A trip to Wales

Why this trip :
Human brain needs a break from the repetitive tasks to get revitalized and refreshed. So, we decided on a trip to get a break from our routine chores. Once we decided on a trip, the next question that popped in our mind was “Where”.

Where to go :
People look for mountains, sea shore and picturesque places as their break-away spots; as such places are energy fillers. These scenic places touch your heart through your eyes. If the place combines adventure also, then it becomes a favorite tourist place for all age groups. Wales is one of them.

A few words about Wales :

Wales is part of the UK and is about 200 miles North from London. It has population of 3 million and has 2 official languages Welsh and English. Wales is a land of mountains, rivers, lakes, gardens and castles and attracts millions of tourists every year.

Who : Gayathri , one of our friends was the one to suggest Wales. So, it was a group of 2 families. Sasi , Sathish and Prithvi plus Gayathri, Karthik and Manas (age 2).

When :

With workaholics like Karthik and Sathish who hate to take leave, the long weekend on Aug 27th was the only option left out.

How to go:

Obviously, we booked the train tickets, as none of us had car driving license to rent a car. We did regret for this later.

What to see:

I started googling to find the tourist attractions in Wales. But the list seemed to be endless with hundreds of castles and gardens and many scenic and adventure spots. So, we could not come up with a journey planner before the travel. Gayatri was the pioneer in this trip and booked the accommodation and train tickets for our travel.

The train journey - Aug 27, Friday:
We started on Friday night by train. The crowd in the platform was nothing short of the train crowd in Chennai during Diwali long weekend. As the platform number was announced just few minutes before the train start time, we had to literally run to catch the train and got squeezed in the crowd.

This was my first travel in a long distance train in UK. It was a Virgin train (private) and the interior of the coaches were like that of an aeroplane though not that much cramped. Also there were some family seats wherein there was a table in between two rows of seats facing each other – a dining table kind of setup. This was convenient to eat and to use a laptop. We reached Prestatyn station around 9.30 pm. We reached our accommodation, Prest Haven Sands Caravan park by 10 pm. Yes, we chose a Caravan as our abode for the three days of our trip. Caravans are cottages in the shape of a van with bedrooms and kitchen.

We had packed our dinner (ready made chapatis and panneer butter masala) for that night. As we chose a caravan as our accomodation, we bought a lot of kitchen items and grocery so that we could cook and eat rather than relying upon western food on all the three days.

Day 1 :
After a good night sleep, we started our day 1 trip around 11 am with a heavy downpour as soon as we got into the taxi to Rhyl. But luckily rain stopped after that. So, we went to the tourist information centre to collect the details. Unfortunately, there were no tourist buses and we had to rely on public transport. Based on London experience, we thought it should be fine but later realized that our assumption was wrong. The trains were less frequent and to make things worse, many were cancelled because of long weekend. Somehow, we took a train and reached Llandudno around 2 pm. The train journey was a picturesque one alongside seashore with mountains and valleys and served a good feast to our eyes.. We had lot of fun while videographers , Sathish and Karthik were shooting with Tamil commentary.

About Llandudno and Great Orme:

Llandudno is world's largest resort, uniquely situated between the Great and Little Ormes with 2 wonderful beaches North shore and the quiet West shore.
To reach Llandudno summit there are 2 modes - tramway and cable car. Great Orme tramway is still the only cable hauled tramway operating on British public roads.

The Great Orme is a wonderland of nature and history. There are around 500 million visitors every year.

When we reached Llandudno, we were convinced that the trip was worth it. The coastline walk beside the bluish green sea was a wonderful experience. As the Cable car to 'Great Orme' was cancelled because of heavy winds , we took the tram to reach the summit. .

As strong breeze flapped our face, we enjoyed the scenery, which was a perfect blend of sea , mountains and valleys. There was also a restaurant and a children play area. We spent some time there and started for Conwy to see the castle. By the time, we reached , it was 5.30 and they closed the entry. So, we just took pictures from outside.

When we reached Conwy, we were surprised to see that the whole city was surrounded by a wall and we started our trekking on the wall. We could take a glimpse of the entire city and mountains from the wall. After an exhaustive day, we reached Havens around 8.30 pm and ordered for a Pizza in Papa John's.

Sorry, I did not mention about 'Havens' park'till now.
It was acres of land filled with a lot of caravans. Traditionally Caravans are mobile, but for the experience it offers, companies have setup permanent stationary caravans as a choice of accommodation. We stayed in one such stationary caravan and Presthaven sands is a caravan park with numerous caravans on a beach side with dedicated entertainment complex, department stores, eateries, kids play area, Go-Karting, swimming pool etc. Many had come there just to be in the Caravans and enjoy the amenities inside.

We started planning for the next day trip while we were waiting for the Pizza. We decided to go to Caernarfon (pronounced Ca(r)navon), as there were couple of attractions.

Day 2 :

We got ready soon the next day and went to the station around 10.30 am. But after reaching there , we came to know that there was no direct train to Caernarfon and we had to go till Bangor and take a bus from there. To add to our woe, the train to Caernarfon was only at 11:45 and also the wait time for the connecting bus was another hour. Then we tried different means like taxi but it worked out be very expensive. So, we waited for the train and reached Caernarfon only by 2:30 pm. We were damn hungry, when we reached Carenafon. So, we opened the Tamarind rice and curd rice that we had packed. It was a good idea by Gayatri, otherwise we would have starved. The boxes got empty in no time :-)

Caernarfon castle was one of the most impressive architecturally of all the castles in Wales. It was built by King Edward I around 1200 AD. It was good to see that the towers were complete and not ruined. It seems there had been some renovations inside, which had retained the castle till now. We started climbing the tallest tower called 'Eagle tower'. It was tough climbing the narrow spiral steps with the strong wind pushing us in one direction but the effort was paid off, as the sea view from the top was really beautiful.. On the way back, there was a museum displaying the castle history and about the warriors who fought in British wars.

We set off early from Caernarfon and took a taxi to Llanberis for the Llanberis lake railway.

The lake view was good but we missed the popular 'Snowdonia mountain railway'. We could not get the tickets, as there were lot of tourists because of long weekend. The llanberis train took us around the lake. But it was bit boring as it was going very slowly. But as usual, we had our own fun and we could hear lot of Tamil voices around. It is good to know that Tamilians and Indians have reached all corners of the World.

That night we reached our Caravan and cooked veg Biriyani for dinner. As we did not want to miss the fun in the Havens, we went to the Casino in the night and played some games and of course lost some money and came back. The entire park crowd was inside that entertainment complex. It was surprising to see lot of kids playing with money in the Casino. There were also dance shows. We got tired and got back and had our Biriyani. Wherever we go, Tamilians cannot do away with rice. Our stomach is not happy if we don't eat rice for a day. Hope u agree with me :-)

We played cards (Rummy) for sometime and Gayatri pretended to be an amateur asking about the rules but finally won the game :-). It was good fun.

Day 3:

The next day we packed Maggi for train and Karthik and Sathish took the kids to the swimming pool. We bid good bye to our Caravan and headed towards the train. We reached home tired around 3:30 pm.

It was a great enjoy and we had lot of fun . It was true that we could not cover many places or visit any adventure spots, but our 'Why ?' was answered.. We got revitalized to continue our routine :-)

This trip will remain in our memory forever.