I decided to have a history day instead of railways, just for a change, I also wanted some non-tourist shopping (decent snacks for the next coupe of days) so I drove up to Conwy (or Conway as it used to be known).
You can't miss the history, partly due to the extent of the town walls which you're driving in and out of (in my case, while trying to find a car park with reasonable rates). I did find one just outside the walls.
The first thing, once I'd walked up into the town was coffee and Bara Brith. I also located a very good deli for later. I had a wander round, down to the harbour and round by the castle and walls.
Of course I was more interested in the bridges!
You can just see the end of the railway bridge as well in that shot. I did the shopping, including lunch, then headed down the coast, looking out for somewhere to stop and eat. That turned out to be Llanfairfechan, where I could park next to the prom for free. There was a breeze blowing but I had my Pork and Stilton pie and Cheese and Ham roll listening to the surf and watching the world go by. I have to say if I was going out onto the sea there I'd want something bigger than this:
He didn't go far offshore, presumably he was fishing, but even so, it's not a part of the coast to treat lightly.
The next stage was to pop across to Anglesey, just for the sake of it, and visit, as it says on their signs, The Village with the Long Name, Llanfair PG (not risking typing it all). Having missed the parking I looped round by a back lane to a level crossing, as chance would have it a train was due and the keeper was just shutting the gates (no automation here). It did give me a photo opportunity although in the end I only got one chance at this, I think it worked:
After opening the gates the keeper came for a chat, it can't be an interesting job really as he doesn't even have any control, he has to wait for the main box to pull off the locks (lever 37 apparently) on the gates.
I did get some photos of the now virtually redundant station as well before continuing back across to the mainland and down to Caernarfon. I'm quite impressed with my sat-nav's Welsh pronunciation. More driving around to find parking, as I didn't want to pay £5 for all day when I was only going to be a couple of hours at the most, but I got the last space in a small car park on the edge of the town. The weather took a turn for the worse with some brief rain, but it wasn't too bad. The castle itself is difficult to photograph as you can't get far enough away! It must have been terrifying for attackers to realise you'd be caught in a cross fire as soon as you approached the walls.
Tomorrow it's pack up and off to Snowdon. I'm just hoping the weather is good enough for the train to make it all the way to the summit, I'm not convinced it will be, then Saturday we do it the harder way, on foot.
You can't miss the history, partly due to the extent of the town walls which you're driving in and out of (in my case, while trying to find a car park with reasonable rates). I did find one just outside the walls.
The first thing, once I'd walked up into the town was coffee and Bara Brith. I also located a very good deli for later. I had a wander round, down to the harbour and round by the castle and walls.
Of course I was more interested in the bridges!
You can just see the end of the railway bridge as well in that shot. I did the shopping, including lunch, then headed down the coast, looking out for somewhere to stop and eat. That turned out to be Llanfairfechan, where I could park next to the prom for free. There was a breeze blowing but I had my Pork and Stilton pie and Cheese and Ham roll listening to the surf and watching the world go by. I have to say if I was going out onto the sea there I'd want something bigger than this:
He didn't go far offshore, presumably he was fishing, but even so, it's not a part of the coast to treat lightly.
The next stage was to pop across to Anglesey, just for the sake of it, and visit, as it says on their signs, The Village with the Long Name, Llanfair PG (not risking typing it all). Having missed the parking I looped round by a back lane to a level crossing, as chance would have it a train was due and the keeper was just shutting the gates (no automation here). It did give me a photo opportunity although in the end I only got one chance at this, I think it worked:
After opening the gates the keeper came for a chat, it can't be an interesting job really as he doesn't even have any control, he has to wait for the main box to pull off the locks (lever 37 apparently) on the gates.
I did get some photos of the now virtually redundant station as well before continuing back across to the mainland and down to Caernarfon. I'm quite impressed with my sat-nav's Welsh pronunciation. More driving around to find parking, as I didn't want to pay £5 for all day when I was only going to be a couple of hours at the most, but I got the last space in a small car park on the edge of the town. The weather took a turn for the worse with some brief rain, but it wasn't too bad. The castle itself is difficult to photograph as you can't get far enough away! It must have been terrifying for attackers to realise you'd be caught in a cross fire as soon as you approached the walls.
Tomorrow it's pack up and off to Snowdon. I'm just hoping the weather is good enough for the train to make it all the way to the summit, I'm not convinced it will be, then Saturday we do it the harder way, on foot.
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