Tenby, Wales

Sunday

We arrived in Tenby around lunchtime on Sunday and we were instantly impressed. Tenby is the largest resort town in Pembrokeshire with a population of around 5,000 and its town centre was buzzing with hundreds of people. After checking into the Castle View Hotel (which was also very nice and we recommend it to fellow travellers), we wandered through the medieval-style streets amongst the crowds of tourists.

The town was bigger than we had expected and there were literally dozens of pubs - sadly we didn't get to them all, but we tried our best. We had lunch at a cafe called Blueberry's, which was well below par...don't go there! After lunch we had a stroll along the very pretty North Beach and we were amused to see the Welsh / English folk in their swimsuits sunbathing and even swimming at the beach in the warm but very grey overcast conditions - the British summer!

Castle Hill sticks out on a tiny peninsula that separates the North Beach and the South Beach of Tenby. We climbed up Castle Hill and checked out the Prince Albert memorial at the top and enjoyed the stunning views before making an assault on the South Beach. The South Beach is very long and has magnificent caves and rocky cliffs up to the town centre high above the sandy beach.

In the 1500s, Tenby was a smaller town and was completely enclosed by huge fortified walls. Some of these walls still stand today, including the famous Five Arches gateway. There was a relaxed holiday atmosphere around Tenby, which made a pleasant change from some of our "holiday" destinations. We made our way through the Five Arches gateway and had another look around the shops before testing out some of the pubs. We visited the Buchaneer Inn (which had a very nice outdoor beer garden), Tenby House, the Lamb Inn, the Five Arches pub and finally the Crown Inn. These were all really nice pubs and we were extremely impressed by the food on offer at the Five Arches, where we had dinner. We each got a massive roast with about 30-odd veges for something like £6. Bargain.

After our awesome dinner we went for another stroll through the streets that look down to the South Beach. The sun had come out and it was a beautiful warm evening. We were very tempted to join the Sunday night bingo competition in the town hall, but figured we would be the youngest people there by a long way and we decided against it.

Monday

On Monday we had another brilliant breakfast in the hotel before setting off for the Tenby Harbour, where we caught a boat out to Caldey Island, just off the coast of south-west Wales. Caldey Island (population 50) is home to a small village, but it is best known for its monastery. A Celtic monastery was founded on the island in the 6th century, and a Benedictine foundation existed from 1136 until 1536 (when it was stamped out during the Reformation) and again from 1906. The present monastery is Reformed Cistercian.

The monks get up at 3:15 am to pray, and then go to work which includes making chocolate and fudge in their small chocolate factory on the island and perfume and soap etc from the wild flowers there. When we arrived on Caldey Island we had a look around the old post office / museum, which contains a history of life on the island and information about how the monks spend their days. The actual monastery buildings are closed to the public, but we looked inside St David's church and the Old Priory.

St David's Church is tiny, but very pretty. It has a few beautiful stained-glass windows, including one of a fish, which is pictured below. The present building dates back to Norman times, but the foundations that it sits on are those of a Celtic chapel built in the 6th century. There is a small graveyard just outside the church where small wooden crosses mark the graves of monks and islanders, but the ground was also a pre-Christian Celtic burial ground 1,800 to 2,000 years ago.

The Old Priory and St Illtyd's Church, with its leaning spire, are amongst the oldest buildings on Caldey Island. The Priory was home to the Benedictine monks who lived on Caldey Island in medieval times. St Illtyd's Church is another tiny but pretty church with ancient stone walls and a pebble floor. It is the home of the 6th century Caldey Stone, which was excavated in the grounds. The stone is inscribed in the Celtic Ogham script and also in Latin. After buying some chocolate and fudge from the chocolate factory, we walked to the far end of the small island, where a lighthouse stands proudly on a cliff.

We caught a boat back to Tenby around midday, in time to catch a bus across to Pembroke. Pembroke is another very pretty small town in the south-west of Wales, its chief attraction being the massive Pembroke Castle in its town centre.

The history of Pembroke Castle goes back to at least Roman times, but little history of that period remains today. The present castle, one of the largest and most impressive Norman castle in Wales, was first established in 1093 during the Norman Conquest of Wales. The castle was given to Jasper Tudor, along with the earldom of Pembroke, who brought his widowed sister-in-law, Margaret Beaufort, to the castle to give birth to her only child, Henry Tudor, the future King of England, Henry VII, in 1457.

