Day Two June 27,1998 North Wales, Castles, on to Leamington Spa Saturday We woke up in Betws-y-Coed at Bryn Bella B&B, exhausted, exhilarated, and refreshed. The sun may not have set until 10pm but it rose at 4am. I wondered out loud how bleak the hours of darkness during winter must feel at latitudes that far north Our first full day and it was overcast and drizzling cold rain. We had hauled all our luggage up the hill, up the stairs, and up the stairway to our room the previous night. Lyn got up early and did some unpack/repack and rearranging for us while I slept in. The shower was a hoot! There was insufficient water pressure and no central water heater. Each little room had its own little water heater.  We also had our first introduction to UK-style sinks, with separate hot and cold faucets on opposite sides of the basin and a rubber stopper plug on a chain. I thought this was a B&B trying to be quaint (an ‘antique’) but found these things everywhere, down to the grubbiest gas station men’s room. I’m a good sport, but am not going to fill a yucky basin to wash my hands, so for the entire trip I would turn on both faucets and quickly shift my hands back and forth between the distant hot and cold faucets. This hot-sting cold-sting did not actually average out to be ‘warm water’, but hey we were roughing it on our vacation to Britain. The B&B included a British style breakfast, which we also never quite adjusted to. Being our first morning, we assumed it was just that our host either had weird taste or poor kitchen skills but it turned out that we were served a fairly standard fare. Horrible coffee made in this bizarre little steeper. Toast and marmalade, too cold for the butter to melt. Odd cereals (wheetix and no fruit loops!). Jesse spilled his milk. The eggs were good, but served with British style breakfast meats. We tried several and they were all extremely over salted and generally yucky. We cajoled our host to tell us their story, and we told ours. A Hindu family (adults, children, grandparents) were staying in the other rooms and had quite a romp with breakfast foods. We were surprised as we packed our suitcases into our van to see this very large group get into a very small ‘station wagon’. I’m sure we looked like ‘ugly Americans’ in our very-large (rental) car. The sky was overcast and drizzly on-and-off. We were bummed a little, but this exact weather followed us for the next 10 or so days. I guess that means it was pretty standard conditions, but it was our first morning and we knew no better. We hauled all the suitcases back down the stairwell, down the stairs and down the hill back to the van, and I repacked. After several false starts, an extra round of potty breaks, and nice directions to the best ‘shopping centre’ around. We took off around 11am. We were sad at our late start, but it turned out to be pretty average performance for us for the entire trip (our good intentions aside). We drove around the hamlet of Betws-y-Coed and bought some postcards and stamps to mail home to family and friends. It was amazingly picturesque, with ancient stone house, obviously quarried locally, and tiny winding streets nestled between the tree covered hillsides and glens. Even this little place had a train station with regular train service. A nice little waterfall with lots of ‘walkers’ .. ummm ... ‘walking’. Everybody (except us) was well prepared with very spiffy ponchos and the like. We simply drove at them in our car and they always scattered just in time. We left the little town after noon and drove north, tracing our route back to Llandudno. The fields that were desolate last night were now a beautiful lush green and speckled with flocks of Welsh sheep, loitering in the cold misty drizzle. Llandudno was laid out like so many seaside hamlets in the States, with a long road running parallel to the beach and several blocks of stores to provide everything a tourist might need, from T-Shirts to ice cream. We took some pictures, and got a hoot from the ‘Just-a-Quid’ store (with the same fare as the All-a-dollar stores back home). We found a grocery super-center and wandered the aisles until we bought our much desired ice bucket-thing and boxes upon boxes of 'tea biscuits' (cookies). We were surprised by many things, including what items were and were not available and the fact that you had to buy your plastic sacks (at 2p each) to pack your own groceries. The rolly hills ran right down to the coastline and provided nice little look-outs over the the Conwy Bay and Irish Sea, and the Conwy river. The seaside was dotted with B&B's and tourist homes, just like back home. We then stopped at nearby Conwy Castle, just as the the sky cleared and the sun popped out for the rest of the day. The castle ruins were very exotic to us but, unknown to us at the time, very typical of the many castle ruins we were going to see. Since it was our first one, we obviously had no idea what to expect. We stayed too long, took too many pictures, but hey, we’re on vacation. The "castle" was really just the remainder of the ancient outer walls. You walk around the inner courts, on grass, open to the elements. There were plenty of diagrams and signs explaining that the grassy spot you’re standing on was the king’s bedroom or the dining hall or the guards quarters. This particular castle had turrets with stairs leading up to a commanding view of the surrounding city of Conwy. It is also somewhat famous for the construction of a train trestle, years and years ago, where effort was made to minimize its impact on the historic site (a rare if not unknown act at that time). This city seemed unique to us in that it still stood within the ancient protective walls whose ancient arched portals now were paved for motorcars. We bought a beautiful blown glass Welsh red dragon, and are glad we did. We don't usually go in for that kind of stuff, but it sits elegantly on our bookshelf (gathering Florida dust) today. We passed through Banger, and saw the semi-famous suspension bridge. We were heading to Holyhead (the Northwest corner of Wales) and frankly we just pooped out. Our map showed several historical sights (mostly ruins, mostly small-ish). Several ‘stone temple’ sites were identified in the area, but dozens upon dozens were listed around the various