I apologize for the long gap in posts. I just spent two weeks in Uzbekistan, with mostly awful internet connections. I'm currently in South Korea, so may not be posting very regularly still (I wrote this piece on the flight to Istanbul).

<b>August 22, 23, 2016: Beaumaris, Bodnant and the Great Orme</b>

Originally I had thought to use Wales' narrow gauge steam railways as transport, sleeping in Porthmadog and day tripping to the Italianate village of Portmeirion. Then it occurred to me that using a narrow gauge carriage for transport of luggage, on an August weekend, was not one of my better ideas. Plan B was to day trip by narrow gauge from Conwy, but the timetables would have left me only a short time in Portmeirion. Next trip, maybe. Instead I used Conwy as a base for Beaumaris Castle on Anglesey, Bodnant Gardens and Llandudno.

Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with my plans for Anglesey. When I woke up and saw the rain, I nearly canceled my visit, but there was always the chance, this being the UK, that the weather would clear up. I took a bus to Bangor, and a second on to Beaumaris via what I believe was the Menai bridge. The bridge was completed in 1826, and I was amused to notice that the driver took his bus through the narrow archway very, very slowly, with only centimeters of clearance to either side. He didn't have a lot of clearance on some of the roads - maybe lanes would be a better word - once on the island.

I reached Beaumaris, I drank coffee in a cafe opposite the castle, I bought my entrance ticket, still rain, in fact heavier rain. But while I watched the introductory video the day cleared enough for me to walk through the castle and half way round the battlements without recourse to my umbrella (which might not have withstood the wind). Beaumaris was designed as the perfect defensive castle, and though never finished (Edward turned his attention north and the money dried up), photos taken from the air show it to be exactly that, with moat, double defensive walls, and towers. Unfortunately, it is not so obvious on the ground, and after seeing Conwy on this trip, and Caernarfon on earlier trips, I found Beaumaris not worth the trek. Afterwards, I ate lunch in the Bull's Head, which had been recommended (whitebait and deviled kidneys, quite good).

My plans for Anglesey had included a visit to Plas Newydd, but this would have required a fifteen to twenty minute trek from and to the bus stop, and it looked like there was going to be more rain, so instead I went back to Conwy, wrote a blog post over coffee, and walked the walls. Skipping Plas Newydd, along with missing Lulworth Cove in Dorset, was one time when having a car would have made a difference.

In complete contrast, the next day featured bright sun. I was able to take a bus (although not one of the Arriva buses covered by the day pass I had just bought) right to the gates of Bodnant Gardens. The absolute best time to visit Bodnant is when the laburnum arcade is in flower, but there was still plenty to see. The site was big, and it was quite a trek to the Far End, mostly through trees and alongside a stream. Some of the trees were remarkable, including the tallest yew and the tallest redwood in the UK. The flowers were back near the entrance, on terraces and round lily ponds below the house, which was not open for visits.

Another bus took me from Bodnant Gardens to the center of Llandudno, on a peninsula north of Conwy. I have distant memories of visiting Llandudno back when I was a child, and I wanted another look at the Great Orme, the massive limestone headland at its far end. A lot of other people also wanted to have a look at it, and the line for the Victorian Tramway, with just one small carriage, was long. I could have ridden the new cable cars, but I have a decreasing tolerance for heights and felt safer on solid ground. Besides, the tram was more fun. The best views of Llandudno's sweeping half-circle of sand were from the halfway point, where we changed trams, and the tourist clutter at the top was disappointing. If I had felt more energetic, or it had been earlier in the day, I might have walked down, taking in the Bronze Age copper mine (http://www.greatormemines.info ) on the way, but I didn't, and it wasn't, and I rode the tram both ways. The Ormes (there is a lesser one on the eastern side of the bay) are covered with short grass and are good places for hikers and picnickers. I even saw gorse and heather on the way up.

The absolute best time to visit Bodnant is when the laburnum arcade is in flower, but there was still plenty to see. >>

that's my excuse for not having got there yet - I need to go when the laburnum is out. thanks for the tips on other things to see and do as well, if/when we do venture up to North Wales.

You're welcome, ann. Surprised you haven't been to north Wales. I suppose Snowden is top of your list?

