UK03 – Friday, 14 Feb 03

It became clear from discussions that morning that going for a walk or a hike was out. Energy levels were flagging, especially after some of our marathon walks in London. So rather than take the longish (5.5 miles) walk between Tintern Abbey and Chepstow Castle, we went to both places individually, by car.

Jackie rode with Margie & me, navigating. We got to Tintern Abbey with no problems.

Again, it seemed a hit with the party. Tintern was a Cistercian abbey that was dissolved during Henry VIII’s day. Set in the Wye Valley, it’s picturesquely desolate, and damned lovely in its own ruinous fashion. The sort of thing that’s the subject of landscape paintings and sad poetry.

We spent a while there, taking pictures and learning that the cold Welsh mornings played havoc with digital camera batteries. Good stuff.

Not so good was the discovery we made when we tried to get in using our English Heritage passes. Oops, sorry, Cadw doesn’t reciprocate with those.

Huh-what?

Well, as it turns out, Welsh Heritage does reciprocate on full memberships, either granting free admission or half-price. But for the visitors passes, they do not.

Last time, Margie and I were in-country for three weeks. We did the full membership. Here, hey, it was only four or five days in the country. The visitor passes seemed ideal.

Oops.

I felt a fair amount of guilt, having roped the others into that scheme, but there was nothing for it. We all bought 3-day Cadw visitors passes. We never used the English Heritage passes again, despite some effort to consider how we could.

*Sigh* At least we got good use out of the Cadw passes.

Then back into the car for a short drive down the Wye Valley to Chepstow Castle. This castle, on bluffs overlooking the Wye, was never ruined or slighted (selectively demolished to make it indefensible); it fell to an assault by the Parliamentarian forces in the English Civil War, but was garrisoned by them thereafter. It’s in fine shape, with plenty of “uppage” (as Lori put it) to climb to. Margie and I had not been there before, so it was a discovery for us, too.
(One of the benefits of being in the area of Wales that we were was that, as the borderlands between England and Wales, many castles were built there in the day. Most of these were then slighted or otherwise fell into ruin during or after the English Civil War in the mid-17th Century.)

The group eventually found a tea room in downtown Chepstow with no smoking, and ate lunch. We spent the rest of the day in Chepstow, since the other two couples needed to do some laundry (I tossed in a few things, too, since the opportunity was there, but we’d basically packed for the full trip). We nabbed some snacks from the supermarket next to the laundrette.

We also hit a couple of book stores and craft shops in town, and I picked up a remaindered goblet with a fired crack in the base. It was the only ceramic goblet we ever found on the trip. I kid you not.

Since it was Valentines Day, and since Margie wanted to recommend a place to eat that we knew would be good (things having been sort of catch-as-catch-can theretofore), we decided to lead the party off to Nant Ddu Lodge, up in the Brecon Beacons, the restaurant we’d eaten at the whole time we were in South Wales in ‘99.

Well, when we were there, we were at Llwn-Onn Lodge, a B&B three miles south of Nant Ddu. In Chepstow, we were easily an hour away, if not more, by motorway, highway, and windy mountain road. Hilarity did not ensue.

We led the way, giving map directions to the Mercedes to follow. It was a long haul for us, and Margie and I were looking for further directions as we approached, since (a) we couldn’t remember the name of the place, and (b) we couldn’t, therefore, tell the other car exactly where it was.

Things went further south (so to speak) when the Mercedes ended up going the wrong way on the M4 — which meant going back over the Severn Bridge (properly the “Second Severn Crossing”) and into Bristol (motorways being a limited access roadway). That probably added an extra half-hour or forty-five minutes to their trip.

Margie and I found Nant Ddu with no problems, pulled out the cell phone — and discovered, not unreasonably, that we had no signal there, in the middle of the mountains.

Hrm.

I considered driving back down the hill to let them know that it was six miles past the Merthyr Tydfil exit from the A470, but Margie suggested the payphone.

Heh. At about 70p/minute.

Got hold of the Mercedes. Gave instructions while Margie was frantically feeding change into the beast. Managed to avoid impoverishing ourselves.

We snagged a good table in the non-smoking lounge, had a pleasant chat wit the Ameriphile host, drank a pint of cider each, and waited.

When the other four came in, there was clearly little joy in Mudville. Between the long day, the low energy, and the lengthy (and detoured) trip, there was a general sense of unhappiness about the whole thing.

Still, good food was et by most, including some very tasty pork loin, equally tasty lamb shank, and some vanilla cheesecake that I think would be voted (by some) the top dessert on the trip.

We headed back, Margie driving the Rover (since I’d had a couple of pints). Stopped for gas and got the Big Sticker Shock of the Trip. I mean, you can do the math all you want to realize that gas at 78p/L is going to be pricey. When you actually fill the tank and get a charge sip for £40.20 … well, yeesh. Especially when you convert to about $65. Per tankful.

The rest of the evening was uneventful, except when we took the short-cut to Crickhowell, missed the small turn, and made up for it by going down a small length of one-way street … the wrong way. We lost the Mercedes at that point, again, and understandably.

Post-return discussion brought forward some conclusions. First off, folks were tired, and trying to hit too many sites was only making them more so. Second, we were getting to lunch too late, and eating too much when we did, so that dinner wasn’t nearly the imperative or occasion that it could be.

We resolved to try to do better at these things.

UPDATE: For pictures related to this post, go here .