My preconception of Wales was that of an old country, a bit hard and tough from their coal mining history, extremely patriotic and the all have THE most amazing singing voices. And of course the accent. Like the Irish they speak with the most magical melodic accent, well except for the guttural LL sound which does make you think they are about to hoick phlegm all over you.
But lo and behold I could not really confirm or refute these preconceptions because we only visited North Wales and it turns out that North Wales is closer to Liverpool that it is to Cardiff and from what we saw it was full of Liverpudlians, Mancunians and even Yorkshiremen and women. So no beautiful Welsh accent to be heard and I didn’t attend a church service, or their other major religious event, a rugby match so alas no chance to hear the singing. So it became a bit hard to assess.
However, here are a few things that I did observe:
Firstly, the Welsh are still very proud and nationalistic. I’m no expert on Welsh history but in brief what I do know is that it was native people up until about 800AD when the Vikings did what they did best and invaded. Then in the late 1,200’s England liked the looks of Wales so they did what they did best and they just took it off them and pretty much held it ever since. However, the Welsh did not make it too easy for them with several revolts of varying impact and intensity but they made it very clear that they were Welsh first and British somewhere down the list.
The other piece of national pride is their language. There are dual language road signs (something I believe that Australia should adopt with indigenous names) and the language is still spoken commonly enough from what I heard. In a small town we watched one of the Euro 24 games and the younger guys there were speaking it. Wales is officially a dual language nation and it is compulsory for 5-16 year olds to learn it and I for think that is great.
Secondly, they have a sense of humour. There is a town in north west Wales that had a name 20 letters long with 3 vowels, 2 Y’s and there are 3 LL’s. But this wasn’t enough for one smart tailor who decided to lengthen it somewhat, well 38 letters to be precise, making it now 58 letters long, the longest name in the UK and Europe. Just for the record the longest is the 85 letter town in the Hawkes Bay, NZ. And the reason this tailor did that? To attract more people. And it sure worked. On the day we visited there were 5 bus loads who visited the gift shop near the train station which has the full name on the platform. This fact won me a bet as Al thought I would be the only one there taking photos.
This town is in Angelsey which is an AONB or an Area Of Natural Beauty. They’re very descriptive the Brits but this is really a beautiful area. We made it out to South Stack lighthouse and technically we saw a Puffin bird but due to insufficient binoculars (ie none) we could not actually tell them apart from the other birds. But still, we were told by very lovely people, who were seriously kitted out with bird watching paraphernalia, that they were there. Pretty pleased with that. And I later confirmed it when I zoomed in on a few photos I took, you could make out blurry Puffins.
I did come to one conclusion that day and that is the lighthouse joins the list, alongside a steam engine, of things that are more magical to be looked at than to be in them. The view from the lighthouse was very special but it did look amazing sitting on the headland in the sun. By the way, this list is quite extensive but would include The Opera House, The Harbour Bridge, Statue Of Liberty.
The history and the workings of this lighthouse were very interesting to hear about. Now no longer needed due to GPS they are now merely magnificent buildings on some prime real estate reminding us of a time gone by where they saved thousands of lives and dollars of cargo. And those that operated these pillars of light were now merely tour guides reminding us through interesting anecdotes of the workings and importance of these structures. Mind you, the walk back from the lighthouse to the carpark involves a large number of uphill steps making it probably the one workplace that people were dreading 5pm coming.
Thirdly, there are some very beautiful towns to visit. Conwy and Caernarfon were great towns with cute little streets. But my hope was resting on Bangor, a tow on the side of a river with a grand old pier and a University. But it also has a song, a song that was a minor hit in the late 70’s and played often on Countdown (very popular music show in Australia).To say that it hasn’t quite stood the test of time is an understatement of meteoric proportions. Let’s be blunt, it is a shocker. But it is a wholesome song describing a lovely day out in Bangor with a lover and their friends. It talks about having “lunch on the and all for under a pound” and “on the way back I cuddled with Jack and opened a bottle of cider”. As I said, wholesome, but yes, a shocker, but it was my shocker and I wanted to visit this town. And I saw these two lovers as we went and visited the Victorian pier stretch out over the river. And I saw them walking from the nearby pub with their bottle of cider. OK the town was nothing spectacular and I won’t suggest you visit, unless of course you know and love this song as I do and you have a wild imagination like I do. The you will truly have “a lovely time the day we went to Bangor”.
Finally, they love the outdoors, which is surprising really considering the weather they usually get but there are hiking shops everywhere. But a more unique thing we encountered was Bearded Men Adventures (go see point 2). They offer all sorts of activities such as kayaking, white water rafting, archery and axe throwing. Yes, axe throwing. But our choice was the slightly tamer canoe ride down the canal. Boring I hear you say but wait, there’s more. The course we took takes us over the highest navigable aqueduct in the world. It was built in the 1880’s and was to interconnect with a network of waterways to provide transport of goods across the UK. But that railway thing was soon invented and these aqueducts and canals were left to just look good, for rich folk to punt down them in long canal boats and eventually for ageing Aussies to canoe across them. It was pretty damn impressive as we paddled over. An amazing feat of engineering towering above the River Dee (ok 38 metres but geez it felt a lot higher than that).
There was another feature that was very unique. Portmeirion is, well, I’m not sure how to describe it to be honest. It was a village designed and built by Clough Williams-Ellis and consists of buildings and open areas of all shapes, sizes and origins. It is brightly coloured, has beautiful open areas and looks out over the river. There appears to be no rhyme or reason to where buildings, statues and gardens were placed. I wouldn’t say that it is beautiful architecturally but it is beautiful in its folly. Clough was a self proclaimed architect but I’m not sure that architects would be in agreement with him. Reading some of his thoughts about what he was doing would bring most to a different conclusion as to what Clough really was. But all that said and done, go and see it. It is fun, colourful and really is a beautiful walk around the village and along the river and through the forest nearby. But as to the contribution to architecture I would suggest that this village was more nutter inspired than architecturally inspired.
So Wales was fantastic but I will say one thing first – it was good weather. I am sure that Ireland would have been as good if it had received the same weather. But Wales was great and opened my eyes, that is, North Wales is more English than anything else. But I think the Welsh would be ok being British if they were left alone, allowed to speak Welsh and occasionally smash England in Rugby.
Altamira Sound & Vision Productions 