Castles Galore!!!
What a week we have just had, Wales & Ireland in 6 days! Too fast, but it was fantastic.
Room for one!
WALES
I have been totally enchanted by Wales, what a magnificently beautiful place. The countryside is lush & picturesque and the villages are quaint & tranquil.
It is Autumn over here which adds to the beauty with the changing colours of the trees and the greeness of the fields dotted with white sheep & grey, handbuilt stone walls, eons old & adding to the charm of the scenery. We only saw a few Castles as we had more time in Ireland for that sort of adventuring, but what we did see of the Castles in Wales were impressive reminders of a once powerful & romantic history. Well romantic as we see it today but definitely a harsh, cold existence & certainly very difficult for women in those long, bulky dresses, no matter how glam they must have looked!
![]()
src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5402/2715/320/Conwy%20Castle%20King%20Henry%201%201200%27s%20Wales.jpg" border="0" alt="" />
We travelled the back roads as they are prettier, less traffic & a better view, even though it is a slower pace, (which I don't mind) & the roads are a little hairy at times & there's no-where to go if you do come across another car or tractor, but nothing compares to the charm of this countryside. And dare I say to my fellow Tasmanians, it is far prettier with the tree canopied roads & old houses & farms & elegant manors with little streams running by, the open fields with many trees & hedges dotted throughout the undulating landscape.
I will definitely return to this place with more time to explore & stay in the many B&B's & dine in the country pubs!
IRELAND
An expensive ferry ride to get there, so a few more days would have been desirable, but we had to get there & with all the other places to explore we wanted to get there sooner than later.
Definitely a place to visit in summer, it was cold & wet the whole 4 days & naturally we had to sleep in the car as we never have enough money, & at 4am it was pretty freezing, so winter must be quite harsh.
Everyone wears gumboots & they have some pretty fancy ones too, & no-one bothers about the rain, just get on with it anyway, out doing what you have to do.
We don't like the big cities, you need a few days to be able to explore them properly although we did find a park in the middle of Dublin that was huge, with reindeer wandering free, a zoo, a fort, a farm, huge monument, a lake & many playing fields that you could drive all the way around & through it.
We set off west to Galway & then around the south to Cork, Kilkenny & back to Dublin, there was a lot of driving & one day was so wet we couldn't even get out of the car so the photos were taken from the front seat & the exploring done in our head.
The country side was still lush & green like in Wales & properties lined with rock fences which give the place such character & charm & many villages are surrounded with the original stone walls from medieval times which is fantastic but makes it impossible to see over the tops & the roadsides are lined with trees & hedges that you can't see through, so much of the sightseeing is of rock walls, trees & hedges which we found quite amusing, every now & then you'd get a glimps of an old ruin or castle or something interesting & we'd say to each other, 'Did you see that?' only to have it hidden again before you could actually see what it was!
We did see quite a lot of old ruins, mostly on properties now neglected or too old to bother with, the roof fallen in & overgrown with vines & replaced with new buildings. We saw many Castles, they are everywhere, mostly old ruins, some privately owned & in peoples' backyards, (now that's fab, owning your own castle & ruins). Some turned into hotels & B&B's & pubs, shops built onto old ruin walls & a few have been restored which we managed to see inside, these were the bigger, well preserved ones, but we were quite amazed at the many small castles that were just one tower with a small walled off garden, not at all like the magnificent, huge castles we see in the movies, & they were dotted all over the landscape.
I loved the villages & towns with the shops & house fronts right on the footpath, all closely packed together & all exactly the same only painted different colours, which didn't take us long to figure out why, 'Which house is mine? The red with white trimmings or the white with red trimmings?'
But we soon discovered that 'Everything is better in Ireland!' The Guiness is truley superb, even I could drink it, (with a drop of blackcurrant, although some consider it a scralige, it is a popular ladies way to drink it). The coffee & hot choc were better, the food, the cafes, the friendliness. And the name RYAN, so popular we are, there was not a village anywhere without the name associated with some thing or other, Ryans' deli, Ryans' solicitors, Ryans' pharmacy etc. etc....
Yes we hope to get back here for more exploring & Castle spotting one day.
Room for one!
WALES
I have been totally enchanted by Wales, what a magnificently beautiful place. The countryside is lush & picturesque and the villages are quaint & tranquil.