We had a very interesting tour of the castle, including the Henry Tudor Tower, where King Henry VII was apparently born and several other towers that contained exhibitions on the history of the castle etc. We climbed to the top of the Norman keep (see photo of king of the castle on top of the keep below). The walls of the keep are 2 metres thick and 23 metres high. We also checked out the Wogan Cavern, a huge natural cave underneath the south-eastern corner of the castle that was used for storage.

After our castle tour (the Welsh sure love a good castle - there are over 400 castles in Wales), we strolled along the main street of Pembroke, looking at a few shops as we went. We also had a walk along the river that runs through the town before catching a bus back to Tenby in the evening.

Back in Tenby, we continued our tour of pubs, visiting the Hope & Anchor (another lovely outdoor beer garden), Ronni'z Wine Bar (tres classy) and the Lifeboat Tavern, where two of the barmaids were clearly bored and disappeared for a few minutes only to return as "Captain Anonymous and Pirate Vader", wearing bizarre dress-up costumes. One was in a Darth Vader suit without the mask...rather funny. Then we returned to the Five Arches for roast beef with yorkshire pudding / sausage and mash...and they didn't disappoint. It was another brilliant dinner.

Tuesday

Sadly Tuesday was a very wet day in Wales. We braved the elements in the morning to check out a few more shops, buy a raincoat and also have a look at St Mary's Church in the centre of Tenby before heading for the train station and making our way back to London via Swansea and Cardiff.

Tenby
town
centre

Colourful
buildings
in Tenby

Megs in
Tenby

Tim up
Castle Hill

South Beach
from Castle
Hill

St Catherine's
Island -off
South Beach

Tenby
Harbour

Monastery
buildings on
Caldey Island

St David's
Church

Window in
St David's
Church

Graveyard

Caldey Stone
in St Illtyd's
Church

Stone shed
Caldey
Island

Pembroke
Castle

Megs in
Pembroke
Castle

King of
the castle

Castle ruins

Pembroke's
main street

Cardiff, Wales

On Friday night we took the short train ride from London Paddington to Cardiff and checked in to the Holiday Inn Cardiff - right next to the Millennium Stadium! Cardiff was buzzing with plenty of people out drinking and hoolganising in the centre of town. We also got a fabulous fireworks welcome as we approached our hotel -apparently for some festival week...

Saturday

The hotel was solid and we had a brilliant buffet breakfast there on Saturday morning - bacon, eggs, sausages, hash brown, tomatoes as well as tasty little french pastries. Awesome start to the day. Saturday started a little overcast but was soon brilliantly hot and sunny. First stop on our day in Cardiff was the Cardiff Castle.

Cardiff Castle sits right in the centre of the city of Cardiff, next to the Millennium Stadium and its history dates back 2,000 years. There were probably at least two Roman forts on the site, the first built around 55 AD. Then in 1091, following the Norman Conquest, a Norman "keep" was constructed on a large mound in the centre of the castle grounds. The shell of this keep still stands today. The castle became a Victorian mansion from around 1868, when the third Marquess of Bute commissioned a massive rebuilding of the castle, which turned the castle into a 19th century fantasy of a medieval palace. No expense was spared - the interiors were opulent using marble, gold leaf and hardwoods. Many of the rooms have amazing decorated ceilings, stained glass windows, murals and fine art works on the walls. The Marquess of Bute was insanely rich due to his owning the rights to mine minerals in all of Wales - his annual income from the mining of coal was the equivalent of around £3 billion in today's money.

We had a guided tour around the some of the beautifully decorated rooms of the castle, starting in the smoking room in the magnificent Clock Tower and moving through the children's nursery, the library and a stunning dining room, which is still used today by members of the Royal Family and foreign leaders. In 1947, the fifth Marquess of Bute gifted the castle and its extensive parklands to the city of Cardiff. Following our tour we conquered the steep steps of the Norman keep and got a magnificent view of the castle grounds and the city of Cardiff. We also enjoyed wandering around the pretty castle grounds.

After our castle visit, we checked out some of the shops along St Mary's Street, one of the busy main streets, including a huge indoor market, which sold all sorts of meat, vegetables, hot food and various other things. The people we met everywhere in Wales were always very helpful and friendly.

