Conwy, Wales

We crossed into Wales and the town names and signposts become unpronounceable. Double letters such as l and f are common and they use way too many consonants in a row to make reading of the names anything more than a guess.
Along our route, we saw a number of castles on the hillsides when we stumbled upon Conwy which is a fortified town. Edward I built a number of these castles in the 11th Century to protect the outer regions of his kingdom. Conwy Castle and the 1.3 km of castle walls and walls were built in 5 years starting in 1283. Then he had English settlers inhabit the town. Most of the walls are still intact and are open to the public to walk along the top which John and I did.

Conwy also has Britain’s smallest house which is in the Guinness World Book of Records. It is a one up one down which is about 6 feet across and 8 feet in depth. In the past, it had been used as a home but now it is being used as a shop. In the pictures, it the house painted red. Luxury!

We had a lovely room at the Castleview whose landlady, Elaine, had received a visit from Rick Steeves just that morning to check out her rooms for inclusion in his guide books. Good for you Elaine. The room was lovely, the breakfast in the best tradition of British full English and your hospitality was both kind and generous. The house in which her B & B is located used to be an old inn which she is still researching.
During breakfast, we had a lively discussion with her and the other B & B visitors, a doctor and his spouse from Holland, regarding the merits of the health systems in our countries and euthanasia. It sounds rather heavy but we had a really nice time before we had to get out on visit this very pretty little town.


Beautiful little town.