Gwynedd

We are in the pretty village of Beddgelert in Northern Wales for 2 nights. On the way here from Al’s place we made a great stop at Caernarfon where the 3 boys raced around the castle. It’s a good castle if it’s your first one because it’s intact and you can roam up and down the various towers and hide in little nooks and crannies. Mason was heard to yell “ peasants” over the wall at the tourists below. We also took some time to check out the Museum of the Royal Welch Fusilliers which is housed in the castle. Interesting regimental history and the boys looked for all the Parrys. They also thought the “ mascot” ( a goat ) was pretty funny.
We are in a lovely country inn in Beddgelert and have enjoyed the full Welsh breakfasts provided each morning.
Yesterday we tackled the mountain - our reason #1 for visiting Wales was for Mike to climb Mount Snowdon with his 3 Parry grandsons - Rogan, Kaleb and Mason. The weather was looking very bleak but we headed out dressed in all of the clothing we had. It was a very tough climb made harder by the slippery rocks and very damp and windy conditions. We finally reached the summit after 3 hours of slogging and were rewarded with absolutely no view at all because we were in the clouds! But the cafeteria had hot tea and chocolate which we enjoyed. A few of us made the wise decision to travel down by train. The rest of the gang did the walk down on a much less steep track to Llaamberis. Last night we all had some well deserved drinks and pub dinners after long hot showers. Al and Natalie were with us and Al’s sons Dan and Mike ( the younger Mike Parry)

This morning we visited Gelert’s grave and Al soulfully recounted the sad story of the dog named Gelert who protected Prince Llewellen’s baby son from wolfs only to be killed by his master who mistakenly thought Gelert had attacked the baby. A sad tale and a good example of why one should never quickly jump to conclusions. It’s also a great example of good marketing as the whole story was concocted as a way to attract visitors to the village. Al didn’t include that part of the story but I know that.
Today we say goodbye to the UK Parrys and point our cars south to the town of Cardigan where we have rented a holiday cottage for 3 nights. That’s it for now.
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