Next stop was the newly developed Cardiff Bay waterfront area. We walked past the impressive looking Millennium Centre (which presents the performing arts) with its copper roof and huge water fountain in front and through Roald Dahl Plas to the waterfront. We were interested to discover that Roald Dahl had been born in Wales and was actually baptised in 1916 at a small Norwegian church that still sits on the waterfront in Cardiff Bay - we popped in for a quick look but it was closed for a function. We also checked out the famous terracotta Pierhead Building, the new state of the art Senedd building, which houses the National Assembly of Wales, and the tunnel shaped tourist information centre.

There are now dozens of bars and restaurants scattered around the pretty waterfront area, the most popular of which appeared to be the Terra Nova bar, where we stopped in for lunch and a drink. It was very nice and we were happy to get out of the sun for a little while - something probably not often heard in Wales!

After lunch and a wander around the bay (where there was a lot of canoe polo going on!) we caught a bus back to the city centre and made our way into the National Museum and Art Gallery. We didn't have a lot of time, as the museum was due to close around 45 minutes after we got there, but we managed to see some really good impressionist artwork, including some Monet and Manet. Well worth a look!

Outside the museum they had closed off a few streets to make way for a huge carnival. There were thousands of people all over the streets, some with large soft toys under their arms, having won some crazy carnival game. We had a go at some of the games (like knocking tins off the wall and throwing hoops over a prize etc), but alas all we won was a really ugly Incredible Hulk soft toy. There were lots of carni folk with strange eyes that were starting to make us feel uncomfortable so we grabbed some candy floss and escaped the carnival...we also ditched the Incredible Hulk toy.

In the evening we caught a taxi back down to the waterfront area and had a cocktail at the Dim Sum & Cocktail Bar and then drinks at Terra Nova and Salt bars before having dinner at Cafe Rouge. There were a lot of rather "interesting" looking folks around...we spotted some special outfits and lovely tattoos... The atmosphere around Cardiff Bay was really good and it was a really fun night.

Sunday

On Sunday morning we caught an early train from Cardiff to Swansea. We grabbed some breakfast at McDonald's and had a brief look around the centre of Swansea before returning the train station and catching a train to small seaside town of Tenby in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales.






Norman
keep -
Cardiff
Castle

Clock Tower -
Cardiff Castle

Dragons

Sculpture

Megan in
Cardiff Bay

Millen-
nium
Centre

Tim in
Cardiff Bay

Pierhead
Building

Megan in
Roald Dahl
Plas

Terra Nova
Bar

Candy floss
at carnival

Millen-
nium
Stadium

Swansea
castle ruins

Buddy

Fans,

On Friday night, Tim, Megan and Dianne met up in Covent Garden for dinner and drinks at Tutton's Brasserie followed by "Buddy", the Buddy Holly musical at the Duchess Theatre. It was Dianne's final night in London and we got a great deal on the dinner/musical combo through the Last Minute website.

We had a very enjoyable dinner at Tutton's - the food was great - and we had a good view out towards the markets at Covent Garden to watch the world go by. The musical, "Buddy - The Buddy Holly Story" opened in 1989 and has been viewed by over 20 million people, in over 16,000 performances worldwide. The Duchess Theatre in London's West End is quite small and cosy and the crowd was not huge, but we all thoroughly enjoyed the show.

All the favourites came out including Peggy Sue, Rave On, Oh Boy, That'll Be The Day and Maybe Baby. The guy who played Buddy was excellent, although all of the performers were very good. Any Buddy fans out there, get along to see it, definitely worthwhile.

Return to Paris - Part 2

Sunday

We were a little slower out of the blocks on Sunday after our long day of trekking on Saturday. We left the hotel around 10am and grabbed some breakfast from a little bakery along the road from where we were staying. The croissants / pastries are so much better in France - so fresh and soft! We made our way by metro to Le Louvre, the world's largest museum. The line was actually very short and we were inside in no time.

Le Louvre houses nearly 35,000 pieces displayed over its 60,000 square metres. It contains some of the world's most celebrated artworks and displays almost every genre of Art. In addition, the collection displays pieces of Egyptian, Oriental, and Islamic origin. Notable works include Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Madonna of the Rocks, Jacques Louis David's Oath of the Horatii and Alexandros of Antioch's Venus de Milo.

