Conwy Castle * Llechwedd Slate Mine * Trefriw Woolen Mills
This morning while the weather was still nice we wandered around our medieval town, Conwy, and walked along the old medieval city walls - the best preserved in the UK. Our walk culminated in a visited to the best castle we've seen yet. Built in the 1280s by Edward I to show the Welsh people who was in charge, it's one of 5 castle built by this King to keep an eye on the rebellious area. Castles are cool and this one had all the elements, towers, spiral staircases, large fireplaces, a dungeon, a chapel, a well, and so on. It was in amazingly good shape and it was easy to imagine what it could have looked like back in the day. Conwy is easy to get around and we love that our apartment is inside the old city walls - we walked back home along the walls for a bit.
After lunch in the apartment of PB&J (we found some PB - good comfort food!) we headed to a slate mine about 45 minutes away. By now the weather had changed to grey and drizzle (we've had drizzle almost every day since we've arrived in the Britain). I wish I'd brought another pair of long pants. I'm getting sick of the 2 I brought. The mine was fun - we wore hard hats with lamps and took the steep train down 500 feet (the mine goes twice as far, but those areas have been abandoned). We had a guided walking tour through the mine with great visuals to help us understand what it might have been like working in a mine in the mid-1800s. It's not a job any of us would have signed up for - including Charlie - as children as young as 8 worked in the mine for 12 hours a day. The slate mined at first was mostly used for roofing materials. It was demonstrated how very thin the slate can by spilt - apparently a slate roof from Wales can last you 200 years. The wood that supports it will rot before the slate goes bad. All the homes in this area have these slate roofs. At one point this region was exporting slate all over the world. The mine was cold - about 48*, so after the 1:15 tour we were glad to be back out side where it was a balmy 60*. (This is only funny - because at our next stop - the Woolen Mill - we were told they only dye wool in the winter because the fumes are just too much in this heat).
Our next stop was a woolen mill powered by their own electricity which they made with water powered turbine. All the machines were more than 50 years old, but working in great condition. We were most intrigued by the loom making a traditional Welsh weave. There were 2500 threads on this loom and we just watched as the machine amazingly did it's things. We also watched the machine that takes the wool and prepares it to be tightened into a thread, the machine that takes the thread and puts in on a spool, and the machine that twists it together to make it 2-ply. It was fun to watch all the machines in action.
We decided we needed to try tradition Fish and Chips for dinner tonight. Although the Fish was good - it need some flavor in the batter and some tarter sauce (all that was on the table was malt vinegar). I'll take Fish and Chips from Market Street next time. The tradition side that came with the dish was "mushy peas" - Stewart and I were the only ones brave enough to even try - not too bad, just needed some salt.
My guild book listed 2 "nightlife" activities in Conwy - Bingo and the Folk Music Club. We opted for the Folk Music Club at the local social house - think retirement center with a bar (we drank fruit juice and mineral water). We paid our 1 pound/adult fee, got our raffle tickets and went in. Our kids were the only children and with the bar tenders, Eric and I were the only folks under 50. Each local musician got up and played 2 folk songs of their choice, some better than others. We actually really enjoyed ourselves and got into clamping hard for the local crowd and singing along when we could. We would have stayed longer - but Charlie and Emma were falling asleep.
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