Roman inscription at the Cova de l'Aigua

View from outside the
Cova de l'Aigua 

We had a good hike on Christmas Eve, climbing part way up the Montgo mountain to a cave where Roman soldiers were garrisoned hundreds of years ago. When I say climbed, of course, I don't mean in a mountaineering sense! The track got pretty steep in places though and there are leg-achingly big steps towards the end. There's also a dizzyingly long drop from a short section of footpath so if heights aren't your favourite thing, maybe don't do this walk!

We parked in the street opposite the Ermita Pare Pere which is a pretty shrine and worth a brief diversion to look around. If all the parking is taken here, follow the road upwards and there is more space just past where the walking route leaves the road. For full walk instructions, Click This Link. It describes a circular walk of 5.4k which we intended to do, but didn't due to the rocky footpaths after the cave detour being very slippery. We reckoned we would probably manage to climb up to Raco del Bou, but I didn't fancy potential accidents on the slide back down!

The initial ascent however is toddler friendly. It's continuously uphill but not especially strenuous and was a popular family walk on Christmas Eve. Part way along this gravelled road, clear signs indicate the footpath up to the Cova de l'Aigua. A later fork in this footpath is also clearly signed. We were high above Denia at this point and there are spectacular views across the town and out to sea. The winding path admittedly doesn't scream 'Romans were here' in the same way their distinctive straight roads do. It gets steeper the nearer we got to the cave and in several places large steps have helpfully been cut into the rock. Once we turned off the track to the footpath we had it completely to ourselves which was great as I didn't feel as though I needed to rush. I could imagine that it could be tricky trying to get up here and back at the same time as lots of other people - on a summer weekend for example.

The Roman evidence - an inscription in the rock dating from 238AD - is now protected by a metal cage although it had already been partly graffitied before the grille was put into place. It's not actually in the cave itself, but just before the last few steps. You can see the edge of the cage in the bottom left of this photograph. For an idea of scale, Dave can just be seen climbing up mid-picture.

And the inscription itself is here:
(You might need to squint!)

The cave itself is believed to have been in use for thousands of years before the Roman visitation and for hundreds of years after they left as well. We could walk into the large first chamber and along a dark passage - you'll want to take a torch - from which we could peer into a flooded second chamber. Clay pipe remnants buried in the floor show where this mountain water used to be piped out to a now vanished hillside village. By medieval standards, this was valuable fresh drinking water - we didn't taste it!

Dave in a Cave!

Hiking the Ruta de los Puntales in the Serra d'Espada

I'm a tad embarrassed to reveal that we did this walk on Thursday and, four days later, I am still hobbling about with complaining calf muscles! In my defence we walked for more than four hours with a climb (and its corresponding descent of course) of 500 metres. This much exercise is not good for my health!

The walk starts from a car park in Vilavella - a town for which the word labyrinthine could have been invented! It's a frustrating maze of narrow one way streets, but we found the right place eventually. The walking route itself is clearly marked all the way. There are new-looking signposts at junctions and regular red and white stripe markers on rocks and trees.

The stunning view photograph at the top of this post was taken at a later point in the walk - from a ruined Civil War machine gun nest. Views early on are no less spectacular though. We began with a reasonably steep uphill climb on tarmac road which became rough track. Starting from cold so to speak it was an effort, but we were rewarded with this:

Aljub dels Caçadors 

After about an hour we discovered the Aljub dels Caçadors. Aljubs are a water storage and irrigation method brought to Spain by the Moors in the middle ages and still used for centuries afterwards. An underground cavern collects runoff and rain water in the wet months. Then buckets can be lowered through a small door to retrieve drinking water for animals. Some Aljub are connected to agricultural irrigation channels with sluice gates to control the water flow. This one now just contains rubble as had the Fonteta d'Oliver, a former spring we had passed about half an hour previously. Fortunately we had taken our own flasks of cold water.

The mapped route along the GR-36 now became a narrow footpath winding through shaded woodland. We saw strawberry trees and nut trees, but unsurprisingly didn't spot any of the promised foxes, badgers or genets! The route has an out-and-back diversion to the Font de Cabres, but we chose instead to turn off the GR-36 for another uphill stretch to the Coll del Bledar. We climbed up away from the trees onto an exposed ridge with more spectacular and almost panoramic views. Our lunch spot was by the slanted rock formation pictured below.

