Wales part 2, Pembrokeshire

 

Planning a trip can feel overwhelming - when to go and how to get there, where to stay and what to do. Dreaming about a way to slingshot my family to the farthest place we can reach, looking forward to all the potential for good memories, stretches my soul and relieves lots of kinks.

Whether the boys will remember Bishop's Palace or a brother's sleepy head on their shoulder in the backseat remains to be seen. Reading a book nestled in an unfamiliar bed an ocean away from their own or writing words like "skibidi" on steamy bathroom mirrors, foraging for seaweed or fording a river or the precious plastic grape from the antique store floor that followed along for the entire trip, all of it may be fair game.

Wales is home to more sheep than people. Look in any direction to see white dots against an almost-make-your-eyes-hurt green, with low stone walls cutting quadrilaterals across the country. At the risk of over-generalizing, people really liked to pile rocks together in the past. What we had expected, and did not experience, were buckets of rain. Our time was not near as damp as we anticipated and we awoke daily only to be astounded again by the sunshine and the moss, the otherworldly vibrancy. 

Our second stay was in Newport, the "quiet hero of Pembrokeshire" with lively street markets and cozy pubs. Traeth Mawr ("big beach") and Carn Ingli ("hill of angels" - and apparently of wild horses and slow worms) and Pentre Ifan's floating rock burial chamber were all nearby. We ventured to St. Davids, Britain's smallest city, to see the cathedral, a place of worship and pilgrimage for over fourteen centuries. All of us enjoyed a prearranged foraging course at Whitesands, and stopping to watch cliff divers at the Blue Lagoon along the way.

Vacation can flash a lens in front of your face, the right prescription that allows you to catch a glimpse of things in brand new ways. Watching Tuck pull something by its tail from a hole in the ground freaked me out at first, but in hindsight I can almost feel my own bewilderment with the world increase via the boys. More than once I had to cast aside my motherly notions of risk, to let them follow their own longings to touch as much of creation as possible.

Wales part 1, Snowdonia

While every family may have their own version of an ideal vacation, we have discovered (through trial and error) that it works best for our boys to wake up in a place where it's safe to explore on their own while we have a moment for coffee. And although all three will gladly visit museums and monuments or churches and castles, we are all generally happiest moving our bodies outside.

We stayed in three different areas in Wales, arranging a secluded lakeside cottage where the boys could grab fishing poles or chase sheep, a large modern home in a small harbor town to share with friends for a few days, and a tiny converted cow shed just steps away from the beach in Bosherton. Our two week trip was bookended by time in Dublin, Ireland and London, England, so recapping the adventure will require several posts!

The boys wanted to go to Wales for a variety of reasons: They are curious about ancestors, and interested in history, culture and cuisine. The country's industrial past is steeped in myth and legend, poetry and song. Wales is an international leader in sustainability efforts, and home to an intriguing array of wildlife. 

Plus "dragons, bro."

We made Lake Trawsfynedd in the middle of Eryri's retina-stretching mountain ranges our first home base, and got stuck in what the boys called "traffic lambs" more than once on the way to the Cae Adda cottage. We enjoyed fresh trout for dinner and charcuterie on the patio, but mostly ate bread and meat and fruit from the backpack. Our first hike was Cuenant Llennyrch, a Celtic rainforest adjacent to the lake, one of over 70 National Nature Reserves in Wales. Nearby, Harlech beach offered sunshine and a vast stretch of soft sand secluded by huge dunes. Watkin Path, one route up Snowden, was a huge hit -  a real sheep herding experience, thundering waterfalls and baltic swimming pools, wild goats and brunch at Caffi Gwynant were definite highlights. We were all charmed by Beddgelert, a lovely little village at the dramatic confluence of the Glaslyn and Colwyn rivers with a welcoming church from the 13th century. High on our list of places to explore was Dinorwic slate quarry, where nature has reclaimed much of what began in the 1700s. We learned later that Hank had filled his pockets with rocks all morning, which he thinks may have saved his life when we exited the train from Llanberis on Snowden's summit in what turned out to be the windiest situation we've ever seen.