Wales - Days 3-14

Aug 24
3 min read

Yes, I'm condensing the experience. No time for the day-by-day posts - back home and time to get back to writing. Time to take flight again!

Donning wings at Wells Cathedral - not in Wales, but on the way to Bristol airport.

Wales ended being a lovely time.

Though at first...I struggled.

I'd hoped to get a lot of work done on part 2 of my musical-in-progress, Four Queens - the part that focuses on the English queen, Aliénor.

That's part of the reason we came to Wales. Aliénor's son, Edward I (aka Longshanks cause he's a tall drink of water) made Wales part of England. That's a euphemism. He conquered it.

But Wales is not really a part of Alienor's show - though Edward is. So writing about it started to feel like yet another rabbit hole. And I already have plenty of those.

And we were on the move A LOT. So sitting there patiently and waiting for the spirits to come talk to me....um, didn't happen.

HOWEVER the jury's still out on whether something from this trip ends up in the show.

We saw all four of the huge castles Edward built after he subdued the Welsh - what he called the Iron Ring - to remind them of how he dominated them.

Harlech Castle - furthest south of the Iron Ring

Incredibly, he built all four AT ONCE. Some in as little as four years. Did it kill his architect, the Savoyard James of St. George? He did not live to see the largest, Beaumaris, completed.

At Caernarvon, Edward's queen Eleanor got a gate - very unusual!

Eleanor even gets a room about her - in paper silhouettes. Edward was mad about the girl.

Where is Aliénor in all this? Did she support him in his perhaps questionable assault on the people/country?

She did! She was all about rebuilding the legacy of the English crown, after her husband Henry III lost almost all their lands in France (to be fair, his father King John lost them, too).

While Edward was in Wales, conquering and building, she offered to take care of Edward's children and pay all their expenses, to be his guarantor for money (which he ran out of constantly), and other helpful financial tricks.

Wales was all about King Arthur.

The upper class in the middle Middle Ages were totally obsessed with Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, the Grail. English, French - other "Europeans" probably, too.

From a young age, Aliénor thought of Edward as the next King Arthur, to united the British Isles into a huge realm. He came to think of himself like that, too.

After he trounced the Welsh, took away their laws - he took away their king. He transformed Arthur from a Welsh king to an English one. He took Arthur's crown (well, they say it was his) to England.

It was he who made Prince of Wales the going title for the first born. His wife gave birth to their son Edmund on the building site of Carnaervon - a huge symbol.

There's more - but I'll spare you.

Back to our trip.

We saw castles - Edward's and others.

Cardiff Castle - 1800's restoration by the Marquess and Wm Burgess. Love this!

An incognito monkey - these two guys did have a sense of humor.

We hiked. Biked. Climbed many a treacherous staircase.

This field outside of Cardigan is supposedly where Arthur was buried. There are a few of these supposed burial places...

We chuckled at their signage.

Why do the English not think a scheme is a skeevey thing? Could they be any more genteel in this directive?

I never knew what I was missing. Cardiff. Bute park restroom.

And this sign must have helped us - we didn't die driving on the left-hand side.

Fun Fact - Wales is where "spooning" came from. Young lovesick swains would carve a spoon for their loved ones. These all cost a fortune. (What price love?)

And finally, at the last castle - I FOUND ALIENOR! (if in name only)

And to complete the trip - the obligatory stocks. I have about seven of these photos now - the first was the image on our wedding invitation ("Til death do us...")