With hindsight, I am glad we didn't add the extra 140 metre climb up to the Pic de la Font de Cabres. Instead we headed east along the ridge past three Civil War structures like the one pictured above. It's tricky terrain up there. I had to concentrate to keep my footing on scree paths in bright daylight with no need to rush. I imagined how much more dangerous the paths would have been in wartime.

The Pic de la Creu de Ferro - yes someone actually carried a large iron cross up onto a mountain ridge  - marked the start of our long descent back to Vilavella. Tree cutting obscured the path for a short distance but we managed not to lose ourselves. This downhill lasted a good hour and I think its mix of scrambling and steep rock steps is probably what did for my legs! We were both proud of ourselves for having accomplished a difficult hike - and very happy to see our car waiting for us!

Je suis un peu gêné pour révéler que nous avons fait cette randonnée jeudi et, quatre jours plus tard, je suis clopinant sur avec les muscles de mollet se plaindre! Pour ma défense, nous avons marché pendant plus de quatre heures avec une montée (et sa descente correspondant bien sûr) de 500 mètres. Cette quantité d'exercice n'est pas bon pour ma santé!

La randonnée commence d'un parking à Vilavella - une ville pour laquelle le mot labyrinthique pourrait avoir été inventé. C'est un labyrinthe frustrant d'étroites rues à sens unique, mais nous avons trouvé que le bon endroit par la suite. Le sentier de randonnée se porte clairement tout le chemin. Il y a des panneaux nouvelles apparences aux embranchements et marquers réguliers rayures rouges et blanches sur les roches et les arbres.

La photographie vue imprenable au sommet de cet poste a été prise à un moment ultérieur à la marcher - d'un nid mitrailleuse ruine la guerre civile. Vues dès le début ne crient pas moins spectaculaire. Nous avons commencé avec un montée assez raide sur une route goudronnée qui est devenue la piste rugueuse. À partir de froid par ainsi dire, c'était un effort, mais nous avons été récompenses avec ceci: (deuxième photographie)

Après environ une heure, nous avons découvert l'Aljub dels Caçadors. Aljubs sont un stockage de l'eau et méthode d'irrigation a apporté à l'Espagne par les Maures au moyen-âge et encores utilisés pendant des siècles par la suite. Une caverne souterraine recueille l'eau ruissellement et de pluie pendant les mois humides. Puis seaux peut être abaissée par une petite porte pour récupérer de l'eau potable pour les animaux. Certains d'Aljub sont reliées aux canaux d'irrigation agricole avec vannes pour contrôler le debit d'eau. Celui-ci maintenant juste contient gravats qu’avait le Fonteta de Oliver, un ancien ressort nous avions passé environ une demi-heure auparavant. Heureusement nous avons pris nos propres facons de l'eau froide.

La route mappée du GR-36 est maintenant devenu un etroit sentier serpentant à travers les bois ombragés. Nous avons vu arbousiers et les arbres de noix, mais sans surprise n'a pas apercevoir les renards, blaireaux ou genets qui avait été promis! L'itinéraire comporte un détournement dehors et en arrière à la Font des Cabres, mais nous ont plutôt choisi a quitter le GR-36 pour un autre tronçon en montée à la Coll del Bledar. Nous avons grimpé loin des arbres sur une crête exposée avec plus des vues spectaculaires et presque panoramiques. Nous avons mangé notre déjeuner a côté de la formation des roches oblique sur la photo quatrième.

Avec le recul, je suis heureux que nous n'ajoutons pas la montée jusqu'au Pic de la Font des Cabres. Au lieu de cela, nous avons marché l'est sur la crête au-delà de trois structures de guerre civile comme celle illustrée au sommet de cet poste. C'est un terrain difficile là-haut. J'ai dû me concentrer pour garder mon pied sur les chemins de l'eboulis en plein jour sans avoir besoin de se dépêcher. J'ai imaginé comment plus beaucoup dangereux que les chemins d'accès auraient été en temps du guerre.

