We were up early this morning to meet our tour guide for an all day tour around northern Wales.
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| As we left, the harbor was beautiful and calm |
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| As we crossed a river, our tour guide pointed out this very small island - it's the smallest island with a house that someone actually lives in and the people that live there do commercial fishing. The tour guide said to remember this island for when we come back. |
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| The part of the left of the house is a large area where fish swim when the tide is high, and they get stuck in there and are then caught. When we came back at the end of the day, the only thing you could see on the island was the house. Everything else was covered in water from the high tide and hundreds of fish were being caught |
VIDEO: Just driving along
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Conway Castle is a fortification castle and was built between 1283-1287 by King Edward 1 and cost 15,000 pounds which was a massive amount of money back then, unheard of. Conway Castle is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is one of the "finest examples of late 13th century, early 14th century military architecture in Europe" |
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| A few blocks down from the castle, is the smallest house in Great Britain and it's still lived in |
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| The castle is HUGE and towers over the city |
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| The Welsh flag is a dragon. The flag design was adopted in the 5th century to symbolize power over the Romans when the Romans withdrew from Britain |
Our next stop was a small village for a short break in the Snowdonia National Park named Betws-y-coed, which means 'prayer house in the woods', with a population of about 400 and was established in the late 6th century AD
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| This large park was in the middle of the town and yes, it really was that green! |
Back on the bus and this was our view, and the photos don't even come close to how beautiful it really was. We were so glad to see some sun too!
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| Sheep were everywhere! They have no predators in Wales (or Ireland) and there are more sheep than people |
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| We had about 45 minutes here to explore some trails, waterfalls and views beyond belief |
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VIDEO:
Our next stop was Caernarfon Castle which was first built in the late 11th century and was also built by King Edward 1. Like Conway castle, Caernarfon castle is also HUGE!
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| You can walk up all the towers and walls - these stairs were extremely narrow and steep! |
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| There were historical displays in whatever language this is...I think it's leprechaun |
Our last stop of the day was the village with the longest train station name. It used to be the village with the longest one word name, but a few years ago New Zealand named a hill with a word having a few more letters, so now this this village is the 2nd longest one word named place. But the train station is still the longest named 'train station' in the world.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
is a small village with about 2500 population, which mainly speak Welsh, that sees about 200,000 visitors a year. The name has 18 syllables and even has a song about how to say it:
And watch this video (68 million views!) of a weatherman saying the name in his forecast:
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| The train station |
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