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This post is very late in the coming, but here it is. I celebrated a birthday this month (March 9) and turned the ripe old age of 24. Luke and I drove about two and a half hours up north and stayed with Luke’s dad, Slawek, in order to have a proper weekend of sightseeing. He lives in Northwich, which is between Liverpool and Manchester, and a hop, skip and a jump away from northern Wales. Saturday we visited the old medieval town of York, but unfortunately the day didn’t go so well. We had a late start to the day and it took us 3 hours to get to York, as we took the scenic route — which was quite lovely, but the weather wasn’t cooperating. We drove through a national park called Peak District, near the town of Buxton, which is a place I will definitely need to return as the views were quite beautiful. We didn’t arrive in York until 2:30, which didn’t leave us much time at all to see the city properly. So we walked around and saw the main attractions and I made mental notes of the things I’d like to return to see. The highlight of the day for me was the awesome pictures I took at Clifford’s Tower — the only section that remains of York Castle. We only had about 20 minutes of sunlight the entire day, and at that time we happened to be standing at the base of the hill where Clifford’s Tower stands. Gorgeous.
(So beautiful, in fact, that we had to turn it into our new header image for this blog.)
Click here for the full photo set of York.
The day ended with a birthday celebration back at Slawek’s — with plenty of booze and birthday cake for all. The next day we woke up early and headed into Northern Wales. This was the first time I had left England since arriving in January, so I was quite excited, and the day couldn’t have been more perfect. We visited Conwy Castle, said to be one of the most impressive castles in Wales, not to mention in Great Britain. Built in 1283, it was one of the many great fortresses King Edward I (aka Longshanks) built during his conquest of Wales. We had a lot of fun wandering through the castle and climbing the long, winding staircases to the tops of the towers. I’m not normally afraid of heights but my legs felt a little wobbly as the towers were quite high! It was definitely worth the climb though, at the top you were offered amazing views, which I tried to capture in some of the pictures I took.
Side view of Conwy Castle
Left: Shot looking down from one of the towers. Right: The beautiful bay
Click here for the full photo set of Wales.
While Cowny Castle was definitely the main attraction in Conwy, the town itself is adorable. The neatest thing about it is the walls Edward I built around the city are still intact, and you can walk the entire perimeter of the city on them, which we did. Some of the walls are built quite steep, so we definitely got some exercise, which was much needed after the very large fish + chips lunch we had! Other than that we didn’t find much else of huge interest in the town. The quay was lovely, and unfortunately for us the smallest house in Great Britain was closed. But it was a wonderful day and I couldn’t ask for a better birthday!
Conwy Castle was just one of many castles I’d eventually love to visit in Wales. The top ones on my list (all built by Edward I), in no particular order are:
muppetspanker
Beckster