South Wales

We are on our way to Cardiff Wales today, but we made a stop in the famous city of Bath and to the Castle at Caerphilly on the way.

Bath is where the rich and famous have come to relax for hundreds of years, but the Romans first built baths here in 60 AD. The landmarks include the Royal cresent, the Circus, and the Pulteney Bridge. After a couple of hours walking around we needed to get a move on to get to Wales.

The route took us thru the national park, which is a network of single tracks and several passes.

England has a network of 1000 miles of canals. They were used for 40 years to build the railway and then abandoned. Now they have been restored for leisure craft. These 20 locks span a 2 km stretch and it takes all day one way.

We were again on our way to Cardiff, but made a second stop in Caerphilly to see the amazing castle there. It was built in 1268 and because of its unique design of multiple layers of defense it was never captured.

Cardiff is the capital of Wales and at the city center is the castle of course.

From Cardiff we went the long way to Lampeter, which is northwest.

We crisscrossed the Brecon Beacons National Park. This included a few high passes on the windy moors.

There were a lot of single-track lanes to explore. Finally we made it to the coast at Aberytwyth and from there we went south and east to Lampeter.

We had a short trip to the ferry dock at Pembroke, but we managed to make a day of it by taking the scenic route.

We went back and followed the coastline south to St. David’s, where there is a very nice Cathedral complex that was originally founded here in 589. The present Cathedral was built in 1181.