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!