Wales

A little more time over the holiday break and I've decided to continue posting my adventures with Katherine. In this entry we travel for a day trip to Wales, where Katherine and I spent most of our time visiting Cardiff Castle and enjoying an evening side trip to Tintern Abbey of Wordsworthian fame. I've tried to reign in my academic enthusiasm for architectural and literary history for this entry, but cannot guarantee there won't be a little geeky gushing.

First we started out from Bath, driving through the beautiful English countryside...

...crossing the bridge between England and Wales...

...paying the toll...

...and finally arriving at Cardiff Castle:




Cardiff Castle has a long history. Parts of the foundations for the walls date back to the Roman period and the Norman motte and bailey castle keep still survives (more on that soon). Other pieces also survive from across the Middle Ages, but much of the castle walls and interior were reconstructed in the 19th century by the 3rd Marquess of Bute.

Katherine wanted to start by announcing her survival in front of the famous 19th century clock tower. The audio guide included a recording of a woman's account of how she was employed as a kitchen maid at the castle at about the age of 17 and given the room in the clock tower to sleep in. Apparently the sound of the bell each hour was deafening, but she got so used to it after something like thirty years of living there that she had trouble sleeping without clock tower bells going off over her bed room!:



Then Katherine and I went inside the 19th century portion of the restored castle to admire the sumptuous decor by William Burges. This gorgeous ceiling and border detail are typical of the splendor of the interior:







Elsewhere Burges and the 3rd Marquess of Bute (the latter an obsessive independent scholar of Medieval history by all accounts) tried to recreate the look of a Medieval Hall in painted glory:





My favorite room was the library:



After touring the interior, we went outside again where we looked at the 13th century black tower:



And we checked out the falconry...







..before moving still backward in time, we ventured toward the 12th century stone keep standing on the Norman motte, or hill:



Lots of exploration and pictures were in order. The remains of the guard tower part way up the motte:



The outlines of an interior fireplace:



A skinny window for shooting arrows through:



Graffiti from various eras (the keep was used as a prison many times throughout the centuries):



A view of Cardiff from the top of the keep:



My 6'2'' father demonstrating how tiny Medieval people were:



Yours truly in castle:




After thoroughly exploring the keep we took a walk along the outer walls:





Where Katherine posed between the crenulations:



After the visit to the castle we tried to see a bit more of Cardiff, but unfortunately got a bit lost and, as evening was nigh, we headed back toward Bath. On the way back, however, we realized that Tintern Abbey was nearby and I persuaded the parents (and Katherine) to make a small detour out into the beautiful wild country that surrounds the abbey ruins. It was easy to see how Wordsworth would have been inspired by the solitude and natural beauty of the place and the still eloquence of the ruins. For those who don't know Wordsworth's famous poem about Tintern Abbey, a link: http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww138.html

Katherine surviving at Tintern Abbey:





And more of the ruins at dusk-fall:













Next Time: Canterbury!

Bath

After a few busy weeks I am now in a position to continue posting pictures of my adventures with Katherine Parr. In my last entry I posted pictures of some of the places I visited without Katherine. In this entry we'll see how I met Katherine and she and I survived the spa town of Bath together.

I was in Bath, walking along Great Pulteney Street, not too far from where Jane Austen once lived, when I came across a petite personage in Renaissance apparel walking down the street and repeatedly crying out the refrain "I Survived" to passers by (see photo above).

She soon came up to me to announce her survival and, after I had overcome my astonishment at encountering the last surviving wife of Henry VIII, she and I soon hit upon the ingenious idea of starting this blog for the purposes of documenting her incredible talent for survival in various spots around Great Britain. Not one to let the grass grow under her feet, she proposed that we start instanter by documenting our time in Bath. So we started our walk along the streets of Bath, which are lined with lovely buildings constructed of the characteristic golden colored Bath stone:


I soon found a place with my name on it:



And we then walked on to see the sights of the city. First, Bath Abbey, where we admired the fan vaulting and late perpendicular lines of the interior:





And pitied a Renaissance lady who didn't survive:



Then we visited the Roman Baths, where people for centuries came to bath in the curative mineral waters, making Bath a happening tourist destination:


Near the Pump Room, a location mentioned in Austen's novels as the central gathering place for late 18th century society, we found that things hadn't changed much at all:



Apparently a group of Austen aficionados were donning period attire and recreating the Bath of Jane's time. We followed them up to the Great Crescent, the poshest area of Bath high on a hill, where some cyclists posed for a picture:





Another shot of me, showing the curve of the buildings at the top of the crescent:



In the afternoon we stopped at the lovely Pulteney bridge, which was designed with Florence's Ponte Vecchio in mind to have shops lining the sides of the bridge:



We stopped at a little tea shop on the bridge for a lovely cream tea and an even lovelier view along the river:








After a wonderful visit in Bath Katherine returned with me to the charming 18th century hotel where I was staying with my folks:



Where we climbed the narrow winding stairs...



...up to the view from my little attic room...



and a beautiful sunset:



NEXT TIME: Katherine goes to Wales!

Katherine Parr History Fun Fact: Katherine herself was married four times, only two times less than her most famous husband, Henry VIII.