Conwy
Day 6
8,065 steps (3.05 miles)
Fri June 13 - 68°
Group Activities
At 8:30 am, we said goodbye to Stow and drove through some beautiful countryside on our way to Stokesay Castle. We were given another audioguide and sent on our way to explore the castle and grounds. It was surrounded by the wonderful green hills I love.
Chris at the top
of the tower
Me and Avery at the
bottom of the tower
After meandering through the castle and tower, we headed to the cafe for our included cream tea of scones, cream, jam and tea. It was absolutely divine and in the most beautiful surroundings. (The cover image on the homepage was taken here). This was definitely one of my favorite spots.
We left Stokesay around noon and began our journey to Conwy. About halfway through, the coach stopped at Llangollen for a break. We headed out for a short walk along the River Dee, and you can see the signs here are in both English and Welsh. We were only here for 45 minutes, but we took so many pictures because it was lovely!
After the chance to stretch our legs, we had another couple hours to get to Conwy. Deb always had yummy local snacks to share with us on the coach (like flapjacks). On the way, we had a baby sheep and its mother block the road for a little while. But they were adorable so it was no problem. Our home for the next two nights was The Castle Hotel.
We actually had two rooms here as they didn't have a triple. Deb offered an optional walk around the town and city walls, and these felt like the narrowest streets we saw anywhere. By this time it was cloudy and rainy, which really added to the atmosphere of the city. We did a little more wandering on our own, then met up for a provided group dinner at the hotel.
A cute hello was waiting
in Chris' room
The dinner was at the hotel restaurant. All three of us had a leg of lamb with potatoes and broccoli. Chris and I finished it off with sticky toffee pudding while Avery opted for ice cream. And so ended another day.
Conwy Castle
Day 7
4,062 steps (1.56 miles)
Sat June 14 - 65°
This morning the coach could only take us so far...the rest of the (short) trip was in a trailer pulled by a tractor. We were visiting the farm of Gareth Wyn Jones. He gave a fun demonstration with his sheepdogs, and 2 members of the tour were his volunteer helpers.
And there were puppies!!!
Group Activities
Our ride to the farm
After convincing Avery there was no possible way we could bring one of the puppies home, we climbed on the coach and wended our way to Caernarfon Castle. We had a guided tour with Sue, and then some time to ourselves. We learned a lot about the historical relationship between England and Wales.
Avery is easy to spot,
but can you find Chris?
After looking through the gift shop, we left the castle to find some lunch on our own. We knew we wanted to try sausage rolls while in England, so we found Gregg's, a well-known bakery chain. We took our rolls and enjoyed them on a bench in Castle Square. The birds in the area were eyeing us the whole time. With full bellies we rejoined the group for a scenic drive through Snowdonia National Park.
Snowdonia really was beautiful. There were lots of small waterfalls from the rain, and we stopped a couple times for photos. Deb offered an optional walk to a ruined castle as well, which Chris decided to do. We noticed a company that provides horses for films were in the park too. Apparently, lots of filming going on around us on this trip as this was the second time we encountered something like this (and wouldn't be the last). When we returned to Conwy around 5 pm, we had dinner on our own at Johnny Dough's for pizza. We did our first round of 'sink laundry' in our bathroom this evening, then packed up in preparation for moving on tomorrow.
Let's head to
