Elan Valley

Welsh word of the day: Cwningen: Rabbit
Happy Birthday to my BFFL, Alysha Bobo!

So I haven't updated in a while because I am officially in Aberystwyth and we had no internet all weekend! (Yes it was quite difficult). So I'm going to do an update about the Elan Valley which is a hydro electric power station/ aqueduct for Birmingham, England/ a nature preserve! It's a truly beautiful place and shows how power and sustainability can be beautiful. The architecture is Victorian and all the extra decorations are completely for show. 

The first dam we saw, it seems plain but the decoration on the front is totally unnecessary. The structure that looks like stairs on the far side is for migrating fish.

Just one of many beautiful views of the Elan Valley.

 This is a bridge which is also completely for show. It looks up to the dam shown below and was for Victorian tourists to come and admire the man made structures and how they interacted with natural beauty.

 Perhaps the most ornate of the dams, the structure is for monitoring the water levels of the reservoir behind it. 

 Now this waterfall isn't actually at the Elan Valley but at the Hafod Estate, which was also supposed to be a representation of men and nature but this was to made the nature look 'picturesque' and is where the term is from. Hafod turned his land patch into a place for artists to come and already have the landscape framed in a way that was aesthetically pleasing to paint.

http://www.elanvalley.org.uk/

This is the link to the Elan Valley, I recommend you check it out to get the whole scope of the valley and see the types of animals and plants that can be found in the area. It is owned by a private company and the company seems to me to be incredibly responsible about water preservation, water awareness around the world, and preserving natural habitats as best they can.

Castles and Churches

Well since I've last updated I've probably visited 5-6 castles and probably the same amount of churches. There isn't much to be said about them other than the fact that most of the Castles were built by Edward I (he was English) when he conquered Wales. Some of the churches date back to the 11th and 12th centuries! I'm just going to post some photos of the castles and churches with labels about what they are. Enjoy!

Bangor Cathedral built in the 12th century

Beaumaris Castle, Edward I

The Chapel inside the castle

Conwy Castle, Edward I

This castle's walls are the only ones you can walk all the way around for about 3/4 of a mile. Pictured here is the North Gate and the highest lookout point and you can see for miles and miles.

Caernarfon castle, Edward I

 Catholic Church in Liverpool

Although it's hard to get a sense of the size, and many of the photos turned too dark to show this place was MASSIVE!

Kayaking? Or....

Welsh Word of the Day: Parod: Ready!

So today we were supposed to go kayaking on the Menai Straights (the passage of water between Wales and Anglesey, yes the place where William and Kate live) but instead we had a huge adventure called sea level traversing. 

The Menai Straight

Now, I wasn't able to take any photos, but it's really cool so I'm going to attach a link with some photos to show you what it was like. I'm a little sore and a little scraped up but what an adventure!

http://angleseyadventures.com/sea-level-traversing/

I also updated the Bangor photo album with photos from things we've done. There are photos from the oldest church in Wales (circa 1200) as well as a copper mine, Beaumaris Castle and Penhryn Castle. The password is Bangor. Enjoy!

Pen Afan

Welsh Word of the Day: Nos Da: Good night!

So this will be my last post about Cardiff even though I arrived in Bangor this afternoon and it is going to center around the Valleys and specifically Coal towns,the Brecon Beacons (the mountain range in South Wales), and climbing up Pen Afan (Pronounced, Pen aVan). (Some of you may have noticed that I changed the background picture of my blog and I did it because it looks like Wales and the peak I climbed!)

This is really best explained through photographs (which is why instead of being in the classroom that day we went out to the mountains to do some experiential learning!

So, for a litte history lesson. The South Wales Valleys exist because of coal mining. These mountains have coal seams and as that is one of the Wales' industrial legacy (THE industrial legacy) these towns sprung up in valleys between the mountains. Now these aren't valleys like Bennington, VT these valleys are literally channels between mountains where villages climb on either side. Kind of difficult to explain but below I'll do my best. (Also a note the photos are out of order because Google Blogger isn't exactly the best photo posting site)

So this is one of the aforementioned valley settlements. It's hard to see but the houses are in the crevice between the mountains.

