Our last full day in Wales · Oct 5, 01:00 PM
Today was our last full day in Wales, so we decided to make the most of it. It was a glorious day – warm and sunny. We drove an hour and a half north to Harlech, yet another of Edward I’s amazing castles. Like the others, it has amazing defenses, amazing views, and is practically impenetrable. It is pretty much the classic, stereotypical textbook castle. It’s a neat castle, but since the stereotype of castles is pretty much based on Harlech, it somehow doesn’t have as much character as some of the other castles we’ve seen. Nonetheless, it was fun to tour it, and fun to eat lunch at a hotel right next to the castle and ponder its edifice as we ate.
Harlech, like Aberystwyth Castle, also has a kitty. This was a big tomcat we named Harry. He was really affectionate, and quite tolerant of a small child who picked him up and lugged him around. He purred a lot, and made bread out of the grass. He also got drool all over Morgan when she was foolish enough to pick him up.
Our next stop was Dinas Emrys. This site has been fortified several times over the years, but what brought us to the site is the fact that it is one of those amazing places where myth and history intersect. This is the site of the ancient Welsh tale of Ludd and Llevelys, and also the site where, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth and many later tellers of the Arthurian legend, Merlin first uttered prophecies. King Vortigern was trying to build a fortress here, and it kept falling down. Merlin predicted that if Vortigern dug a big hole, he would find a white dragon and a red dragon, and they would emerge from the hole and fight, and the red dragon would win. The red dragon represents Wales, and the white dragon represents England. It is because of this story that the red dragon is on the flag of Wales (and every piece of Welsh tourist kitsch ever made). So anyway, Dinas Emrys is an important site in Welsh lore, but there is actually a fortress here, probably actually built by Vortigern, so history and mythology collide at this site.
To get to Dinas Emrys, you have to hike about a mile along a really amazing path through a really amazing forest. As you can see, the whole forest looks too beautiful to be true. If it were in a movie, you would swear the whole forest was computer-generated.
Here are the remnants of the fortress of Dinas Emrys:
Here is the view from Dinas Emrys, which is the highest point for miles and has an incredible command of a valley right below:
When we got back to our caravan this evening, we watched “How Green was my Valley,” a depressing but good old movie about Wales. Now we’re going to go to sleep for the last time in our cozy little home-away-from home. Tomorrow we go back to London, and Wednesday we go back to Seattle.
— MoJo
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— Granny Goodwitch · Oct 6, 09:51 AM · #
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— meghandeath · Oct 17, 05:42 PM · #