Caerphilly Castle.

After a quiet week resting and recovering it was time to start exploring. We only have 8 weeks and we don't want to miss anything. We had been left a great stack of pamphlets of places to go and after sorting through them we thought a castle was a good place to start. Plus it was Asher's birthday on Sunday and so we wanted to do something interesting for it.

Thankfully we have Google Maps and so finding places is actually easy. So we plugged in Caerphilly Castle and headed off. 

Our first discovery was a small stone circle. These are similar to Stonehenge, though much smaller. For those that have read Outlander, you know that these are important. Though I have a feeling the one Claire went through is much bigger. I looked for Jamie though but only found these guys.




It was a perfect place for a good jump though.


A war memorial.


And there it was Caerphilly Castle, a proper castle with a moat and a leaning tower. We hoped to find a dragon too.


We wandered around the park towards the entrance, enjoying the view and the parts we could get too.






We made it to the entrance, escaping the terrifying geese that seemed to surround the park.



Yes, we did find some dragons!!! And they had babies. Soo cute. Not dangerous either, though we didn't get to pat them.



The great hall, which was due to host a wedding that afternoon. The smells coming from the kitchen were making us all drool. The hall was well kept and had a beautiful wooden ceiling. 




Asher and Hannah found a staircase that leads to nowhere.

















 They had a few things for children to explore, including a maze, which we did and found the centre. We then lost Asher for a bit. Opps.



We decided that instead of losing the kids we'd just lock them up for a bit.



This is the leaning tower. It leans more than Pisa. This is because a long number of years ago they decided to destroy all the castles so a few cannonballs went into it and made lots of it fall down. This and the subsidence in the land made this tower lean. Luckily for us, someone in the 1800's decided to fix the castle and that is what we see today.




Some siege weapons. We wanted to have a go but weren't allowed. 



Instead, we played a bit of croquet, though I use that term 'played' loosely. Basically, everyone ran around whacking their ball through the holes as fast as they could. Philistines.




The choir warms up before their performance at the wedding. They sounded so beautiful. They did 'The Prayer', it was haunting. We waited around for a while, got to see the Groomsmen (and there were many) having their photos done. Dan got hungry so we ended up leaving and then returning because the bridesmaid (and thier were many) and bride finally arrived. Ahhh to be married in a castle would be pretty cool.




Finally, said Dan, we can eat our picnic. And luckily the geese were all napping. We tried to be very quiet so they didn't wake. 



Alas.




I won't say who freaked out the most. But I've never seen Hannah move so fast. 

Thanks, Caerphilly, you were a great introduction of Welsh Castles.


Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 4, 2018 at 2:22 AM

    Love your writing style hugely Sharon. I think you and Travel Man Richard Ayoade could co-share!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mrs SpraggOctober 7, 2018 at 5:43 AM

      Thanks Martin, it is nice to hear that others enjoy what I am putting out into the universe. Dan has suggested that I write a travel blog as a job but I'm not so sure haha.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousOctober 4, 2018 at 11:45 AM

    Ahhh! Proper castles x Ahhh Proper geese! Loving the 'Let's see which creature we can feature' in your Blogs. The Garden Slugs may take some beating but Geese AND Dragons come a close second guys! Beautiful place isn't it! Try some Caerphilly Cheese (can you?) H misses her cheeses! You are all doing so well not to be 'Travel-Seen-ed' out! Only 8 weeks... There's a lot you can do in 8 weeks and we can't wait to see what :) Castell Coch was originally a Norman Castle built around the same time as my home church, might be on your horizon and Caerphilly Mountain just to say you have! By the way - the RUFUS leap takes first place too - Un braf! (nice one!) x Enjoy x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mrs SpraggOctober 8, 2018 at 3:08 AM

      It sure is beautiful. We did see lots of cheese but haven't really tasted any. We've been to Castell Coch too, check out a blog in a few days. It is amazing the level of time and age that exists here. It wouldn't be a real adventure without a RUFUS leap.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All roads lead to ...

Image
Before we left the beautiful city of Florence, we had one more place to visit. The Cathedral of the Basilica. So after packing up our gear, finding a place to leave our bags for the day, we headed through the already hot streets to stand in line. And the line was long, and it wasn't even opening time.  Once the doors opened the line moved quickly and in no time we were in the Cathedral. We weren't too sure what to expect, but clearly, they had spent most of the money and energy on designing the outside of the building. It was still very large and had some lovely features. The dome was particularly stunning. There was a whole mass happening in one corner, and you couldn't even hear it. Amazing how these old churches were designed to accommodate multiple things happening.   We discovered that the crypt was included in our pass, so we thought we would head down to discover it. Some of us were a bit nervous at first, however, we soon discovered it...
Read more

Addio Roma

Image
Packing up and trying to work out what to do with our gear is never that fun, however, our kind Air BnB host had allowed us to leave our bags in the apartment till we left at 4pm. This meant we could still tick off a couple of destinations without carrying 10kg or so on our backs.  Today's destinations were the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. The bus ride was easy and the walk through the little Italian streets made it quite delightful. You can always tell you are getting close though by the increase in tourists. And then we were there.  The large fountain towering over us with ... no water.  What?  Isn't it a fountain.  Turns out the thing is being cleaned, so instead we got to see men giving it a bit of a water blast. Fun.  We did some googling and found out that it is the end of an aqueduct, the only one left functioning after the Barbarians destroyed the rest. (Barbarians!) It used to be in a slightly different pl...
Read more

It's big, it's hot and it leans ...

Image
Our only full day in Florence. We had a lot to fit in. The first thing was to try our luck at getting into the gallery where 'The David' is. The line was already massive so we paid a little extra and got into a guided tour.  We were glad. No big lines, no fussing over tickets, no audio guides. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and we learnt so much about the art and the artists. We also could go around the gallery once we were finished our tour. This piece was amazing. It was by Jean de Boulogne. It was actually the plaster cast, not the real thing. When artists created their works they created a plaster cast first then the actual statue. Usually, they get destroyed but Jean didn't because he liked it so much, he kept it for himself.  This is one of the prisoners. They were created by Michaelangelo (photographed below) and were supposed to be unfinished. They were stunning and we loved hearing about their background. m But the real ...
Read more