For spring break this year, we travelled to Anglesey in Wales to visit our friends, John and Rhonda, affectionately known as Johnda. We met in Dubai, where we spent many years hanging out and getting to know them. We have even travelled together.
In case you didn’t know, Anglesey is an island off the north west coast of Wales. I’ll share a map below with the locations of a few of the photos that I have taken. You can see the full gallery here.
You will also notice that the ocean, or at least the Irish Sea is never far away. During our visit, we went for some amazing walks on long deserted beaches.
John’s family owns a dairy farm where John and Rhonda are staying until they find their own home. The property is near the site of a Roman fort, which has some connection to a famous Welsh woman named Elen from the 4th century. There is a legend of her marrying a Roman commander and becoming the founders of a Welsh dynasty.
The cattle on the farm were very welcoming.
We went to view the operations, and were a bit suprised to see the cattle come right up to us. The only thing stopping them was the cattle grate on the ground.
In days gone by, the Welsh were quite the crowd, defending their land first from Romans and then the &^&^%$ English. They were quite successful until King Edward the First came along in the early 14th century. To protect his newly acquired Welsh territories, he built several castles to keep the Welsh under control.
Beaumaris was built in Anglesey, I believe, to be a house fit for a king. It was supposed to the most beautiful of all castles. As it stands now, it is quite spectacular. You can read about it here.
I have added a few more photos of the castle in a gallery, which you can view here
We also visited another castle built by King Edward in Caernarfon, which you can read about here. King Edward’s son, and the future King Edward the 2nd, was born in this castle. To gain legitimacy, Edward wanted his son to be ‘Welsh’ by being born in Wales (a first instance of birthright citizenship??). This was, I believe, the start of the tradition of calling the heir to the British throne, the Prince of Wales. In fact King Charles, was invested as the Prince of Wales in this castle in 1969.
Some parts of the castle were still quite well preserved and functional, whereas other sections had not survived so well.
Unfortunately, the weather did not allow for the quite spectacular backdrop of mountains to show through. The castle is in the middle of the city, on a river and so there are marvelous views all around.
Interestingly, Anglesey is the closest point in the UK to Ireland …
… and so makes a great place to put a ferry terminal to Ireland and a lighthouse for those ferries.
At the far, eastern side of the island is the Menai Bridge, which at the time of construction was one of the biggest or pehaps longest suspension bridges in the world.
We did do a lot of walking around the countryside. There is no shortage of hiking paths, some of which are guarded by sentinels.
These sheep were, as noted earlier, just about everywhere.
Wherever we went for a walk, we were greeted with amazing views of rolling hills and pastureland enclosed in rock walls …
… and more lovely beaches, such as this one at Trearddur Bay
Because of its rich soil and resource wealth, it was part of the Roman empire for two and a half centuries. This small settlement from the 3rd century at Din Lligwy shows how well built the houses were to withstand the weather, and perhaps roving hordes of barbarians.
One odd thing I did notice while driving around Anglesey was that while Anglesey itself was relatively flat, with lightly rolling hills, as soon as you leave the island, the land becomes very mountainous …
… and the views quite spectacular.
As a final note, I recall from an old Guiness Book of World Records from about 1970 or so, that the longest place name in the world was in Wales. Apparently, it is actually the second longest, but this world record entry for place names always stuck with me. Here it is on the side of the local train station.
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