<b>August 24-26, 2016: Checking Out Chester</b>

Getting to Chester by rail was not a problem - the Birmingham-bound train duly stopped on request - although it was crowded. Getting from the station to my B&B by bus wasn't a problem, thanks to my Android phone and its map app. Getting into the Grosvenor Place Guesthouse turned out to be an unexpected problem. My booking instructions said that check-in was at 3:00, but that I could leave luggage at "a laundry round the corner". I can state definitively that there is no longer a laundry anywhere near the guesthouse. No-one answered the door bell and no-one answered the emergency number listed outside. Fortunately, a couple of men showed up on motor bikes, and were able to rouse someone in the house.

I left my bigger bag, collected the code for the front door, and set off into the very crowded town center in search of lunch. The place I picked, near the cathedral, was more of a tea place, and I indulged in a scone and clotted cream for dessert, with white tea selected from an extensive menu. The dark grey modern tower next door turned out to be a replacement bell tower, while the cathedral was close by in the other direction. Perhaps because it was my fourth cathedral in a week, I was not particularly impressed by Chester, except for the late fourteenth century misericords, which were beautiful. Unconstrained by the religious doctrine manifest elsewhere in the building, the carvers were able to have fun.

The day was fine, and the forecast for the next day not so good, so I walked down to the river and took the last cruise of the day - hardly an economic proposition for the owners, as the fair-sized boat only carried one family and me. I enjoyed this cruise much more than the canal trip in Gloucester, as there were plenty of interesting buildings to admire. Afterwards I did part of the wall walk. Aside from the walls, Chester's main claim to fame is it's medieval 'rows', the two crossing main streets, originally laid out by the Romans, lined with Tudor style buildings, with arcades. You can walk under the arcades, at ground level, or one level up, in both cases with shelter from sun and rain. These streets were mobbed with tourists during the day, but I quickly discovered that I could shake the crowds simply by going up, and walking above ground.

The day I left Chester I visited the Grosvenor Museum, just round the corner from my rather unsatisfactory guesthouse, and across the street from Chester's historic racecourse, first used as such in 1539. I found the Roman artifacts surprisingly disappointing, and the impressive display of local silver too brightly lit. I was glad to have seen Chester again, but the crowds convinced me that August was not the best time to visit.

You're welcome, ann. Surprised you haven't been to north Wales. I suppose Snowden is top of your list?>>

strangely enough I'm not that bothered about going there, thursdaysd. Part of it is the difficulty of getting there - it's a bit like the old joke about the driver who asks how to I get to X? "well, I wouldn't start from here" comes the answer.

Nor have we ever been to Chester.

I know - daft, isn't it?

glad you got there and appear to have enjoyed it.

<b>August 25: Pretty Port Sunlight</b>

Chester would make a reasonable base for a day trip to Liverpool, which I am told now has a revitalized river area, with good new museums. However, none of the museums particularly interested me, and I chose to visit Port Sunlight on the Wirral peninsula instead. Although my elder sister and her family had lived on the Wirral, between the Mersey and the Dee, for some years, and we had visited often, somehow we had never gone to Port Sunlight, even though we lived in Letchworth, the First Garden City, a town begun on somewhat similar principles.

Port Sunlight was built as a company town, but it should in no way be confused with the infamous company towns in the US designed by mine owners to effectively enslave their workers. Lord Leverhulme, born William Lever, the founder of Lever Brothers (now part of Unilever), wanted his employees to have healthy accommodation with light and air, and the village was laid out with plenty of open space and facilities for communal activity. He also provided health care for his employees, and was an advocate of old age pensions. Although the excellent small museum informed me that the houses had been built in north-west vernacular style, many of them could have been transplanted from Letchworth, in the south-east. Port Sunlight was begun a couple of decades before Letchworth, but the Quaker founders of the latter were in close contact with Lord Lever, and the 1902 meeting of the Garden City Association was held in Liverpool with Lord Leverhulme presiding, so the similarities are perhaps not surprising. Letchworth, however, was a town rather than a village, much bigger and with a commercial center and multiple factories.

Among the facilities for communal activity were dining halls - separated by sex in the early years - and a hall for concerts. I was interested to discover that the first concert the Beatles performed after Ringo Starr took over as drummer, was held in Port Sunlight. Of course, the village is no longer so tied to Unilever, although there is still a factory on site, and the current arrangements, which include restrictions on the appearance of the buildings, expire next year.

The communal ethos led to a mass sign up of volunteers for the First World War, and a large war memorial dominates a central park. Nearby is a memorial area for the victims of the Hillsborough soccer disaster in 1989. In contrast I found an unusual floral sun dial. If you stood on the correct month stone, your shadow would fall on the stone for the hour - one set for "natural" time, and one for summer time. As the instructions pointed out, you needed sunshine for it to work, and therefore I couldn't try it.

