Moving along

Well, we're back in the states, but I wanted to tell more about our stay. Our photos are online now, and can be viewed here or via the links now interspersed throughout the previous blog entries (so yes, you can go back and read them again!).
So, we left off on the 21st of July, our first full day in Betws-y-Coed. The next day we took a bus to Conwy (prounounced "Conway") to see see Conwy Castle. Conwy Castle is immediately impressive for two reasons. First, it is built into a huge rock. Second, the city walls of Conwy from ca. 1280 are still completely intact, except where it has been torn down to make room for modern roads. The street layout is also exactly as it was when the town was founded in the Middle Ages.
While in Conwy we also discovered Plas Mawr (Plas means "Palace" or "Mansion." Mawr means "big." Clever...). Plas Mawr was built in 1577 by Robert Wynn of the Wynn Dynasty (if I do my blogging duty well, you will hear a bit more about the Wynn Dynasty later). It has been restored, replete with molded/painted plaster, furniture, and even food -- real food! Even the fabric that would have covered the walls was re-created and hung. It was an incredible experience to walk into this house -- to the sound of a recorder consort playing in the courtyard. There were no ropes, no security guards standing about. We were given the choice of an audio tour or a printed guide. We chose the print and wandered about the house. You have to see the pictures to believe some of it (yes, we were allowed to take pictures!).
We explored the city of Conwy a bit. It was too crowded and tourist-laiden for our tastes, but we can't complain too much about that. This was the only place where we encountered American tourists and were ashamed. Perhaps we are snobs, but we felt that, seeing as how we were in Wales, we wanted to learn as much about Welsh life (past and present) as we could, and we both were keen on learning as much of the language as we could pick up on the street (we can say or translate many city names and, of course, our favorite word..."Llechi!"). We went to a cafe for lunch and were quietly enjoying our meal when in came four American women. You would have thought it was fourty. They were so noisy! Then a gentleman came in and proclaimed that the place didn't suit him. "I want fish and chips!" he said. The waitress said they had fish specialties, and could make him some sort of potato, though they didn't do chips there...Soon a few more of their group trickled in, and the man went off to get fish and chips (and later appeared with ice cream to tease the women and threaten that the bus would leave without them). One table of the women was overheard proudly telling the waitress everything they were seeing during their short trip...while the other table of women fretted about missing their bus. Matt and I found ourselves glad that we were on our own, able to visit whatever struck our fancy and stay until we'd soaked up as much as we could...or at least until the place closed!
We were also proud that no one guessed we were Americans. If people guessed a nationality, they guessed we were either Canadian or, once, Australian. Perhaps that is a strange thing to be proud of...
Anyhow, we were quite worn out by the trip to Conwy, I guess. The next day we slept basically all day! I forced Matt to let me sleep until 11 -- he was like a 5-year-old on Christmas morning the ENTIRE trip, so sleeping until 11 was more like hitting a snooze button on my husband every 10 minutes from 8AM on! Eventually I did get up, and we got lunch, went for a short walk around Betws (we bought that guidebook eventually), hung around at the B&B, got dinner...and went to bed around 6PM!
OH! A little note here. Right outside one of our windows you could see the bridge in Betws-y-Coed, over Afon Llugwy (Afon=river). There is a law against jumping off this bridge...but it is NOT obeyed. The police show up every now and then and stand there, but tickets are never issued, and nothing else is really done to prevent the bridge jumping. Illegally jumping off a bridge is not that interesting. Or is it? Here is a picture of about 25 people watching the bridge jumpers.

They're not going to jump. They don't know the people jumping. And they aren't just passing by. People would gather at the bridge for HOURS to watch this take place. We've never seen anything like it.
Alrighty, this brings us up-to-date through Sunday the 23rd of July. Tomorrow I'll write about our trip to Llanrwst and perhaps about the day we kind of got stuck in Betws-y-Coed and got attacked by a goose...