And so it was time to leave beautiful Cornwall and travel by train to Wales. We had decided to travel by train rather than hire a car, and Jenni had booked us on First Class. We had assigned seats and were served snacks and tea, coffee or hot chocolate all the way. It was a four hour journey to Wales.
Liz met us at the station and transported us home to Blackwood, where they live, a town not too far from Cardiff. They had only ever spoken to Rick on the phone but had never met him, so this was to be the first meeting.
Fortunately, Mike and Liz liked Rick and he liked them, so it was a happy gathering. Especially because Mike was between contracts for the three days we were there, so we got to spend all our time together.
Liz is a great cook and plied us with delicious and enormous meals while we were with them. She’s also a great gardener and, with our meal, we were treated to green beans straight from the garden!
Cardiff Castle was our first sightseeing stop, and was great.
The castle celebrates 2,000 years of history and is situated right in the heart of the city of Cardiff. And it was quite a lot colder in Wales than it was in Cornwall.
The Castle’s history stretches way back to the Roman occupation and beneath the castle are the remains of the original Roman Wall alongside an amazing sculptured mural.
After the Romans came the Normans and then the Castle passed through the hands of quite a number of noble families before being passed by marriage into the Bute family in 1766. Over the years that fiollowed, the Butes were responsible for upgrading the castle’s living quarters and creating some quite lavish interiors. On the death of the 4th Marquess of Bute, the Castle was given to the City of Cardiff.
By the way, that’s Rick strolling through the Library.
It was pretty cold outside, but Mike, Liz and Jenni managed to climb up to the Castle Keep anyway, while Rick enjoyed a hot chocolate in the cafè.
We also learned that during WWII the tunnels inside the Castle walls were used as air raid shelters.
We both love history, museums and the like, so it was certainly a pleasure visiting Cardiff Castle.
Our next adventure was to The Big Pit National Coal Museum. Unfortunately, it was cold and raining, but we weren’t too bothered by that because we were going to go 300 ft down into the old coal mine.
However, the Museum was situated in a number of different buildings across the hilltop, so we didn’t get to visit any of them because of the rain and the hills.
It was fascinating underground, though, when we learned that the whole family would work down the mine, including children as young as six. They would mostly go down in the early morning, while it was still dark, stay in the dark all day then come back up to the surface, after dark! What a life – we’re glad it wasn’t ours!
On our final day in Wales, we decided to take a steam train ride across the Brecon Beacon National Park. Fortunately, there was bright sunshine and blue sky, although the temperature was still pretty cold. It was a fun day with great views across the hills.
Liz had packed a picnic lunch for all of us, which we hoped to eat on the train. However, the carriages were so small, there was hardly enough room for all the people! The train stopped for half an hour as part of the journey, so we got out and ate our picnic with the wind whipping around us. Only in the UK!!
Thus, our time in Wales and our visit with Mike and Liz came to an end with another train journey, which would take us into London then back out to Hartlepool in North Yorkshire. Jenni’s brother and sister-in-law, Chris and Sandra live there.