Le Louvre is absolutely enormous. It has four floors and each floor is broken into three areas. It would probably take 2-3 days to see everything, so we had to make a call. We decided we most wanted to see the First Floor, which contains large format French paintings and Italian paintings from the 13th to 17th centuries, including Le Louvre's biggest draw card, the Mona Lisa, so we headed straight there. Well, if truth be told, we got lost on our way "straight there"...but we got there eventually.

We spent over an hour looking at the French and Italian paintings. We were particularly impressed by The Raft of the Medusa and The Consecration of Napoleon. Many of the ceilings in the museum are beautifully decorated as well, so there really is plenty to look at! We then arrived in the room that houses the Mona Lisa, which was bursting at the seams with people pushing to get a closer look at the famous piece. Surprisingly, we were allowed to photograph it (and all of the paintings actually). Just along from the Mona Lisa is the Apollo Gallery, which contains some treasures from the reign of King Louis XV, including his coronation crown. This room was surely one of the most impressive in the whole museum, not only for the treasures on display and the beautiful art work on the walls, but also for the stunning decorated ceiling (see photo below).

We wandered through the rest of the First Floor, passing by bronze sculptures and a section dedicated to the Renaissance era, full of huge tapestries and collections of china and ceramics. Then we arrived at the lavish Napoleon III apartments. These were spectacular - similar to the state apartments at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle (see pictures below). It is no surprise that the people of France revolted and overthrew the monarchy! Megan decided to return to the French/Italian paintings section we had come from to get a closer look at Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks and the Venus de Milo, while Tim and Dianne made their way to the Ground Floor to check out the 18th to 19th century French sculptures. There are literally hundreds of magnificent sculptures, each of them so detailed and precise. We were very impressed.

After a few hours in Le Louvre, we were rather hungry and we headed back to Ile Saint-Louis for lunch. The restaurant we had planned to go to claimed that they had finished serving lunch for the day (at 2pm), so we found another place along the road called Sorza that served Italian food. It was delicious - Megan and Dianne had grilled aubergine and spinach ravioli, while Tim was less adventurous and had spaghetti, tomato and basil. It was a nice little restaurant with a relaxed atmosphere, once the loud obnoxious American students had left (any Americans reading this blog, please learn to use your "inside" voice).

After lunch, we rolled back on to the streets of Ile Saint-Louis for a final look at a few shops (Megan bought a beautiful pink scarf and Dianne invested in a black beret - tres francais!). Then we headed back to the hotel to pick up out bags and made our way to Gare du Nord to catch the Eurostar back to London. There were some very tired legs on the journey home!

Au revoir

























Pyramid at
Le Louvre












Le Louvre












Megan at
Le Louvre













Inside

















Mona Lisa















Ceiling in
Apollo
Gallery














Painted
ceiling in
Napoleon
Apart-
ments









Napoleon
Apart-
ments












Ditto -
dining
room











Tim and
lion
sculpture













Angel
sculpture

Return to Paris - Part 1

Paris

On Friday evening Tim, Megan and Dianne caught the Eurostar train from the flash new St. Pancras international terminal in London (which Tim found to be not so flash due to the distinct lack of an ATM) to Gare du Nord in Paris. Despite queues and general incompetency at the London end, it was a lot easier and more comfortable than flying and the scenery, particularly in France, was beautiful.

We arrived in Paris around 8pm and checked into the Pavillon St Augustin hotel, which was very nice, and then wandered down the street for some dinner. We found a nice little cafe/restaurant not too far from the hotel where we had a relaxing light meal and a few drinks. We also saw the first of many ridiculously drunk Parisians we would see during our short trip. This guy was staggering all over the footpaths asking people for money - charming.

Saturday

Saturday was a huge day with plenty of walking. We left the hotel before 9am and our first stop was the Rue Cler markets, not far from the Eiffel Tower. Megan had done some research and discovered the market, which sells fresh fruit and veges, breads and pastries, cheese, fish, meat, flowers and loads more. We bought some pastries and fruit and sat in the Champ de Mars (a beautiful little park leading up to the Eiffel Tower) for a picnic breakfast. After breakfast we wandered down towards the Eiffel Tower and walked right underneath it, through the swarms of people queuing to climb to the top.

