It was very windy and salt from the sea was blowing up and onto my camera lens and my wife’s glasses but we took a bit of a walk along the bay then followed a coastal path along one of the bay’s edges.

We weren’t the only people there, although we were the only ones walking along the path. Below, on the rocks along the bay’s edge was a group of people in protective gear. I don’t know what they were up to but they were probably buffeted less by the wind where they were, although possibly wetter from the waves.

It had only been a chance stop which made the discovery of an obvious burial mound that much more exciting for us.

We would later discover that this burial mound in Porth Trecastell was called Barclodiad y Gawres and was a neolithic burial mound sharing some of its design features with similar locations in Ireland.

Unfortunately for me it had also been spitting with rain on the day we were visiting this particular Welsh castle; not enough to put a hood on the camera or enough to make me check the front of the lens, sadly, which is why one or two drops got on the front and there is just a hint of blurring in the following pictures of Caernarfon Castle.

We also had time for a little bit of a wander into the town where we had some lunch at one of the pubs. Some quizzical looks passed between the pair of us at the pub’s less-than-politically-correct name. You don’t like to judge in these situations but you can’t help but come to certain conclusions.

Built from local sandstone on a headland of rock itself over 60 metres high Harlech Castle was quite an imposing-looking structure on the day we visited, its heavy, grey, Welsh stone made to look even more oppressive under the heavy, grey, Welsh skies.

These photos of Harlech Castle give some idea of its height above the nearby town of Harlech as well as how the land drops away sharply towards the Welsh coastline adding to the stronghold’s already impressive defences against invaders.

We’d seen that it was possible to stay in houses in the village but the hotel costs seemed high before visiting Wales. After seeing just how lovely Portmeirion was, though, we did say that if we went back then we’d probably have to book a room even if only for a night.

The architecture of Portmeirion village is lovely but it’s the colours of the buildings that really stand out. We didn’t have the greatest weather but the greens of the surrounding trees and woodland were still vibrant and contrasted wonderfully against the primary paint colours all around.

From the village itself we headed down to the beach that could be glimpsed through the trees at several vantage points through Portmeirion. A stone boat and other buildings in keeping with the architecture of the main tourist attraction were present as well as sweeping views across flat sand. It was easy to picture Patrick McGoohan being chased by and captured by one of The Prisoner‘s Rovers.

In addition to the main village and beach there was a pleasant woodland area with lake and Japanese-style bridges and seating areas as well as numerous wooden carvings of animal life.

A Strange Coincidence

Portmeirion was absolutely lovely and on a bright, sunny day would probably have been even more so. A couple of years after we visited the village I saw someone posting photos of Portmeirion on a forum and made a comment that we’d visited the place as well. As we got talking it turned out we’d visited on the same day and after a bit of sleuthing on both our parts we discovered I’d taken a photo of her and her husband on one side of the village square while she had taken a photo of me and my wife opposite them at the same time. A small, weird world.

There wasn’t a lot to do in Beaumaris but that wasn’t the purpose of our stop. As is customary whenever we’re out visiting somewhere we hunt down history and in this case that took the form of Beaumaris Castle, constructed on the orders of Edward I as part of his campaign to conquer north Wales and quell any uprisings in the area. Being symmetrical, consisting of concentric fortifications, and having a moat made Beaumaris a very pleasing castle to see and photograph.

Beaumaris Castle also featured a few areas inside – narrow passageways and a chapel – that helped to make this one of the more intact, more interesting castles to visit.

We didn’t have any firm plans on the drive up but we were on the lookout for anything of interest just to give us a chance to stretch our legs and as we were heading along the A40 in the vicinity of Bourton-on-the-Water we spotted a sign for Birdland. This was where we took a break.

This post will feature some photographs of some of the birds we saw. As I’m not a birder or twitcher or ornithologist or even vaguely knowledgeable about birds in general there’s not going to be anything remotely interesting to mention about them, and I won’t even guess at some of the species. Do we like seeing birds when we travel? Yes. Do we notice birds we’ve not seen before? Yes. Do we have a clue what they are other than birds? Absolutely not. Is this waffle just to pad out the text content of this post so it’s not just entirely a set of pictures of birds all labelled as “Bird”? Maybe.

You’ll notice a lot of photos of penguins here. The main reason for this is that my wife really likes penguins. They are interesting, it’s true, but they do pong a bit to my sensitive nose. Birdland has England’s only King Penguins. They’re very similar to Emperor Penguins but are constrained to ruling over a single land by Antarctic decree.

To finish, a couple of photographs I was very pleased with, getting enough sharpness on the eyes and a shallow enough depth of field for bokeh plus some interesting texture effects caused by shooting through a wire mesh. A parrot – which you could probably tell even if you had the same bird knowledge levels as me on account of its general parrotness – and, below that, a black-throated laughingthrush. Yes, I did have to point my phone at the picture and get it to identify the bird. Yes, I could have done that with all the birds. But so could you.