So this is Pen Afan, it's hard to tell how high up it is (ALMOST a real mountain) but this is one of the peaks that we hiked to the top of.

A view from the top of Pen Avan, you can almost see all of Wales! it was an unbelievable view! Unlike in New England, none of the mountains have any trees so you have no view obstructions! 

Okay so this is a lookout point before we got to Pen Afan, it's just a photo of the group plus our teacher.

This is a statue for the Village in the first photo it is a memorial to the coal miners who died in this town. It is made of Welsh steel and about 150 feet high!

This is a view from the lookout point where the group is photographed. Way off in the distance you can see the peak we climbed!

 Another photo of the view but in this one on the right you can see a BEAUTIFUL wind farm! This is one of the most stopped at lookout points in South Wales so it just goes to show that wind farms not only are beautiful but appealing to people as well!

This is a photo of a leveled Coal tip, now what a coal tip is, is the excess coal that no one wanted would go into a heap (also called slag heaps) and because of disasters (in the 60s after a large rainstorm a coal heap slipped and sludged all over a school killing 140 school children) they have started leveling some of them. The fascinating part is how unique they are to Wales and what a prominent part of the landscape they are. In Cardiff from the library in the center of town you can see a coal tip in the valley.

This is the Rhonda, which is a valley that is 12 miles long and had 63 coal mines. The whole valley looks like this with town after town after town. It's brilliant!

On the right side of the screen is a coal tip. It has been leveled but there it is all the same. 

Castles

Welsh Word of the Day: Sh'mae: Whats up?

Hey so I haven't posted in a few days because things have been busy. REALLY busy, so I hiked a mountain, visited two castles, went to the valleys (a post on that will come later) TWICE and generally just had a good time!

But for the real topic, Castles! So in Wales there is basically a Castle everywhere you look...

This is Cardiff Castle which is kind of a folly and was built in the late 19th early 20th century by the Third Marquess of Bute who owned almost all of Cardiff

The Castle is in the center of the City, if you look closely you can see the first castle in the upper left (this picture is with the Keep which is the actual medieval leftovers) and also the spires of the millennium stadium which is Cardiff's pride and joy and where the opening match of the 2012 London Olympics will be played!

So inside the Castle that is a folly, Bute made ever room a theme that centered around time, classics, history, religion and everything else that a Renaissance man of the day would have wanted surrounding him all the time. William Burgess was the architect, interior designer, and painter for a lot of the rooms. 

 As you can see they are pretty unbelievable. I it's hard to see them all because we couldn't use a flash but I will post more in photobucket so be sure to check them out.

This is Caerphilly (Cay-r-philly) Castle and it also belonged to Bute but is about 40 minutes outside of Cardiff. We were the guests of honor at a BBQ of a Professor at the University and his landlords own a house that looks straight over this scene, WOW! 

This castle was bigger and also one could really see how someone actually lived there. There were rooms and shields and fireplaces (you can see them in photobucket

 Hats given to us by the landlords and a photo taken as well. It was a beautiful fun day!

Article I'm Quoted In!

This was an article posted in a newspaper that I'm quoted in at the end for those who are interested!

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education-news/2011/06/30/us-students-learn-all-about-wales-91466-28965909/

St. Fagans on My Birthday!

Things are amazing here still! One thing I've noticed is that everything is backwards! Not just the driving but the sinks, the locks, the way you pass people when you are walking on the street, backwards! It's really hard to get used to but it has been 7 days today and I might be becoming accustomed to it!

It's hard to describe ALL the things I've done since I last posted so I'll just cover my birthday (the most important day of course)! On the 29th we went to St. Fagans National History museum which is an outdoor museum that dismantles old, ordinary buildings from all over Wales and re-assembles and refurbishes them in the museum. The buildings include:

The smallest post office in Wales.

A farmhouse much like my own from 1610.

A workmans institute for the coal miners from the first World War.

An authentic Celtic village with more pictures seen below.

And a medieval church with the most beautiful murals! (As seen below).