It is now September 12th, Tuesday, last full day of seeing things before we head south to our flat in Surrey. Fun trip we’ve had. Pat provided a yummy breakfast to start the day. He made us potato cakes, toast, scrambled eggs and mushrooms. We all loved it!
Today we decided to stay close and not drive as much…at least that was the plan. Close by us was a castle and house under National Trust administration. The castle was called Dinefwr and the house was referred to as the Norman House. The town nearest by it was named Llandeilo. To get to the castle from the car park, you had to hike for it about a 15 minutes through pastures and wooded areas, up and down some hills. I’m pretty sure that Denise and Lisa would have preferred driving to it. But that was not a choice as you could only walk to it.
Seeing this castle was not the highlight as much as seeing the valleys around. Oh my gosh, the area was so green and spectacular. The castle was nice too. Like most castles, it was old and this one was a bit run down as it probably needed more maintenance. I don’t think the National Trust has responsibility for the castle, only the house nearby. We walked through the castle, took some photos and then headed back to where we parked the car and then to the Norman House there. We took a different route back to the car park than we took going to the castle. We actually ended up in a pasture for quite awhile walking in nice warm sunshine.
What do I say about the Norman House? They are all starting to feel the same to me. And I’m running out of words to describe them. Big, amazed that people lived in these things, all the art, rugs and old things shown. Very nice…nothing like this exists in America. So I really should be impressed…and I really am.
After leaving the castle, we decided to drive into Swansea. We wanted to go into the National Waterfront Museum there…and we did. It was an interesting museum that really told the industrial history of Wales. It had lots of info on lots of things from music, sports, mechanical things, mining, family life, etcetera. You could spend a long time there. But we did not. As a matter of fact, we did some video chats with some of our family members as they were starting to wake up and begin their day. But we saw lots. Denise got into a language session with an usher who did his best to teach Denise how to pronounce some of the welsh alphabet. So funny to hear them speak it…funnier to hear us try!
After the museum, we headed into downtown as the Swansea castle was quite close…walking distance away. There was also a ‘market’ there that had stalls of people selling various wares. We were able to go to both but the market started to shut down on us. It was only 4:30 PM and was supposed to stay open until 5 PM. I guess they wanted to get home early. The Swansea Castle…not much there. You will see this in the pictures. But it sits in the center of their downtown district where there are plenty of stores and things to go into. And it is a place where kids come to hang out and do no good. As a matter of fact, we watched a man across the way grab a young man on a bike who was stealing the bike. Someone had left the bike outside a store with a grocery bag on it. The young man set the bag down and started to ride off when this man and his partner yelled at him to get off and bring it back…which he did. Later, Pat and I were sitting on the bench still waiting for Denise and Lisa to come out of stores when we say another guy come up to the bike. He looked kind of homeless. When we started to get on the bike, I yelled at him asking if the bike was his. He said it was, got on it and rode off. It must have been as know one else came out to it and we were sitting there for a good while.
After seeing the castle and spending time in shops and at this known market, we headed to an area called ‘Mumbles’. Now apparently Mumbles is the word for ‘breasts’ in French. And lo and behold off the coast there are two small islands that look like a couple of breast out in the water. Quite unique I must say. Now we can say we experienced Mumbles. We thought we might eat there. Instead we headed back to our flat where we had left overs. However, I had no left overs and along the road very close to our flat was a fish and chips place. We stopped there and both Pat and I ordered fish and chips to take home. We both ordered a single piece of fish and small chips. The fish looked like a tuna and the chips filled a garbage bag! However, the oil it was cooked in…to me… to not taste right. I ate the fish…but not many of the potatoes. Oh well, after that, we were in for our final night and an episode of Poldark. :-)
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