A reminder right at the start, should you be unclear on this matter: this is an account of our experiences in 2011. It is no longer 2011 and it hasn’t been 2011 for quite some time now so things will have changed. Interiors may have been updated. Exteriors may have become more weathered. Establishments may have new owners or employees. This is not a reflection on how things currently are in the places mentioned. For all we know, though, it might even be worse. But, you know, let’s just assume that’s not the case.

Some background to the trip because I do like to pad these things out.

As a child I’d passed through Wales several times because that’s what you needed to do when you visited Ireland where family lived. I’d also visited Cardiff for a day while at university in the early 1990s, and at some point in the 2000s my wife and I had gone to watch a rugby game in Cardiff too. That occasion, incidentally, had been our first experience of Welsh people making very unpleasant remarks about the English in earshot, and England weren’t even playing. “Ah, racists,” we thought briefly, and tried to think little about again. Why am I mentioning that? Foreshadowing, baby!

Anyway, apart from those forays across the border, we’d never stayed in Wales or considered it as a travelling destination, but in 2011 a birthday of some note was coming up and I decided that it would be nice to go and see the place where The Prisoner TV series had been filmed. West coast of Wales, in case you didn’t know or couldn’t guess. Decision made, we hunted around online and booked ourselves a short break in an inn in a village called Tremadog. If we were to return there today we’d spend more time in and around it because it’s got quite a nice bit of history and surrounding landscapes (everywhere in this part of Wales does, to be fair) but back then it simply made for a convenient base for exploring further afield.

We broke up our trip from Portsmouth with a look around Birdland in Gloucestershire, and braved a few minutes on the rainy, windswept promenade of Aberystwyth solely because it had been an alternative university location for me if Liverpool hadn’t worked out. But that weather and the time of the year meant it was getting quite dark fairly early and we had no satellite navigation to rely on at the time.

We arrived under dark clouds and heavy rain and checked in to The Golden Fleece Inn in Tremadog. As is traditional, some photos of our room for the few nights, and it was a very nice-sized room indeed. We had no complaints about the room. As rooms in inns go, it’s probably been one of the better ones we’ve stayed in over the years.

But that hadn’t been our first impression of Tremadog or of the Golden Fleece Inn. We’d pulled up, grabbed our things from the car, and headed to the main door. It was busy in there and we could hear happy noise spilling out; lots of people talking, laughing, all the signs of a bustling, thriving, local place. And everyone talking in English…

…right up until the second we opened the door and stepped in. Welsh, instantly. A cacophony of Welsh accompanied by not-too-subtle glances in our direction. That classic cliché of TV and movies wrought before our eyes and ears. We signed what we needed to sign, were directed to our room, looked at each other. “Ah, racists,” the pointed stares expressed, not for the first time. Nor the last.

A few photos of Tremadog from the following morning now because the location was lovely, even if the rain was still drizzling. We’d spend this day visiting places on Anglesey for the most part.

That’s the Golden Fleece Inn back in 2011 directly in front in the photograph below. Just to the left of shot was a restaurant (and at time of writing there’s one there still – Y Sgwâr – but I can’t say for certain whether it was called that back then) and we paid a visit to it on that big birthday I’d mentioned earlier. We’d had a fabulous day in Portmeirion and felt that dinner in the inn with its xenophobic clientele and barmaid with no knowledge of basic drinks and mixers could do with changing up.

The restaurant was not busy but there were a few tables with several people on them, most in business suits, all laughing loudly, some sharing a joke with a waitress whose face darkened upon seeing us enter. We were approached, eventually, and we asked if we could have a table for two and no, we hadn’t booked ahead. Sigh. Come this way. She went back to laughing and chatting with the suits – in Welsh – in the restaurant and we waited. She returned after a few minutes with a face full of contempt and a couple of menus that fell somewhere on the cusp between shoved and thrown on the internationally-accepted scale of transferring items from one person to another before they came into our possession.

Glancing at the menus and at what everyone else in the restaurant was eating, we surmised that they were all taking advantage of some “early bird” offer. Not us, though. The most surly of waitresses transformed before our eyes into someone who couldn’t do more for us and even graced us with a forced smile or two as soon as we’d got past ordering a bottle of wine and started picking from the à la carte offerings.

“What the fuck was her problem?” asked my wife when we were alone at the table.

“She probably thought we were cheapskate English looking to save some money rather than sensible local Welsh people supporting a local business in the most tight-fisted manner possible.”

“Ah, racists,” said the knowing look that we shared.

Of course, I don’t know for sure that everyone in Tremadog was actually racist but I will say that if you were racist against the English then your behaviour wouldn’t really differ from what we encountered in the village during our short stay. Elsewhere in Wales on this trip we met some lovely Welsh people. At least to our faces, and that’s all that counts.

And finally, one more reminder: this was an account of our experiences in 2011. All these places might be filled with very friendly locals and employees in the hospitality industries these days, and I imagine in the days of more online reviews and ratings they’d almost have to be.