Instead of joining that queue, we caught a metro to Notre Dame on l'Ile de la Cite, where we joined the long but very fast-moving queue for a tour of the Notre Dame cathedral. The cathedral was very dark inside, but still very beautiful. Similar to some of England's large churches, there were a lot of statues, carvings, paintings and other art work decorating the inside of the cathedral, particularly in the many private side chapels, that run along either side of the nave. There are also magnificent stained-glass windows all the way around the cathedral, including two huge "rose windows", one on each of the north and south transepts. Notre Dame de Paris is a Gothic style Roman Catholic cathedral. Construction began in 1163 but the cathedral was only completed in 1345, as construction of different parts (including the towers and western facade) was begun much later.

After our tour we took shelter from a brief shower across the street from Notre Dame in a cosy little cafe. After our coffee stop, we walked around l'Ile de la Cite and the other small island in the centre of Paris, Ile Saint-Louis, checking out all sorts of shops. The shops in Ile Saint-Louis in particular are fantastic and we saw some very nice jewellery, art and crafts, specialty foods, chocolate and sweets and plenty of ice cream shops! We each had an ice cream from one of the Berthillon stores and they would have to be the finest ice creams we have ever had! The choice of flavours at this place was amazing and the flavours were so strong. Megan had pear and honey nougat, Dianne had chocolate orange and Tim had chocolate - all were fantastic!

Once off the islands, we walked along the north bank of the River Seine. We checked out the stalls that line the streets all the way along the river, selling postcards, books, photos and sketches of Paris and other souvenirs. Tim bought some small black and white sketches of some of the sites of Paris. Unfortunately while Megan and Dianne were queuing for a public toilet on the footpath, Tim wandered off to check out some more postcards and while he was gone, another disgusting drunk bum grabbed Dianne while he was walking past. He tried to grab another woman as well but was scared off before he got too close. Not quite the romantic Frenchman you would expect...

From there we walked through the courtyard of Le Louvre, past the glass pyramid and through the Jardin des Tuileries (Gardens). Le Louvre used to be a French royal palace until it was opened to the public as a museum following the French Revolution. We had decided to visit Le Louvre on the Sunday, so we marvelled at the beautiful exterior (and the sheer size - 60,000 square metres!) of the building and we carried on our merry way. Through the Gardens and past the Obelisk, which sits in the middle of the Place de la Concorde, we hit the Champs Elysees. The Champs Elysees was (as you would expect) packed full of people, but we enjoyed our stroll along the famous avenue, stopping in a few shops and also at the same cafe Megan and Tim had eaten at on their last visit for lunch. We had grilled chicken paninis and a cold drink, but best of all was the chance rest our legs - we had covered some serious ground by then!

At the end of the Champs Elysees is the beautiful Arc de Triomphe, honouring those who have fought for France, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. We climbed the 284 steps to the viewing platform at the top to take in the spectacular views of the city of Paris. Looking back down the Champs Elysees, you can see the huge structure of Le Louvre, further to the right and much closer is the Eiffel Tower and away in the distance to the north-east is the Basilica of the Sacre-Coeur Montmartre, perched on the hill-top overlooking the city below.

But the most entertaining view from the top is the cars driving around the roundabout directly beneath l'Arc de Triomphe itself. The traffic enters and exits the huge roundabout from 12 different streets that meet in the Place Charles de Gaulle, with l'Arc de Triomphe sitting proudly in the middle. There are no marked lanes in the roundabout and the traffic seems completely chaotic, with cars, buses and motorbikes cutting each other off and swerving all over the place. We were surprised we didn't see a crash while we were watching.

Back on ground level, we headed back to the hotel and enjoyed some wine and beer, with our feet up, before heading out for dinner. We found a restaurant close to our hotel in the Opera district and we had an excellent meal (steak, filet mignon and roast chicken) and we enjoyed sampling some more French wine. To round the evening off we caught the metro back to the Eiffel Tower to see it all lit up in blue - very pretty.

La Tour
Eiffel

Notre
Dame

A chapel
in Notre
Dame














One of
many
bridges













l'Arc de
Triomphe
















Champs
Elysees











Views
from top
of l'Arc de
Triomphe










Sacre-Coeur
Mont-
martre














Eiffel
Tower
by night















Paris
Opera
House