Part 3: Churches Abbey's Cathedral's

Cleeve Abby was my favorite church site to visit. 

It was founded in the late twelfth century,although the church it self was destroyed in 1536, the cloister is very much intact.I wonder... if Anne of Cleeves(one of King Henry the 8th's wives)has anything to do with this Abbey or the area???

Part 2 Castle's on my trip to Wales

Castle Conwy

http://wwwcastlewales.com/conwy.html Family in front of Conwy Castle

Beautiful Medieval art work for sale in the gift shop.

After visiting our first castle,we stopped in a lovely cafe for clotted cream and scones,and steeped tea...My sister and her hubby.

This castle was the closest one to our cottage,I cant remember what its called...its in ruins.
That's me hopping the stone wall,the castle was blocked off... he he
It was so chilly some days, that I and my sister had to go shopping for hats and scarfs. But with all this wonderful history...who cares about the weather! This is the family in front of Penrhyn Castle,built 1820's http//www.thevista.co.uk/index.php?page=wales_02-Penrhyn_Castle It was huge, and filled with impressive furniture...cameras were not allowed inside.
The only inside pic.I got to take...note the massive door and pull.


Huge vine covers allot of the stone.
Note the cross windows on the entrance towers...for the knights to shoot their bow and arrows at the enemy...cool!

Snowdonian mountains is the back drop to this impressive castle. We took a steam engine to Duster to see the castle there.
The Engines and the station are all run by volunteer's,who dress up in attire of days gone by.
Now that my ticket is punched,we are off!

See you in Dunster.... While passing the country side we saw a castle in... the distance. An little old lady from Wales, who rode with us said that was King Authors Castle, brother to King Henry the eight. In side the train there are signs that warn,"do not put head out windows"! Of course we don't see them until J. my brother in-law almost lost his head! Note the up coming tunnel, that is literal inches from the train! A hefty walk up the hill to my favorite Castle...Dunster,fully furnished,again no pictures allowed!http//www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-dunstercastleThe Coat of Arms to Dunster Castle

L. is entering the gate to a beautiful garden near Dunster Castle

The roses grown on huge vines here.

I have never in my whole life, ever smelt such a sweet rose's as the ones here

No L. Don't do it!!!
This is a strawberry tree...really!

A little nook to sit a wee bit.
We ended our visit to Dunster with lunch at the best restaurant in Dunster!Leek and Mushroom Pie. See my food blog for the recipe http://www.inmyweekitchen.blogspot.com/ Lots of thatched roof houses here

If I look wet,I am.It poured rain after our visit to the castle.
until nest time.........Cheers!

"ta-ra"

Our Cottage in Cwm Wales:Part 1

Hello all



I am back, I got home on the 8th.I have had jet lag like you would not believe!









Ive been trying to up load my pics...not an easy task ! and my computer is running slow too, so I will have to post my pics.in parts. There are so many 1,444 of them...ha! Dont worry I wont put them all up, hehe.









So here we go..................................................................



Below on the sign, is the name of our farm/cottages, that we stayed at our first week in Cwm Wales, Cwm is pronounced "quim" (its Gallic)

This farm pic. is a picture dating back to the yearly 60's.The new owners bought the farm and turned in to holiday cottages in the 80's...our cottage was the pig barn...see the pig... right center,in the courtyard.

This is the transformed main house, the new owners live in...very nice people.They have tried to keep as much in the original state as they could.Including the old huge beams,and the slate roof, was all re-done in the orginal slate,in the master house.

This is my sister L. standing in the front door of our large 4 bed room cottage.

This is our back yard. (below) There was fresh farm eggs for our use.

Farm animals were over a fence for our viewing,sometimes the "cheeky buggers" (picked up a few slang's: ) flew over to our yard.





That's me in our kitchen window,note how huge it is! This is sister L. the windows are so big one can sit comfortably in them,the walls were about 3ft.thick in some places V. and her family flew from Vietnam to be with us.

V. had her own restaurant back in her home country and was the chief of it...she made us some pretty great food!

below:is V.and thier daughter,pretty in pink

V's husband D. helped out too:) our large country kitchenspring rolls,thank's to V.

I'll be blogging some of the Welsh/English food/recipes we ate while on our trip, on my food blog.

http://www.inmyweekitchen.blogspot.com

J.and his sister,and her partner,they came to visit and treated us out to dinner One of 2 master bed rooms,they all came with hand made quilts.and antiques



These are small ventilation windows, when the cottage used to be a barn. Jenny the owner, and her husband did a nice job restoring and decorating.



the rippled wall is plaster over stone.



This room wasn't even used...room for more visitors

The upsatirs hall. Below: is a picture of one of my windows to the room I had.

the view out my window

rolling hills of Wales

Thats the sea in the back ground...our cottage was not exactly by the sea as we thought it would be, but one can see it from our farm yard,it take about a 30 minute walk to the closest part of the beach.

To walk the country side was my favorite thing to do.

The hills are coverd in sheep!

My brother inlaw J. is climbing over a public walkway gate,into a farmers private field .These walk ways have been given by law, for public use.They are all over the country.

This is the view we would see every time we would walk no matter what direction we took.The air was so fresh.



My sister and her husband taking up all the road!

2 cars fitting on this road???





another public walk way,there were 3 near our cottage...that we knew of.

this one was steep and slippery

Old church converted to a house



nice house on our walk



Mail boxes in stone walls are common in the UK Small water run to feed old mill's, are also common in the UK

This shot is on zoom,we climb this hill... to a prairie girl, this hill was more like a mountain!

















This short video is us on top of that hill,the wind is very loud! You may want to turn down your volume so you dont get starttled,but do have a listen its intresting.....and thats the end of part 1.











part 2 will have pubs,castles old churches

























"Ta Ra" for now.........Tracy (gracie)