The Pic de la Creu de Ferro - oui, quelqu'un fait une grande croix de fer vers la haut sur la crête de la montagne - a marqué le début de notre longue descente vers Vilavella. Coupe d'arbres obscurci le chemin d'accès sur un courte distance mais nous avons réussi à ne pas nous perdre. Cette descente a duré plus d'une heure et je pense que son mélange de brouillage et étapes rocheuses abruptes est probablement ce qui fait mal à mes jambes. Nous étions tous deux fiers de nous-mêmes pour avoir accompli une randonnée difficile - et très heureux de voir notre voiture nous attend!

Benicato Roman villa and a Civil War farmhouse - Nules

Benicato Roman villa 

I was very pleased with our cycle ride on Wednesday. We had already taken several leaflets from Nules tourist office and decided to start by following the orange one, Nules - los origines (Nules - its origins) In fact, except for two shrines in the centre of roundabouts, there aren't a lot of sites to visit. However there is a ruined Roman villa and a Civil War farmhouse and it was a perfect day for cycling.

The ruins are both within orange groves a short distance from Nules town. The villa is one of nine, but I think this is the only one that can be viewed. It is also easy to miss! We nearly zoomed straight past its dirt road because its discreet Benicato sign is intended to be seen by travellers from Nules direction. We had set out from Moncofa! The villa dates back to the Roman Republican period and its heyday is believed to be the second half of the 2nd century AD. The villa was still in use by Romans in the 4th century AD and possibly by French or Germanic people as late as the 6th century AD. It was then abandoned and not rediscovered until a ploughing mishap in 1955! The villa foundations are now visible through wire fencing. There are information plaques nearby.

Alqueria de Santa Ana 

The farmhouse is called the Alqueria de Santa Ana. We think that the last civilian victims of the war were held here before being driven to Algar where they were killed. The house is small so I don't imagine many people could have lived there for long. The roof has now fallen in and the windows and doors are missing. We could still see remains of ornate decoration though - and bullet holes in the render. It felt quite a sad place.

Benicato Roman villa 

J'ai été très content avec notre roulade en vélo a Mercredi. Nous avions déjà pris plusieurs brochures de l'office de tourisme de Nules. Nous avons décidé de commencer par la suite de l'orange: Nules - los origines (Nules les origines). En effet, à l'exception de deux sanctuaires dans le centre de ronds-points, il n'y a beaucoup de sites à visiter. Cependant il y a une villa romaine ruinée et une ferme de la guerre civile, et c'était un jour parfait pour faire du vélo.

Les ruines sont situées dans orangeraies près de ville de Nules. La villa est l'un des neuf, mais je pense que c'est la seule qui peut être considérée. Elle est également facile de rater! Nous avons zoomé presque directement passé son chemin de terre parce que son signe discret de la Benicato est destiné a être vu par les voyageurs venant de Nules. Nous avions voyagé de Montcofa! La villa a été construite à l'epoque romain républicain et son heure de gloire est censé être la seconde moitié du 2éme siècle après J-C. Romains vivaient encore dans la villa au 4éme siècle apres J-C et, peut-être, les peuples Français ou allemands aussi tard que le 6éme siècle. Elle a été ensuite abandonnée et pas redécouverte qu'une mésaventure labourage en 1955. Les fondations de la villa sont maintenant visibles à travers des grillages. Il y a les plaques d'informations est proche.

Alqueria de Santa Ana 

La ferme s'appelle l'Alqueria de Santa Ana. Nous pensons que les dernières victimes civiles de la guerre a été ont eu lieu ici avant être à Algar, où ils ont été tués. La maison est donc je ne pense pas que beaucoup de gens aurait pu vivre là pour longtemps. C'est tombé le toit et les fenêtres et les portes sont manquants. Nous pourrions encore voir les restes de décoration ornementales - et des trous de balle dans le rendu. C'est un endroit triste.

Alqueria de Santa Ana 

Spanish Civil War bunkers at Nules

We continued our local explorations by cycling to the neighbouring village of Nules which is just along the coast from Moncofa. Dave had spotted a mention of Civil War bunkers on Google Maps so we thought we should take a look. Five bunkers were built here in the late 1930s. Four still stand and, of those, three have been completely renovated. I didn't anticipate how bizarre they would look in today's landscape - on the edge of orange groves and almost under a motorway bridge! The land must have looked very different 80 years ago.