Lord Leverhulme amassed a considerable collection of art, and built a classically-styled museum to hold it. Unfortunately, I was rather tired by the time I visited it, and didn't spend as much time as it deserved inside. I did admire a considerable collection of Wedgewood china, an unusual Tang horse, and some Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

Walking to one of the two stations serving the village to catch a commuter train back to Chester, I passed a bowling green with a small group of serious-looking men in possession. Further on, a larger group of women were also playing bowls, and on chatting to one of them I learned they were on a group outing. I'm sure Lord Leverhulme would have approved.

Thursdays, it sounds as if Port Sunlight was built very much along the lines as Bournville, the village built by George Cadbury to house the workers in his chocolate factory.

anyway, it all sounds very uplifting. would that present day employers had some of the same altruistic instincts.

Thursdaysd, fabulous blog, great pics, wonderful info.

Thanks so much. We met at that large Fodor's GT in Cambridge before your trip. Really one to remember.

All the best for future travel...

@ann - yes, indeed! Instead of spending a lot of money on lawyers and accountants instead of income tax.... The museum doesn't mention George Cadbury, but it does reference one Titus Salt and Saltaire near Bradford, which I don't remember hearing about before.

@LTD - nice to "meet" you again! Glad you're enjoying the blog. Where are you headed next?

<b>August 26-30, 2016: Houses and History</b>

After Chester I headed back south by train to spend the August Bank Holiday weekend with my elder sister. The train was so packed for the run to Crewe that the reservation system had booked a family with kids into the quiet car. The train largely emptied out at Crewe, but the family remained. My sister lives on the edge of the new(ish) town of Milton Keynes. I say edge advisedly, as I could see sheep and later cows from my bedroom window, and one morning we walked to the local church for coffee, and I found that it had been built in the thirteenth century.

(I suppose this section doesn't really belong on this thread, as my sister drove me everywhere while I stayed with her. I'm not sure how accessible the two houses we visited would be without a car, especially on a Bank Holiday weekend, although Newport Pagnell should be on bus routes.)

The first afternoon we visited Wrest Park, although the weather wasn't very suitable for what is mostly an outdoor attraction. But at least the rain merely threatened. The de Greys first settled at Wrest in the fourteenth century, but the formal gardens were begun in the second half of the seventeenth century by Amabel, the wife of the 10th earl. Further extended in the next century, the finishing touches were supplied by Britain's great landscape architect 'Capability' Brown. The current house itself, built only in the 1830s, is mostly off limits to visitors, but we did see some of the ground floor rooms, resolutely French and unfurnished. After a checkered career in the 20th century, including stints as a military hospital and a research institute, the house and grounds are now in the care of English Heritage. The grounds were extensive, decorated with statues, and with the 'Long Water' leading to an impressive baroque pavilion.

The next day we went back to Waddesdon Manor, which we had visited in 2014 for the Christmas decorations. The decorations had been impressive, with plenty of pretty trees in the house, and some imaginative light features in the grounds, but we really hadn't been able to appreciate the rooms and furnishings. This time we made a day of it, with morning coffee in the cafe in the former stables, a formal (and very good) lunch in the restaurant, a two hour tour of the building with audio guide, and coffee with scones and clotted cream to top things off. I could easily have spend longer, as the house was full of interesting and beautiful objects, and the audio guide was informative. The house was built in the 1870s for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, who wanted a house in the style of a Loire chateau, where he could entertain weekend guests. We had visited another Rothschild house, Ascott, the last time I stayed with my sister, and that, too, had been well worth seeing.

And on Bank Holiday Monday we went over to Newport Pagnell for a Civil War reenactment. Yes, the English Civil War - I confess that I have now lived in the US long enough that my first thought was of the Union versus the Confederacy, but England had a Civil War, too. Fought between supporters of the monarchy on one side, and Parliament on the other, it started in 1642 and the fighting ended in 1651. Depending on how you look at it, though, it might be said to have finally ended with the restoration of Charles II in 1660, Charles I having been executed in 1649. The intervening years had featured first a Commonwealth and then a Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell. It had not been a popular regime, and after Cromwell's death there was no enthusiasm for continuing it. The monarchy after the war, however, was a different institution than it had been before, when Charles I insisted that he ruled by divine right and could ignore Parliament. I consider the Civil War more important for the development of democracy in England than the Magna Carta, although it seems to be the Magna Carta that gets all the attention.

