ST. TRAVELS

Every vacation we attempt to set aside a few days to just relax in a small town instead of doing the mad dash to see as much as we can. This trip we chose Wales, and specifically the National Park of Snowdonia, to do that. The very small town of Beddgelert is located on a rural road, similar to our highway 9, and about 7 miles from the base of Mt. Snowden which is the tallest peak in Wales or England (1,020 meters tall). We stayed at a lovely B&B right on the creek and relaxed all day Sunday without driving the car. It’s a bit of a tourist town with craft stores and a few pubs. We enjoyed both. We also attended the Welch Church at a 9:30 AM.

Worship was quaint as it still did formal liturgy, half of which was in Welch, and with only 14 locals in attendance (plus 5 tourists from the U.S.) it was a wee bit dated. (Notice I got the letter ‘w’ in that sentence seven times?). Europe is clearly more post-Christian than the U.S. But Sue and I enjoyed communion with a bread wafer, stamped with a cross, that we dipped into a goblet of wine. Here’s a pic of Sue and I on the Main Street in front of the town’s beautiful stone bridge.

On Monday, we drove 14 miles to the Snowden Mountain Railway, to ride a cog-wheel train up to the very top of Mt. Snowden. It is a popular hike for people in the U.K. Which takes three to dour hours to hike it, with seven routes to the top. The train was a single car holding about 80 people, pushed by a diesel locomotive, and took 45 minutes to get to the top. Beautiful!


We’ve never been to Wales before, and really enjoyed the beautiful countryside and warm people. We missed the music in the pubs that Ireland is so good at doing… But this stay was relaxing and wonderful.

Today we drove for almost five hours east, then south, into England, through Birmingham on the freeway, just past Swindon (but not in it yet, that’s later this week or next) to a B&B near Highclere Castle where Downton Abbey is filmed, for our tour tomorrow.