We traveled up the coast and made brief stops in the area where I had my first job, Aberporth, and the local market town of Cardigan.
This is the beach at Aberporth, where I spent a lot of time during the summers when I worked nearby. I actually lived in the village that adjoins this beach, and have a lot of happy memories from this part of the world.
I had often wanted to visit CAT, the Center for Alternative Technology, so we stopped by for a short visit. CAT is just outside the town of Machynlleth and, for the past 40 years has focused on all aspects of sustainable living. It was interesting to see all of the demonstrations of power generation, sustainable buildings and organic agriculture.
The next stop was a two-night stay in the town of Criccieth, which is on the coast and close to Portmeirion, the focus of our visit here. You will notice there is also a castle here.
We arrived early at Portmeirion and found it fairly quiet, no doubt because of the rain! We took a great number of photographs and stayed most of the day, as the rain did stop, but it continued to blow a gale. Fortunately, Portmeirion is quite sheltered, making for a fun visit.
Well, at least when the rain stopped.
The whole village is a collection of Italian style houses and villas, built between 1925 and 1975 by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis. His goal was to create a beautiful place to attract artists and holiday-makers. His grandson is still involved today.
The village overlooks this wide river estuary with huge expanses of sand exposed at low tide.
Portmeirion also has an artist residency program and this is Briony Clarke, the current artist. We had a very long and interesting visit with her and discussions about her art form. She has created an interesting process of letting the incoming sea deposit natural inks onto submerged paper, quite amazing.
A quick glimpse of Criccieth castle with the stiff wind still blowing as we moved on to the next North Wales stop.
I realize that reading the Welsh place names may be a challenge for some, but this is the small town we stopped in next. The main focus was to take the train to the top of Mount Snowdon. We could have hiked up and down, but we took the easy way up. As mountains go, it is not very high, but has a lot of demanding sections for climbers and as such, Edmund Hillary practiced here before he and his team made the first successful ascent of Mount Everest.
The train track to the summit is quite steep and the engines engage a toothed center rail to provide the necessary "grip".
Some pretty steep drop-offs.
As I said, we could have walked. this is one view of the path. We saw one group who had ridden/pushed their mountain bikes to the top and presumably were going to ride down!
The summit was in low cloud when we got there, but I managed to climb to the actual summit.
Diane didn't want go any higher!
The weather can be highly changeable, this was the scene as we descended the mountain.
Next stop was Bodnant Gardens, one of the best gardens in Britain. It is a National Trust property and is really well maintained. The house is privately owned and not open to the public.
The house is beautifully situated and looks over many acres of gardens and lawns.
The lily pond.
It was a bit early for a big display of lilies in flower, but there were a few to photograph.
It was quite dark inside, but the little Sony did a pretty good job of getting an idea of the details.
We made a stop in Betws-y Coed, probably the most miss-pronounced village name in Wales!
This is the kind of rugged countryside that we drove through, makes you realize why there are so many sheep farms in this part of Wales.
We stopped in Ruthin, the home town of a good friend.
I thought it was just another rock until I looked closer!
Well, I guess it was good to be King.
Next stop Chester and then on to the the Lake District.
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