The bunkers range between 15 and 18 metres long. They are all between 3-4 metres wide and just under 2 metres high. The concrete walls are, unsurprisingly, very thick and the vaulted roofs incorporate curbstones purloined from Nules pavements. We learned that the Civil War front here existed from July 1938 until the end of the war in April 1939. The most important battles were fought in October and November 1938. I think the bunkers must have been built by local Republicans, but I haven't yet been able to find out for sure which side used them, or if they housed both sides at different times.

This aerial photograph is on a noticeboard near one of the bunkers. It shows their relative locations. We cycled between them all in a few minutes and the route could easily be done on foot.

Before I switch into French, I just wanted to show you this: my Civil War Bunker photograph makes a bizarre yet surprisingly effective cushion fabric!
Click the photo to buy ;-)

Nous avons poursuivi nos explorations locales avec un roulade à velo jusqu'à Nules, un village voisin, qui est juste le long la côte de Moncofa. Dave avait repéré un mention de la guerre civile bunkers sur Google Maps, donc nous avons pensé que nous devrions jeter un œil. Cinq bunkers ont été construits dans les années 1930. Quatre sont encore debout et, de ce nombre, trois ont été entièrement rénovés. Je n'a pas prévu de bizarre comment ils apparaîtraient dans le paysage actuel - au bord des orangeraies et presque sous un pont de l'autoroute. La terre doit avoir l'air très différente il y a 80 ans.

Les bunkers sont entre 15 et 18 mètres de longueur. Ils sont tous entre 3-4 mètres de large et seulement moins de 2 mètres de haut. Les murs de béton sont, sans surprise, très épais et les toits voûtes incorporent margelles tirés de Nules trottoirs. Nous avons appris que le front de la guerre civile ici exista de juillet 1938 jusqu'à la fin de la guerre en avril 1939. Les batailles les plus importantes eurent lieu en octobre et novembre 1939. Je pense que les bunkers doivent ont été construits par les républicains mais je n'ai pas encore été un mesure de savoir avec certitude quel côté utilisées, ou si ils ont logé les deux côtés à des moments différents.

La photographie aérienne présentée ci-dessous est un tableau d'affichage pres de l'un des bunkers. Elle montre les emplacements relatifs. Nous avons roulé entre eux toute en quelques minutes et la route pourrait être faîte facilement à pied.

Avant je suis passé en français, je voulais vous montrer ceci:
ma photo du bunker de la guerre civile fait un bizarre encore tissu coussin étonnamment efficace!

Budapest sculpture and a dancing fountain

Shoes On The Danube Bank 

One of Budapest's most famous public sculptures is entitled Shoes On The Danube Bank. It was created by Can Togay, a film director, together with sculptor Gyula Pauer as a memorial to 3,500 people - 800 of them Jewish - shot into the Danube by Hungarian fascist group Arrow Cross in 1944 and 1945. The sculpture recreates 60 pairs of 1940s styled shoes in bronze and I found these very personal reminders of those who died to be an effectively poignant reminder. Arrow Cross were not Nazis and were highly critical of Hitler, but their white supremacist ideology led to similar bigoted actions and outrages. I was saddened to realise that, only seventy years later, humanity is already forgetting and allowing such groups to become influential again.

Anna Kethly statue 

While in Vienna, Dave and I had commented on the vast number of statues depicting triumphant warmongering men. It's much the same in London and other cities and we wondered whether Western society would have evolved differently if more peaceful men or even (shock, horror) women had historically been given similar prominence. On that note I was pleased to spot this statue of Hungarian Socialist politician Anna Kethly. It was unveiled two years ago and is tucked away in Olimpia Park. Kethly was an incredible woman and I was happy to discover more about her life.