It is Autumn over here which adds to the beauty with the changing colours of the trees and the greeness of the fields dotted with white sheep & grey, handbuilt stone walls, eons old & adding to the charm of the scenery. We only saw a few Castles as we had more time in Ireland for that sort of adventuring, but what we did see of the Castles in Wales were impressive reminders of a once powerful & romantic history. Well romantic as we see it today but definitely a harsh, cold existence & certainly very difficult for women in those long, bulky dresses, no matter how glam they must have looked!
src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5402/2715/320/Conwy%20Castle%20King%20Henry%201%201200%27s%20Wales.jpg" border="0" alt="" />
We travelled the back roads as they are prettier, less traffic & a better view, even though it is a slower pace, (which I don't mind) & the roads are a little hairy at times & there's no-where to go if you do come across another car or tractor, but nothing compares to the charm of this countryside. And dare I say to my fellow Tasmanians, it is far prettier with the tree canopied roads & old houses & farms & elegant manors with little streams running by, the open fields with many trees & hedges dotted throughout the undulating landscape.
I will definitely return to this place with more time to explore & stay in the many B&B's & dine in the country pubs!
IRELAND
An expensive ferry ride to get there, so a few more days would have been desirable, but we had to get there & with all the other places to explore we wanted to get there sooner than later.
Definitely a place to visit in summer, it was cold & wet the whole 4 days & naturally we had to sleep in the car as we never have enough money, & at 4am it was pretty freezing, so winter must be quite harsh.
Everyone wears gumboots & they have some pretty fancy ones too, & no-one bothers about the rain, just get on with it anyway, out doing what you have to do.
We don't like the big cities, you need a few days to be able to explore them properly although we did find a park in the middle of Dublin that was huge, with reindeer wandering free, a zoo, a fort, a farm, huge monument, a lake & many playing fields that you could drive all the way around & through it.
We set off west to Galway & then around the south to Cork, Kilkenny & back to Dublin, there was a lot of driving & one day was so wet we couldn't even get out of the car so the photos were taken from the front seat & the exploring done in our head.
The country side was still lush & green like in Wales & properties lined with rock fences which give the place such character & charm & many villages are surrounded with the original stone walls from medieval times which is fantastic but makes it impossible to see over the tops & the roadsides are lined with trees & hedges that you can't see through, so much of the sightseeing is of rock walls, trees & hedges which we found quite amusing, every now & then you'd get a glimps of an old ruin or castle or something interesting & we'd say to each other, 'Did you see that?' only to have it hidden again before you could actually see what it was!
We did see quite a lot of old ruins, mostly on properties now neglected or too old to bother with, the roof fallen in & overgrown with vines & replaced with new buildings. We saw many Castles, they are everywhere, mostly old ruins, some privately owned & in peoples' backyards, (now that's fab, owning your own castle & ruins). Some turned into hotels & B&B's & pubs, shops built onto old ruin walls & a few have been restored which we managed to see inside, these were the bigger, well preserved ones, but we were quite amazed at the many small castles that were just one tower with a small walled off garden, not at all like the magnificent, huge castles we see in the movies, & they were dotted all over the landscape.
I loved the villages & towns with the shops & house fronts right on the footpath, all closely packed together & all exactly the same only painted different colours, which didn't take us long to figure out why, 'Which house is mine? The red with white trimmings or the white with red trimmings?'
But we soon discovered that 'Everything is better in Ireland!' The Guiness is truley superb, even I could drink it, (with a drop of blackcurrant, although some consider it a scralige, it is a popular ladies way to drink it). The coffee & hot choc were better, the food, the cafes, the friendliness. And the name RYAN, so popular we are, there was not a village anywhere without the name associated with some thing or other, Ryans' deli, Ryans' solicitors, Ryans' pharmacy etc. etc....
Yes we hope to get back here for more exploring & Castle spotting one day.
posted by mazz&kyle at 12:35 AM
1 Comments:
Hi mazz and kyle, thanks for the update,sounds amazing and the photos are fab. Nothing exiting to tell you about down here just working and getting ready for Sarah's b'day on fri having 80-100 people, should be lots of fun. the girls are in the middle of their exams and coping well.
Love the Garrett's
Post a Comment
<< Home