From the Lake District

We’ve moved on a bit since my last post, spending nights at Fishguard and Barmouth before leaving Wales and staying last night at Chester.
I’m pretty sure that old age is rushing up on me, having left our map and guidebook at our bed and breakfast in Fishguard and this morning needing to go back for my phone. However we’re having a great, if rather rushed, holiday. Following the last post from Pembroke we spent the morning visiting the castle, we have noticed that castles invariably are amazingly situated and Pembroke on a river/pond bend is no exception. In the afternoon we went to St David’s where we really enjoyed the cathedral set down in it’s valley so it is almost hidden. That night near Fishguard our B & B was fine but the area feels a bit depressed  and finding a meal was difficult and once found was rubbish but fun (very basic fish and chips for Quilliam and Paulette ordered a vegieburger, expecting vegetables in a bun, but got a dry burger bun with some sort of a dry patties in it but no butter, sauce or anything else). Still the girl serving was lovely and the apple pie dessert was fine.
Castell Henllys reconstructed iron age fort was our next stop with a visiting school group wandering around dressed up in costumes from 2500 years ago. Stops in Cardigan and Aberystwyth, where we lunched and visited the seaside castle, followed before we drove to the attractive seaside resort of Barmouth where we spent the night.
Yesterday we started our sightseeing with a visit to Portmeirion (where the TV program The Prisoner was filmed). It’s an incredibly picturesque, fake, village with a great peninsula site. Then from the sublime to something else, we visited the Llechwedd Slate Caverns where we had a tour in a minute train into the mountain where slate was mined from the 1800’s until the 1970’s. Lunch and a stroll in Betwys-y-Coed came next before joining the motorway at Conwy and speeding to Chester.
Walking the walls was the highlight of Chester although window shopping in the rows was pretty neat, at least for Paulette. We bought a cool toy for the grandchildren.
Feeling concerned that we were getting behind schedule we motorwayed again today on the M6 stopped in Kendal and tonight we are in a characterful guest house in Windermere where we plan to spend two nights.
The sketch above was drawn while we were dining at Barmouth.