On a lighter note, we saved the most fun thing in Budapest for our last day there. I like a good fountain anyway, but the musical fountain on Margaret Island is fab! It is pretty impressive anyway but on the hour every day (during the summer months at least) it dances to music. Its repertoire ranges from classical to folk music to pop and rock. I loved how tightly the water jets are choreographed to the musical rhythms. One of the songs was Mungo Jerry's cheesy classic In The Summertime for which not only does the fountain fire on the beat, but the water landed on the beat too! Each show lasts about fifteen minutes and it's free! There are dozens of YouTube videos ...

The glorious Schoenbrunn Palace in Vienna

Another of our most memorable visits while in Vienna was our excursion to the Schoenbrunn Palace. This massive residence was once home to the ruling Habsburg dynasty and has to be seen to be believed! It is now a UNESCO world heritage site with much of the grounds and parkland open to the public for free, and part of the house viewable for a price. The two house tours are both accompanied by audioguides. The Imperial Tour takes visitors through 22 rooms and the Grand Tour takes in 40 rooms. We chose the Grand Tour and were glad to have done so because the most interesting room decor was in the later rooms after the two tours diverged! Photography within the house is forbidden so I can't show the sumptuous interiors here - although a quick Google will no doubt give you the idea!

Schoenbrunn Palace was originally built as a hunting lodge in the mid-1500s. Maria Theresa had it rebuilt and extended in the 1740s after she received the estate as a wedding gift and her family continued to occupy the Palace until the last Habsburg emperor was deposed in 1918. It has been a museum since the 1950s although only a few of the 1441 rooms can be seen. The audioguide is quite good albeit brief so we found there were artworks - tapestries especially - in some of the rooms about which no information was given and staff were few and far between. The overriding impression of the Palace for me was of a family spending more and more money to stave off depression. For all their power and wealth, I didn't hear of one actually having a happy life and many died young or were murdered.

The parkland was lovely to walk around and we enjoyed strolling the shaded avenues as we visited on a pretty hot day. Areas such as the Palm House (pictured) and its companion Desert House require additional payment to enter, but their architecture - the most impressive aspect for us - can be admired for free from outside! I also liked the brightly coloured floral displays immediately in front of the Palace. Their swirls and serpentine borders reflected the gilded ornamented ceilings we had seen in almost every room of our house tour.

Numerous sculptures are dotted throughout the park. Several are anonymous, but we learned that the Roman-style folly entitled The Ruin Of Carthage was designed by Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg and built in 1778. It features the river gods of the Danube and the Enns as sculpted by Wilhelm Beyer. There is absolutely nothing authentically Roman about the work. Even its ruined appearance is the result of Hetzendorf's design although recent renovation means it doesn't look quite as ruined now as it did a decade ago! Apparently the Habsburgs saw themselves as the natural successors to the earlier Roman conquerors so having The Ruin Of Carthage built in their garden was essentially propaganda.

Also a magnificent sight within the gardens is the Neptune Fountain - another Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg and Wilhelm Beyer collaboration. Commissioned by Empress Maria Theresa, it was intended to be the crowning glory of the gardens and I would say it fulfils that purpose! Started in 1776, the Fountain was completed just before Maria Theresa died.

Exploring Vienna - trams and horses

Our three-city epic citybreak is so busy that my blogging about it is way behind schedule! I apologise for that! You can read my Prague posts here which was the first of the trio and from where we got a train to Vienna. Our Viennese Airbnb studio apartment was excellent so I am happy to recommend it. If you need accommodation for one or two people in Vienna, book into Christof's place! It had everything we needed, was conveniently located and was pretty peaceful too. If it had been available in 1899, I am sure Mark Twain would have loved it! (I spotted this plaque on the building where he did stay in Vienna, but forgot to note down the address and now can't remember! The sojourn might have formed part of his A Tramp Abroad research (my book review here)

We started with a circuit on the Ring Tram which was a great way to learn about the historic buildings lining the Ringstrasse. The half-hour tram ride is €9 and this includes an audioguide in various languages for which headphones are provided. We got a good view of everything from the distinctive yellow tram and taking the journey helped with getting our bearings when later exploring on foot. The only downside was the Mozart-interspersed narration meant I kept humming the Marriage Of Figaro overture for the rest of the day!

