Whoops, I got a little bit distracted the last few days and didn't quite finish my story of Wales.




July 17 - Snowdonia National Park

After catching a bus from Caernarfon at about 9:30AM, we arrived in Llanberis a half hour later. No picture can do this part of Wales justice: it is absolutely breath-taking. (This is after all the place where fairy tales are born and King Arthur reigned). Instead of exhausting, and potentially killing, ourselves Mike and I took a little steam engine to the top of Mount Snowdon. The whole trip took about 2.5 hours, including 30 minutes at the top; being surrounded by singing Welsh people only made the experience better. It is my wish to someday come back to this place to hike and camp in the mountains for some long period of time. Before jumping on a bus to Bangor, we had a bite at a quaint inn with a rather bawdy waitress. Traveling through the countryside on the bus gave us the chance to see some of the very small villages full of 'real' British folk.



July 17-18 - Bangor

Not a whole lot to say about Bangor. It is the home to Bangor University, a University of Wales institution, but as for things to do, basically you can drink, walk around, or both. We chose to do both. It is built into and along a valley, so one is bound to walk up and down steep hills if they want to go anywhere. There is a pretty nice pier at the very northern end of town that allows you to walk pretty far into Menai Srait and look out over the Irish Sea.
When we woke up on the 18th it was raining and predicted to do so for the rest of the day. Although our scheduled train was to leave at 2:30PM, our tickets allowed us to catch any train running that day back to London-Euston, so we boarded the 10:30 and were back in London by 2.

This coming weekend I plan to stay near London, perhaps spending a night in Cambridge and maybe a day trip to the areas west of London: Stonehenge & Bath.

Cheers