I have always been a little conflicted about the Civil War. The Royalists (I knew them as Cavaliers, and the opposition as Roundheads, but the reenacters objected to those terms) seemed more dashing and romantic, and the Parliamentarians overly somber and puritanical, but intellectually, of course, I supported Parliament. However, here there was a supporter of Parliament got up in wig and lace, and it is certainly true that even aristocratic families could be split over which side to support.

The reenactment itself was a bit sedate, and seemed to be more for the participants than the audience, as despite a lot of gunfire and even cannon fire, no one acted killed or injured during the half hour we watched. There was a fair amount of marching and drumming, and the small contingent of horse galloped around every so often, but it was mostly a big photo op. Off the field of battle tents were set up with various demonstrations and I was pleased to see a spinning wheel actually in use.

Just tuned into this as we are now thinking of Wales for next year. I enjoyed reading on your blog to see the photos alongside the text.

Funny reply from the Shrewsbury hotel about your review. Wonder if that was an error? They seemed to respond appropriately to other poor reviews.

<i>> The absolute best time to visit Bodnant is when the laburnum arcade is in flower</i>

Some Googling says that is typically late May - early June. What if we went a month earlier, do you think we might see daffodils, rhododendron, maybe even blue poppy then? I guess I can write Bodnant...

We just returned from the California redwoods, very interesting to see the tallest one in the UK is there.

Thanks much for the report, a Uzbekistan stopover was not something you'd expect here!

Great information and an enjoyable insight into the history of the area.
Thanks for taking me along :)

hi thursdaysd,

just caught up with the end of your trip. I've never been to a civil war re-enactment [or any other, for that matter] so it was very interesting to read your thoughts about it. Good detail about the civil war too and I agree about its importance in British history and how it's often overlooked.

Shame the trip [and the report] are over!

Nelson - as I say I've not been to Bodnant, but I'd have thought that there should be rhododendrons at that time of year plus a few late camellias and magnolias but most of the daffs are likely to be over; I've no idea about the blue poppies!

Bookmarking

We went to Bodnant garden several times and it is my favorite garden ever.
We were there the first week in June and loved the spectacular laburnum arcade.
Actually that year camellias and azaleas were still in bloom then, too, but I think that was an unusual year. We have also been there in September.

@Nelson - glad you've been enjoying it! I just did a little bit of Wales this trip, lots more to see. Also highly recommend the Pembrokeshire coast.

@ann - actually, not quite over! I had another week in England after the Bank Holiday. Another three or maybe four posts to go before I flew off to Istanbul. (Note, since my senior rail card and Royal Oak membership are good until summer next year, am considering having another shot at getting to the Scillies in the spring. Maybe after a return to Sicily.)

(Note, since my senior rail card and Royal Oak membership are good until summer next year, am considering having another shot at getting to the Scillies in the spring. Maybe after a return to Sicily.)>>

lol, I sent an email to a friend when I was in Sicily and she sent a reply saying that if we had time, we should pop over to Tresco! Do check google if you decide on the Scillies - they are talking about resurrecting the helicopter; however it's not likely to be in the air until the spring of 2018.

http://www.cornishman.co.uk/isles-of...ail/story.html

Civil war; we had a bunch of them including the War of the Roses and the Anarchy to name but two. Nothing to be proud about but you can see why the survivor's descendants like the idea of democracy.

13th century church: so, a modern one ;-)

@thursdayd, Thanks again, it's great report. In my brief research the Pembrokeshire coast and Wye Valley have turned up as two good possibilities to spend some time. I'll post my own thread if this plan starts to gel.

Just saw your Not-So-Golden-Raod report, now looking forward to enjoying that.

@annhig, yes I didn't expect all your flowers would bloom at the same time for our benefit. :) I'll check out or contact some gardens there to see if they have posted an average schedule. For us in Colorado daffodils try to bloom in April, but then get wiped out by a late season snowfall. We scramble to try to cover them with plastic or 5 gallon buckets, Happens about every year.

Nelson, we have no problems with daffs being wiped out by snow here in Cornwall but I'm not so sure about Bodnant. I'd be interested to see what yo find out.

Ann, I just sent Bodnant an email to see if it ever happens.

Turns out they have a short approximate bloom schedule page here, I had missed this earlier when I was on the National Trust site:
http://www.bodnantgarden.co.uk/flower.html

Further research shows that the best time to see puffins in Pembrokeshire is May and June, so that's a new decision factor. Seems like we are in no-lose territory here!