Click the picture, Ashley is looking down on us from the 2nd story window. We took a couple more with her at the top, but she was just a speck..

Some controversial architecture at the Castle. The rare colorful decorations that adorn the outside of this clock tower:

Ashley posing with the coolest symbol for a country, a red dragon on the castle grounds:

Lastly, Ashley wants everyone to see the Welsh Cakes – although Sally’s recipe is better. Mmmm, welsh cakes:

Wales had the most beautiful coast of any we’ve seen, so it was a great way to spend our last weekend with the car. But there’s plenty more adventure to come – we’ll be going to Scotland in May and have already booked flights to Barcelona; Dublin, Pisa (Florence and Tuscany); Amsterdam; and Krakow, Poland.

A full schedule and plenty more blog entries to come….