Up fairly early and brought down to breakfast by some wonderful piano playing by our host David. He begins each day playing piano. We ate well and packed sandwiches for a midday lunch.
We were headed over to Bodnant Gardens, a premier historic gardens and arboretum in northern Wales. This was a place who 100+ years ago was the land that belong to a wealthy family. Our host told us this rich lord and his chums would travel around the world and bring back trees and cuttings from various places to create a beautiful garden eventually, the garden became a lot to deal with. The family kept the home but donated the gardens to the National Trust who administer it.
This really was an exquisite garden filled with many plants from many different interesting places. It was quite fun to realize there are some plants that we totally recognize such as rhododendrons and magnolia. There were also some plants that we have never seen before, and then we were shocked and amazed to see the collection had several Giants Sequoia trees that grow only in California and would’ve had to have been brought in, 150 years ago and are flourishing in northern Wales. We also saw a plant that we had basically only ever seen in our own backyard, a strawberry tree. This is a very fun tree with really interesting bark and eventually has beautiful fruit on it, such a delight to continue to see different plants from around the world. We also found some old friends succulents that are in our front yard. We could share 400 pictures of flowers and plants from the day, it was that beautiful. But don’t worry, we will just give you a taste.
Having finished at the gardens with some tea and ice cream, we went driving through the hills and mountains of Northern Wales. We went around Snowden National Park and had a chance to see many people who were heading off to go hiking and camping in the beautiful forest and then above the tree line areas. We saw the highest mountain in the Wales, not so high compared to many standards, but remarkably high compared to the lower flat and hills here especially this far north.
We stopped at one overlook and had a chance to exchange taking photos with a group from Liverpool. It was windy, but glorious looking.
We got a little lost and then ended up stopping at a church in a little small town. This church went back to perhaps the fourth century, with the current building built in the 1400s. The tombstones were beautifully carved and it had a very old lovely feeling about it after looking around a bit. We thought we would just try the door to see if we could get in but it appeared to be locked. Just as we were leaving along came a nice fellow walking his dog who said “do you want to go in and see it?”he told us “it is open but I’m just getting ready to lock it up.” We enthusiastically answered, “yes, please”, and he took us inside and then told us the history. Inside was one pillar that they claim goes back to Roman days. There was also a number of things that were really old and wonderful looking. This included a carving on one of the front pews that said in Welch “for hard of hearing only.”
Soon after we were finishing our time, along came another local guy with two other men. One man told us his father and grandparents lived in the community. He was on a bit of a heritage journey and had many other interesting things to add into the story. It was a wonderful impromptu stop.
Sheep and rolling hills, cattle, and a lot of slate. Apparently this was a big source of slate core around the UK. There were mountains and piles of these black rocks.
Finally, we drove back to David’s place where he made us another wonderful dinner, this time with salmon. He has been a lovely host. Off to bed because we have to leave in the morning.
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