Historical Site Visits

Hi there everyone,

The trip is going well but is very busy! As a result, we're having to compress two blog posts into one and make them quite shorter. It's very hard to balance all the things we want to do here; after spending the day in academic pursuits, a few of us ventured into a couple Welsh clubs, both of which were fun but quite tiring.

So, here's the recap for the past couple of days! The day before yesterday, our group made several stops on a bus trip across north Wales. First we visited Dolwyddelan castle, which the early Welsh princes built. Then we stopped at the town and gravesite of Bedd Gelert (0r "Gelert's Grave"), named for the Welsh tale of a dog killed based on a false assumption by his master. Finally we reached our main stop, the castle of Caernarfaron, which the English King Edward built both to impress his barons and dominate the Welsh. Perhaps the most interesting discovery of these activities was the juxtaposition of the Welsh and English castles; the Welsh are rather miniscule and the English are fantastic, similar to the economies of these two regions today. Compare the two pictures below of the Welsh and English castles, respectively.

Yesterday our group ventured to Chester, England, a very historical town. It was originally a Roman fort, meant to help the Romans in their conquering of the Welsh, but it also contains many medieval structures. Our main focus during our visit was on the Roman architecture, however. We walked around the walls of the city and eventually got a view of them from the outside. They were apparently some of the most effective defensive walls of the time period, simply due to their height and tiered design. In the picture below, you can see a good example of one of the Roman walls above a more modern canal built in the city.

Well, that is a very brief summary of our last couple of days. Again, I'm terribly sorry that I couldn't give you more information and pictures; it's impressive enough that I've been able to get on here at all. That's what Welsh dance clubs can do to you!