Tea shops and towers, part 2

[ladyofastolat]

On Monday, we woke to rain, but the forecast claimed that it would begin to clear in the far west of Wales from around 11, so we headed to St Davids. Sure enough, although we drove through much rain en route, it had entirely stopped by the time we got there. And we got there rather earlier than expected, since Pellinor developed a magic power. Just as a very slow car appeared in front of us, he happened to be telling me about an experimental new magic power one of his role-playing characters was working on, involving the mass repelling of foes dead ahead. Immediately the Mr Slow ahead of us decided to turn off into a side road. A few miles on, another Mr Slow appeared. Barely a mile later, he, too, decided to turn off, heading into a minor lane. Naturally, two occurences make a rule, so I remarked upon it, relating it to the talk of the spell. We reached another Mr Slow, with another one in sight ahead of him. This was on a twisty cross-country A road in tourist season, where you would expect most people to be heading to the coast. But, no, first one and then the other slow car suddenly turned into tiny side roads. This happened every single time, both into and out of St Davids. Very useful spell. :-)

Once at St Davids, we headed into the cathedral, where - naturally - we went first to the tea shop. Once those important priorities had been dealt with, we could deal with the culture. St Davids Cathedral is a disturbing place, which has quite obvious sunk in ways the builders never entirely intended. The nave is at a very noticeable slope, and the pillars are very markedly off vertical - an effect far more marked in real life than in any picture I managed to take.

Here is some vaulting in a side chapel.



And the shrine of St David, all shiny and gold.



The tower roof is Victorian, made by George Gilbert Scott, but I liked it, anyway.





"Let's build a round window here." "Agh, no! You've put it in the wrong place!" "Oh well. We'll move it a few feet. Nobody will ever notice."



Then to the Bishop's Palace, which is very... palatial. It is a place that baffles me. When I was about 14, I had a week in St Davids, and I am absolutely sure that when walking past the Bishop's Palace at night, a strange, loud, rhythmic "Sh! Sh! Sh!" noise issued from it non-stop. "That's bats," a grown-up told me, with every sign of confidence. But I have never come across any reference to this as usual batty behaviour, and neither did we see any evidence of batty inhabitation this time. Carew Castle was VERY proud of its bats, and trumpeted about them all the time (not literally, though, which is a shame) but the palatial bishop said nothing, and his palace appeared to offer few nooks and crannies for bats to hang out. It is a Mystery.

I did, however, like the gates.



The classic view of St Davids Cathedral, taken from beside the bell tower.



From there, we wandered into the first tea shop pub that we came across, and very nice it was, too.

Then we went for a walk. We had no proper map, just a tourist leaflet, but reasoned that the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path couldn't be that hard to find. And it wasn't. The only problem was that something went very strange with regards to the scale of the map. From the map, we were fairly confident that the walk we planned was about 8 miles. However, I spent enough time walking with a voice in my pocket telling me my mileage, that I am pretty good at estimating speed and distance. My muscles and wristwatch are fairly sure we walked more like 14 miles. The map claims 8.

Anyway, it was all very pretty, since the good weather had quite conclusively put in an appearance by now. All very different from the Coastal Path I'm used to, and riddled with grisly fiendly rockes black. And doom. Wales is quite obsessed with doom. Every castle we went to presented us with a board showing, in picture form, all the hideous dooms that lay within the terrifying historic monument. The coastal path was even more graphic.



Various views, from various places. We passed St Non's Chapel, dedicated to St Davids mum, and Porth Clais, where the great boar Twrch Trwyth came ashore with an army of fierce pigs (although one modern writer claims that these were actually Picts.) Sadly, we did not pause to contemplate Arthurian connection, and welcomed the place only for its toilet.





Ramsay Island was visible just off shore.



Then, eventually, to Whitesand Bay, where a van was selling lovely-looking ice creams. It was just before 5.20, and there was a small queue, so we decided to walk to the far end of the car park and use the toilet first. 3 minutes later, we approached the van again. "It's not likely to have 5.22 as its closing time," I said smugly... only to find that, sure enough, it HAD shut between 5.20 and 5.23, despite the general crowdedness of the beach. Grr!



So, only slightly sulky at being robbed of our promised ice-cream, and heedless of the lateness of the hour, we set off with dogged determination to reach Coetan Arthur - one of the countless Arthur's Quoits that litter Wales. On tne ARthurian Society Pilgrimage in 1994, IIRC, we started to walk to it, but decided to give up, and took a distant picture of it on the horizon.

It truly is a mighty, imposing monument...



Until you reach it and see its actual size.



Then back to St Davids, to arrive back home c. 8pm for some quick cheese on toast, and some more Pandemic.

Tuesday was fairly gloomy, but not actually rainy, so we went to Carreg Cennan Castle - a somewhat mysterious castle, since it guards no roads and no waterways, and seems fairly pointless, to be honest. But it's a dramatic location, and the tea shop in the nearby farm is very good.

The most exciting thing about Carreg Cennan Castle is the underground cave. First you go down loads of dark, twisty steps, and end up in an underground dovecot for underground doves. (Not QUITE as strange as it sounds; the chamber is in the cliff edge, and it does open to the outside - for things with wings, anyway. But a small, darker passage issues out of it, and goes for many dozens of yards deep into the rock. We were armed with a torch, but even so, it got a bit daunting at times, before eventually we reached an end. Sort of. A small hole in the floor appeared to offer us - or dwarves, anyway - a Weirdstone of Brisingamen moment, but we declined, somewhat daunted by the face that guarded the nearby small pool. (The picture doesn't really show the "mouth," but the version taken with flash - as opposed to torchlight - was worse.)



After that, we headed off on a circular 4 mile walk around the castle. The walk book we were using was very good... until it blithly said "ford the stream." This is the stream in question. Pellinor went down on hands and knees and crawled teeteringly over the network of slippy, unstable branches at the back of the picture. I just took off my boots and waded.



There was much squelch on the walk, and parts when we had to cling to the top wire of a fence, and edge sideways, our feet resting on the bottom wire. And this was in June!

There were excellent views of the castle, glowering like a dark lord's fastness, but the lighting didn't show it at its best.



After that, we went to Dinefwr Esate, where we made out way quickly to the stately home part of it. "You look like people in search of the tea shop," the volunteer said at the door, and sure enough, we were. Look at the tea pots!!!!! :-D Cups and teapots that nestle together and can be carried as one!!!! They dribbled horribly, but nesting teapots!!!!



After the excitement of the teapot, I can't really remember much about the house itself. A ruined castle lives in the grounds, once the capital of the whole region (Deheubarth) and very important in Welsh history. It claimed to close at 4, and we got there at about 3.55, but went in anyway, and were careful to TALK LOUDLY when out of sight of the gate, and linger long and obviously when we were on any exposed tower.



I was determined to take this picture up the tower. I had to put my camera almost on the ground to do so, and twist the view screen completely around. This caused me to get very confused about which way to move things - rather like when you try to do something while looking in the mirror - but I got it in the end.



There was a deer park. People had parked deer in it.