We were sadly underwhelmed with the Museums Quarter although the cafe there has an amazing tiled ceiling, but did find other artwork around the city including this Rachel Whiteread sculpture outside the Jewish Museum. Having first encountered her work only three months ago at Houghton Hall I easily recognised it again in and this Viennese Library is a particularly powerful piece as every book on its shelves represents a Jewish lifestory that was cut short by the Holocaust. 65,000 Viennese Jews were murdered by the Nazis.

More sculpture was on show at the Theseus Temple in the Volkspark. This replica of an Athenian temple was originally constructed in the 1820s to house a statue of Theseus slaying the Minotaur. That work was moved to the city art museum and now the space is used to display a single large sculpture each year. For 2017 the work is Bacchante by American artist Kathleen Ryan. The polished concrete grapes did fit with the ancient Greek theme of the setting but it did look a bit lost under the high ceiling!

My high spot of visiting Vienna was seeing the magnificent Lipizzaner stallions of the Spanish Riding School. I had a book about this School in my younger pony-mad days so it was the culmination of a childhood dream to actually get there! We didn't see the full show, but it is possible to buy tickets for the Morning Training which is two hours of groups of horses being put through their paces and practising some of the high dressage for which they are famous. Photography is absolutely 'verboten' and my camera probably wouldn't have been up to the task anyway so I have found a YouTube showing the horses and their beautiful riding school. All the riders in the video are male, but women have joined their ranks since 2008 and several of the riders we saw training were female. All the horses are still male though!

A little Prague boat trip

There are quite a lot of different boat trip possibilities on Prague's waterways from large tour boats to slimline gondolas. We chose an hour-long small-boat-and-larger-boat combined voyage run by Prague-Venice Boat Trips. Their ticket sellers are the ones dressed in white sailor outfits hanging around the Charles Bridge. For some reason they are mostly Nigerians! The trip is priced at 340 Czech crowns per person but, as we were a party of five, some spirited haggling (not by me obviously!) got that down to 300 each.

We started out in a private little boat which took us a fairly short distance through back-lane canals to the main tour boat moored atmospherically under a dark arch of the Charles Bridge. There we were offered coffee, tea or beer from the cute bar pictured above to keep us occupied while we waited for the boat to fill up a bit more. The ticket price also includes a choice of ice cream or gingerbread - get the gingerbread, it's delicious! The view below was our starting point.

This boat tour does not go far up or down the river, instead weaving between the bridges' arches in order to give us great views of historic buildings, bridges and architecture on each side of the river. Prague city centre is a bustling, busy place and I enjoyed the slower peaceful sailing away from the tourist madness! Our audio narration was good and interesting and this part lasted about half an hour I think before we returned back under the bridge and were briefly told the historical significance of each of the arch beams above our heads - there's one each remaining from four different stages of the bridge's construction.

The boat trip ticket also included free entry to the Charles Bridge museum. This museum is only small, but gives detailed information about the building of the bridge as well as its predecessor, the Judith Bridge. The extensive model pictured below is fascinating - I do like a good model! - and it was also possible to descend an iron staircase and see the original stonework of both the Charles and Judith bridges.

Camping on the North Wales coast - Llandanwg and Harlech

View from Llandanwg beach 

I vaguely remember going to Anglesey for a week with a schoolfriend some thirty years ago otherwise I don't think I have explored North Wales before now. It's beautiful!

We booked in for four nights at a Camping And Caravanning Club certified site in the tiny village of Llandanwg, about two kilometres from Harlech. Ymwlch Farm campsite is essentially a neat stonewalled field with electric hookups and several water taps. There are a pair of toilets off to one side and the possibility to take showers at the nearby farmhouse. A 'shock horror' moment revealed there was absolutely no phone or portable wifi signal there so I had the bizarre experience of being almost internet free for several days! I say almost because there was a good signal about a hundred yards away on the beach. The campsite was £16 per night including electricity. Showers are 50p extra each. There is a fairly tight turn off the road and I was glad we only had our trailer tent on tow although larger caravans than Bailey were in the field so it probably would have been fine!

View from Llandanwg beach 

Ymwlch Farm's great advantages are its proximity to a wide sandy beach and to the historic town of Harlech with its interesting shops and cafes and the partially restored castle. There is good walking country hereabouts too, but unfortunately Dave came down with a nasty cold for a few days so we will need to return and walk! We did manage an hour or so strolling towards a small harbour and back around on our first evening. The views were stunning and these photos really don't do them justice!

