Cardiff - Saint Fagan Castle - And Off We Go To Aberaeron

living.boondockingmexico@yahoo.com

We enjoyed our two days in Cardiff.  The Airbnb turned out to be very well-located and comfortable as well.  There is a huge amount of shopping along the main avenue. We took advantage of that and picked up a few items.  The bargain grocery stores are Aldi and Tesco, with many of their generic products.  

There is so much to see.  We try to pick two specific days and whatever else we see along the way, with time allowing.  Saint Fagan's castle was a good stop.  It's historic, and at the same time hands-on and fun to tour.   We had to park first.  They use this whacky parking machine that looks as if it is 50 years old and has never been cared for or cleaned.  You pay with cash or card, and the screen is so worn that it makes it difficult, not to mention the constant use of Welsh on everything.  Not a complaint, but not necessarily easy for the tourist.

They have a visitor's center and museum housed in this building.  The museum and castle are free.  Inside is the history of Wales and the Welsh people.  I won't go into a lot of boring details, but here are some things I found interesting.

The items in this case were found in a lake nearby and date back to 100 BC.  The long chain connected up to five slaves.  The items were found in the 50s and used to dredge the lake and remove old vehicles that had been dumped.  It wasn't until years later that they discovered their history and value.

This picture and the posting board are in reference to the Aberfan disaster in 1966.  Heavy rains caused this landslide, burying a school and killing 116 children and 24 adults.  The board allows people, mostly school children on tour, to leave their thoughts about the disaster.  Some of the children's comments are quite amazing.

After the walk through the exhibition, we started for the outer buildings.  In the 1940s, the government moved 250 to 300-year-old homes, a flour mill, a bakery, and other buildings to the grounds of the castle.  They were disassembled and restored.  It is really interesting.  We don't have much of that in North America.

On our way, we heard this beautiful robin singing in the trees.  

The houses were made from stone, timber, lime mortar, and thatch.  The mill was the most interesting.  The grain came down from the second story through a chute.  The water wheel outside the house along the river turned the stone underneath the chute, and the flour would pour out the bottom side.  We saw a very similar mill in Simcoe, Ontario.

A typical farmhouse from the  1700s.

The path leading through the grounds to the castle.

The original castle was built in 1098.  It was reconstructed into a manor house in the 1560s by Dr. John Gibbons, a lawyer.  He sold it a year before he died to Sir Nicholas Herbert of Cogan.  Much of the construction was reused inclucing the original walls that surrounded it when it was built in the 11th century.

This Italian garden wasn't added until 1902.

I took this picture of the hedge.  You can't see through it, although it is only about 50 cm thick.  It feels and looks like plastic.  Not sure what it is called, but it is common throughout many of the sites we have visited.  

 

Pictures taken from the country roads we took that day.  Very little traffic, but very winding and a bit difficult to see what was coming especially large semis.  Sheep are everywhere, but we've yet to see lamb on any menus posted outside of restaurants.  I like lamb so we are keeping an eye out for that.