places in Britain we were due to visit. Stonehenge was obviously at the top of our list to see, but it is simply the most famous and one of the best preserved examples. There are many to see and we quit after about 10 or so. We pooped out and gave up visiting Holyhead. We stopped at a gas station to buy sodas and coffee but we decided to skip getting petrol (we had half a tank) and that turned out to be one big mistake! We pressed on, instead to Caernarfon Castle. These ruins are very famous, the home seat of the ‘Prince of Wales’. It was here that Prince Charles was formally crowned, years ago, and here that he visits annually in keeping with some ritual or ancient agreement. Again, the walls are standing but the inside is in general ruin, open to the elements. I kept asking about who has the job of mowing the dining room but I was the only one that found that question funny. By the time we hit Caernarfon, it was 6pm and the castle had just closed. That was ok, one castle per day is plenty. We drove around town (found a rhymer), and took some pictures, bought a snack and pressed on for the Leamington Spa Marriott Courtyard. We had a 2 night stay reserved and it was about 50 miles away. At 7 pm it was still broad daylight, so we kidded ourselves and dawdled around, gawking at stuff, and paid dearly by getting to the hotel at 1 am, exhausted, in the pitch black night. The Welsh countryside was beautiful, and we agreed to do more Wales watching from our day in Bristol, 3 days hence. We passed mile upon mile of sheep meadows, castle and church ruins, and picturesque country lanes. As we drove on, we didn’t buy dinner or gas and then found ourselves in little bitty towns (British equivalents of Mayberry). Every pub and every gas station was closed. We were starving and running on empty. Jesse was getting car sick so we had him go to sleep so he wouldn’t puke. All of us were on-edge and picking at each other. (Oh yeah? Yeah! Oh yeah? Yeah!) It was finally starting to feel like a typical family vacation. What is sad it that the countryside was breathtaking and we couldn’t make ourselves enjoy it. Lots of trees overhanging the road, beautiful valleys peppered with flocks of sheep. Old stone houses, old barns, old fences, old towns. But we were all agitated and worried and nauseous. The roads we were tooling down were very foreign to us (and on the left side lane, too). These UK ‘country lanes’ were often totally enclosed in either 15 foot tall bushes (trimmed very close to the road shoulder) or stacked stone fences (often sitting directly on the shoulder). We were often tooling along at 40-50 mph when we would encounter a stretch of this style roadway. I was unnerved, always leaning farther to the right (center) of the highway, unsure of where exactly the left (passenger) side door sat. I would be driving along when suddenly (at 45 mph) the left side rear-view mirror would start to clip the overhanging bush branches. Lyn would yelp (sometimes the branches zapped her outhanging elbow), and I would panic. It was unnerving when encountering oncoming traffic but the road was thankfully little used. This was going on during sunset and dusk, between 8pm and 9pm. At 9:30pm, after driving the last 15 miles with the needle BELOW empty, we finally found a petrol station open for business and filled the tank. It was a huge relief, and a huge bill! It took 42 Pounds to fill the vaporous tank and 20 or so minutes later I figured out that converted to 70 dollars! That night was the first, last, and only time the gas gauge ever kissed the one-quarter tank mark. We may have seen a lot of sights during the rest of our trip, but I always kept one eye on that fuel gage. Although it is a silly aspect of human nature, it was very comforting to buy around 50 dollars worth of gas every morning instead of having a whopper fill-up like that. I know, I know, that makes no sense but it still felt better. At 9:45pm we pulled into a ‘Lil chef’ where we encountered the staff putting the finishing touches on mopping all tables and floors, having obviously scrubbed down the grill and kitchen for the night. We were told, very directly, that ‘the kitchen is closed’ even though the restaurant was purportedly open until 10pm. We found another family restaurant at exactly 10pm and they would not serve us either. Not even a slice of bread or glass of milk to go. Like the weary pioneers we were, we ended up buying some packaged sandwiches and snacks from a Shell petrol station and resolved to do all of our eating by 6pm from now on. Actually, that revised dinner schedule worked very well for the rest of the trip. An early (by our standards) meal at 6pm, then drive on hard until 10 or 11 at night (with nightfall occurring well after 9pm). Sleep in a little (around 9am) the next morning and visit whatever the current town or the next one during the day, drive a little and dinner at 6pm, then drive hard from 7pm to 10pm to the next city. That was to be our pattern for the rest trip, after this first day fiasco. Top off the night by Jesse barfing and moaning (are we having fun yet) and all of us choking down pretzels and crisps and gas station sandwiches, and we definitely started to learn ‘the trick’ for travel in Britain. We got completely lost in the dark, but miraculously found a Chinese take away in Welshpool (white rice to settle the barfing Jesse), worked our way to the motorway, and pressed on through Wolverhampton, and Birmingham to Leamington Spa. We got dead lost (again) around the Birmingham airport area by missing turns, then got lost just trying to exit and reenter the motorway the other direction (our first attempt at night driving). We finally found our way to the Marriott Courtyard and checked in just after 1am. We were very tired and very agitated and the desk clerk was very British. It was one of the few times I got downright snotty with a service person, as usually the standoffishness seemed quaint and cute in a British way. Very small little room, no pool, tiny ice machine, no ‘morning coffee’. Grrrr! We carried in all the suitcases and the sleeping Jesse for our two day stay) and we crashed in bed at just after 2am.
	Copyright, 1999, all rights reserved
	Originally Written November 1999 Original Upload January 2000 Last Update: July 22, 2001