We visited Harlech Castle the next day. Edward I had its construction started in 1283, one of a number of structures he commissioned, and it was virtually completed by 1289 which is apparently fast by large-stone-castle standards. I learned that 950 men worked on the build at the busiest time and, like all grand designs, it went rather over budget although at just over £8000 was still Edward's cheapest castle! By the early 1400s Harlech Castle was occupied by Owain Glyndwr (whose name we last encountered I think in Llandovery) and the famous anthemic Men Of Harlech song was written about the siege of Harlech Castle during the Wars Of The Roses.

View across to a harbour
near Llandanwg 

Entry to the castle these days is by way of a ticket office with attached gift shop and cafe. Once inside there are a number of informative poster boards and I especially liked two small models of the castle. Towers and walls have been restored so it is possible to climb (too many!) spiral steps and get long views over Harlech town and out to sea. At the time of its construction the sea was much closer, but now there is a band of protected dunes and a small golf course between its sea gate and the water.

Exploring Ironbridge, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution

Ironbridge 

Back in 2015 Dave and I began our thirteenth year together by visiting a historic bridge in Northumberland. At the time of its construction in 1820, the Chain Bridge was the longest carriage-carrying suspension bridge in the world. This year, entirely unintentionally, we spent the first day of our fifteenth year together strolling around the village of Ironbridge near Telford in Shropshire - the site of the world's first cast iron bridge.

Now preserved as a historic monument by English Heritage, the bridge itself was originally basically a giant advertisement! It was constructed over the River Severn in 1779 to prove the point that iron was perfectly suited as a material for large scale architectural projects. Local foundry owner Abraham Darby III had the bridge built and, from a promotional point of view, it was a roaring success as people straight away began travelling to Coalbrookdale to see it and iron became a popular choice for further bridge manufacture. We had even seen a quartet of small iron houses a few days previously at the Black Country Living Museum. A village grew up around the bridge, Ironbridge, and the new name is now used to encompass the incredible industrial heritage trail along this short section of the River Severn.

Ironbridge Gorge model 

We visited the Darby Houses situated uphill from the bridge itself and home to several generations of Abraham Darby III's family. These two buildings, side by side, were rescued for preservation pretty much in the nick of time as they had been allowed to get into a very poor state of repair. Now partially renovated (and with more work planned) the houses host a small museum to the influential family and their Quaker faith. It was very interesting and a well laid out museum with helpful staff. There is even a dressing-up room where we tried on period clothes of both society and Quaker fashion. It turns out a bonnet rather suits me!

One of my favourite exhibits was down in Ironbridge itself at the Museum Of The Gorge. There an intricately detailed  twelve-metre-long model of the Gorge as it was in 1796 shows the various industries concentrated there, how the River Severn was vital to their success and how they interlinked. The Ironbridge can be seen in the centre.

Ironbridge Gorge model 

Of course most of the industry that made Ironbridge famous has now gone so the Gorge we visited is once again a clean, peaceful place. Paintings up at the Darby Houses showed images of the valley partially obscured by smoke or with the polluted night sky glowing orange. I imagine it is a far more pleasant place to visit these days - and certainly a healthier one in which to live! The main business these days seems to be Afternoon Teas and we did partake in a cuppa and a slice. Eighty Six'd is an independent cafe uphill and a little away from the main tourist street. There's slate art on the walls and I loved their brightly coloured crockery! We can certainly recommend you to the Coffee And Walnut Cake (pictured) and the warm Apple Cake With Ice Cream. Sitting up in the bay window watching the world pass by made for a reflective end to our Ironbridge day.

Tea and cake at Eighty Six'd 

The RAF Museum at Cosford

I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed our visit to the RAF Museum at Cosford. Exhibits are crammed into three large hangars and despite our being there several hours we only managed to do justice to two of the three. Like York's Railway Museum, Cosford's RAF Museum is free to enter and is a magnificent display. It felt as though we should have paid handsomely for the privilege of walking around!

