Thursday opened fairly grey and wet. We dawdled over breakfast to see what it would develop into. It started to clear up, but still looked very threatening. We decided to do a little car touring again, planning to stop places where we could get out and walk if the weather collaborated.
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First stop was <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Bodnant</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Garden</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>, an estate run by the national trust. The gardens were just wonderful. Almost everyone we had spoken with had identified it as a must see, particularly given the season. The vast majority of the plants were in some kind of bloom.
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The feature of the place is the laburnum arch – more than 100 feet of arched trellis with laburnum trained over it. I had been seeing laburnum all over the place, but didn’t know its name till then. It’s a fairly ordinary looking tree except that when it blooms it comes out in bunches of vibrant yellow flowers that look something like bunches of grapes but also seem like little fountains of water. I had heard the expression dripping with blossom before, but these really showed me what it meant. So at Bodnant, we walked under this long archway with these drippy yellow blossoms hanging from the ceiling and filtering the light. They also gave off a very pleasant scent, although it did remind me of the scent of lemon towels a certain stratum of oriental restaurant trots out to the diners after a meal.
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The formal gardens around the house are in five tiers of terraces, then you get down into a whole valley floor planted with a mix of the same kinds of plants we’d been seeing in the forests and a range of exotics, all carefully placed and mixed. There are also a few historical buildings, some of which had always been on the site and some of which were brought there. All in all a stunning place to wander around, and so over the top, there was no danger of getting ideas we would think we had to replicate in our tiny garden at home.
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The place was alive with senior citizens and families. We only saw two other apparently childless but child feasible aged couples in the place.
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Next destination was the walled town of <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Conwy</st1:place></st1:City>. It must have become unimportant and economically distressed for some chunk of its history, because it still has nearly all of its walls. (If it had been more important, it would have grown over them and hence destroyed them. If it had ever had gobs of money, it would have pulled them down to recycle the stones into new, grand buildings.) You can still do the wall walk around more than 2/3rds of the town as we did, which is an enjoyable though sometimes vertiginous way to see it.
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We also toured the castle – in a state of repair that makes it particularly easy to see how the castle was meant to work as a fortification. It was very much like crawling around a life sized cutaway model. The part of it that will stay with me forever, though, wasthat they had the most ridiculous set of precautionary warnings of various dangers while touring the castle with accompanying graphics. The one for “Some spaces are dark, be sure to allow your eyes to adjust before proceeding” looked like “This castle may give some visitors a severe migraine.”
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We also toured the oldest house in town which was cute. The introductory video said the house had a near brush with being bought and carried off to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>, but when we asked the people at the house which American had tried to buy it, we got very silly answers given in a way that made it clear they didn’t know and were making them up.
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Third stop was Llandudno which we never heard said twice in the same way, so I have no idea how it should really be pronounced. It is a mid sized seaside resort. I have a bad habit when car touring of pulling into the first likely looking parking spot then charging out to see where I am after. I just hate driving and especially driving through winding little town streets that much. This is a habit that has gotten me (and my traveling companions) a lot of healthy exercise and a certain amount of “What the other tourists don’t see (because it’s just a long street of dull apartment blocks)” over the years. This was no exception.
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We were driving along and passed a now entering sort of sign for Llandudno. I saw the ocean on the left and a blue square with a white P on it. Within moments, we were parked on a side street one block in from the seashore. I figured we’d arrived. We walked along the promenade, but it all seemed pretty squidgy. When we found a map board, it turned out we’d found what was essentially the back alley <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">beach</st1:PlaceType> of <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Llandudno</st1:PlaceName></st1:place>. The main beach was the other side of the peninsula.
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It’s not a very thick peninsula, and Sara didn’t want to put up with me whining about driving some more and having to figure out where else to park, so we walked the main street through residential Llandudno. I was interested to see this town. I’d heard for years how dull and cheerless British seaside resorts were, and I was eager to see whether it was true. I am glad to say Llandudno delivered. When we found the actual promenade, it was much larger than the version we’d found at first, but no more interesting. They call it a beach, but it’s nearly all stones. The block facing the beach is an almost solid overcast of 19th century hotel frontages – picture a long curve of white wall with black framed windows relieved only by the occasional extravagant cast iron entry way. Some of the hotels are different shades of white.
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The street one block further in land is solid shopping – almost all chains. Some of the architecture is glorious old Victorian excess, but nothing in any of those buildings was open. This brings us to one of my real frustrations as a visitor in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Wales</st1:place></st1:country-region>. It stays full daylight till well past 9 PM, buteverything closes up at 5 or 6 at the latest. As nearly as we can tell, the only thing anyone does in the evenings is go to dinner, then lock themselves in their rooms till breakfast. Llandudno does offer a few thrill ride attractions, most of them various ways to get up to the top of Great Orme head which borders one end of the beach. There’s also reportedly a prehistoric copper mine up there, but all these attractions and the transport to them were long closed by the time we got to town. I’m not saying I wanted to ride a cable car up to the top of a hill overlooking a boring seaside resort, but I don’t understand why I didn’t have the option.
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We had a nice Indian dinner, then walked back to our car to drive back to Betsy and lock ourselves into our room until breakfast.
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Again, no measured walking, but between the gardens, the walls of Conwy, and my unique approach to parking in strange towns, I’m sure we put more than 6 miles behind us.
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