Once past the cafe and gift shop - to which we returned at the end of our visit! - the first hangar concentrated on a history of the RAF and military flight beginning with a statue of pilots from three eras. Superstitious artefacts including soft toys and a rabbit's foot lay alongside guns and uniforms. The only woman I saw mentioned was Jean Lennox Bird, the first female pilot to be awarded full RAF pilot's wings, and the museum has her St Christopher necklace. From a feminist perspective I was encouraged to see cadet groups touring the museum included significant numbers of girls so women are becoming more equally represented. From a pacifist perspective though I found it difficult to reconcile the museum being located on an RAF base. Its historical bubble swiftly bursts when one realises that the destruction and violence depicted in archived videos are still business as normal in the next door hangars.

The museum has examples of Second World War planes from various countries including the earliest surviving Spitfire and this pictured Japanese Ohka, one of the Kamikaze planes. It's tiny! We also got to view numerous experimental aeroplanes and Dave particularly was appalled at the amount of money spent on creating prototypes that never flew or that became outdated within a very short space of time.

The pride of this museum is its Cold War exhibition housed in a specially designed hangar that is a work of art in its own right! Exhibits here include a variety of airborne and landbased vehicles as well as video and sound installations, contemporary posters, newspapers and magazines, and some great propaganda slogans from both sides. I particularly liked the Albert Einstein quote pictured at the top of this post. With the recent UN resolution to ban nuclear weapons soon to be ratified by so many nations - although not the UK of course - this exhibition depicting how bravado and bullishness had so nearly brought the world to nuclear disaster relatively recently was chillingly relevant.

The Black Country Living Museum at Dudley

A street at the museum 

Our Shropshire stay has been incredibly educational with three days of museums and historical visits! We started with a day at the Black Country Living Museum situated in Dudley. Initially conceived as an idea in the 1960s, the twenty-six acre site started out containing forty-two mine shafts, a few derelict kilns and not much else. Over the past forty years all but two of those mine shafts have been closed off, a canal spur has been fully dug out and dozens of historically important buildings have been moved from their original locations to form a mostly Edwardian era town. It's an impressive achievement and an unfinished one at that. Plans for further streets illustrating Black Country life through each of some half dozen decades are just awaiting sufficient funds to be realised.

Our visit didn't actually start out particularly well. A long slow-moving entrance queue was very frustrating, especially when we finally got to the front and realised most of the delay seemed to be caused by staff having to input everyone's name and address details for their obligatory annual ticket, whether that ticket was required or not! If possible I would recommend booking your tickets online in advance as you can then skip the queue. I would also suggest, if there is a one part of the site you are especially interested in, that you phone ahead to check whether it will be open on your visit day. We had plenty to see on our Wednesday visit, but I did notice some demonstrations not happening and the trams weren't running.

Once inside, we took our time exploring the many buildings that were open for us to view. Most of the rooms have been decorated and furnished to represent the Elizabethan era and there are both urban and more rural homes, poor worker's cottages, back-to-backs, and more affluent dwellings that had housed foundry clerks or managers and their families. Some homes were attended by costumed Characters and it was fascinating to chat with them about the original inhabitants, where the buildings had been moved from and the history of the museum itself. We learned that while the jumbled in together positioning of homes and small factories was as it would have been - imagine living just feet away from a foundry! - the amount of greenery, noise level and clean air is somewhat misleading! In fact if the museum replicated the pollution levels these people lived with every day, I don't think it would be allowed visitors!

We liked being able to wander into traditionally laid out shops which are stocked with historically accurate wares and, in a few cases, with modern-day produce for sale. The fish and chip shop was doing a roaring lunch trade! We stopped for a ginger beer in the pub and a bakewell tart each at the bakery (although these were disappointingly dry. The sweet shop seemed perpetually inundated perhaps because Wednesday is School Trip Day at the museum. There are also canal boats to peer inside, a working fairground and a garage of vintage vehicles. We baulked at the idea of going down a mineshaft!

All in all the Black Country Living Museum made for a good day out. We spent a good four or five hours there and came away with a strong impression of what life could have been like in the Black Country's industrial towns. The museum gives value for money and it would be interesting to visit again in a few years when even more streets and exhibits have been added. They're hoping to get a library!