Uncle Travelling Matt

Part 3: Llandudno to Dolwyddelan

Links to all parts of this travelogue

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: Llandudno

Part 4: Dolwyddelan to Blaenau Ffestiniog

Also check out my other Welsh travelogues:

Part 4: Dolwyddelan to Blaenau Ffestiniog

Whenever I bring a foreigner to Wales, I bring them to Dolwyddelan. I've shown it to Americans, Vietnamese, Irishmen and a Dutchman so far but they won't be the last. I bring them to Dolwyddelan partially because it is beautiful, powerfully so, but then there are plenty of places that fit that description in Cymru. No, the main reason why Dolwyddelan is on my itinerary is because Dolwyddelan is Wales; for me it represents the country's very soul. Which of course begs the question as to why try and find the soul of Wales by travelling the A470 when one already knows where it is? Well, who knows? Perhaps I've got it wrong.

And I may well have. Disappointingly, Cerys Matthews never once talks about it on her tour of the Welsh M1 and it doesn't even get a mention in Lorraine King's musical tribute to the road. Yet it should for it is undoubtedly the most spectacular ruin en route, or at least, that's my opinion.

Dolwyddelan – a combination of “Dol” (field) and “Gwyddelan” (Irishman) – is the field of the Irishman. It was founded back in the murky mists of the Dark Ages when an unknown Irish holy man headed up the Lledr Valley and decided to erect his hermitage where the village now stands. St. Gwyddelan is my favourite Welsh saint for we known absolutely nothing about him, not even his name, yet his legacy persists, not only in the settlement that he founded but also in the church which superseded the one that he founded for there we can find his bell hanging up in the nave, a physical link between the devolved, cosmopolitan Wales of the 21^st century and the myth-soaked Wales of the 6^th or 7^th century.

But it is not the church or the bell which brings most visitors to Dolwyddelan, but instead the fortress that stands on a rocky outcrop beyond the village, a “solitary sentinel” looking out across a barren and forbidding landscape. Climb up to it, (depositing the Cadw entrance fee in the nearby farmhouse), and you come across two towers, one an absolute ruin, the other complete and atmospheric. Inside it's dark and gloomy, the ideal place for a mountain brigand to have his hideout, a space where you can almost smell the log fires that once burnt in the gigantic fireplace. But this was no robber's hideaway, it was a royal castle of the Princes of Wales, where legend says no less a figure than Llewelyn the Great was born. Here he held out against the English and, several years later, so too did his grandson. Climb the dark staircase at the side of the chamber and onto the rooftop and you can see why they so loved this place; it commands the whole valley, a wild and rugged land that no Englishman could ever feel at home in, Celtic to its core, the forbidding mass of Moel Siabod looming at its back. There the romantic in anyone can stand, face buffeted by the wind, arms outstretched and declare, “This is Wales!”

But not just the romantic either, for Dolwyddelan teaches us an important lesson in Welsh history. Royal stronghold it may be, but as a fortress it is none too impressive. Two squat square towers linked by low walls. Unsophisticated and, for a determined enemy, not too difficult to lay siege to. And when one considers that the second, ruined tower was only added by the English after their victory then it becomes more startling. The greatest castle that the Welsh Prince could muster was a single square tower with a curtain wall attached. Compared that with the ultra-modern, sophisticated Conwy down the river, with its concentric design, barbicans and walled town, (each of the towers on that wall more than a match for Dolwyddelan's), which could be supplied by sea and one sees just how great the military, technological and financial imbalance was between Wales and England. Romantic though Dolwyddelan is, and beautifully situated, stood on its ramparts you realise that Llewelyn ap Gruffudd never stood a chance.

Dolwyddelan Castle

After Dolwyddelan Castle the A470 and the railway line which has been its constant companion since Llandudno part ways, the railway veering off down the valley to the south west before making a near ninety degree turn and plunging into the two-mile long tunnel underneath Moel Dyrnogydd. The road on the other hand, chooses to go over the hill and the pass is one of the most spectacular spots on the entire route. When we stopped the sky was misty and the views not as great as they are in the sunshine but even so, the vista looking north west across the vast, empty valley towards the barren slopes of Moel Siabod is stunning.

For me though, stunning views or not, it is the name of this mountain pass which pricks my curiosity. The Crimea Pass; why name a section of road after an ill-fated peninsula thousands of miles away, (very much in the news though when we were travelling)? It transpires that the road was opened, (or at least re-opened after improvements, as there has been a track there since at least Roman times), in 1854 whilst the Crimean War was being fought. Local legend states that Russian prisoners of war from the battles of Inkerman and Balaclava were pressed into building stone walls thereabouts and later an inn at the summit was named 'The Crimea'. Sadly that is now long gone, but the name remains, a touch of the exotic in the heart of Snowdonia, although in a land already blessed with countless Nazareths, Bethlehems, Bethesdas and Hebrons, then maybe that should not come as such a surprise.

Crimea Pass

But if the views from that side of the pass are stunning, those from the other are something else. Not so beautiful perhaps, but far more memorable. If looking north from Crimea Pass feels like an ascent up to Heaven, then the drive south is surely a descent into Hell.

There is nowhere else on earth quite like Blaenau Ffestiniog. A tiny, dreary mining town hemmed in on all sides by enormous mountains totally covered by the waste of centuries of slate extraction. No vegetation grows and the traditional beauty of the wild Welsh peaks is mutated into something like a vision from the abyss. The rock may have made beautiful rooftops worldwide, but it has blighted the home that bore it. When Hollywood film-makers were filming the Arthurian epic 'First Knight' in Wales and they needed a location for the bad guy's lair, then was it any surprise that they picked an old winding house for one of the mines, for the place truly does echo Mordor, the home of evil in 'Lord of the Rings'.

And that's why I love it. It's gritty, it's real and it’s another aspect of the soul of Wales. Starting in 1760, slate production rocketed as the Industrial Revolution progressed and with it too the population of the town, peaking at just under 12,000 in the 1880s, making it the largest town in North Wales after Wrexham. Miners were housed in tiny terraced, punctuated with chapels, over a dozen in fact, which were filled to the brim every Sunday. The slate itself was taken away by railways, first the narrow-gauge line down to the coast at Porthmadog, (a town developed specifically as a port for the slate), in 1836 and then later joined by the standard gauge lines to Bala (1883) and Llandudno Junction (1879).

But by the 1890s the first of the quarries began to lose money and a process of decline set in. One by one the quarries closed so that now only one remains and the population similarly plummeted, down to under five thousand today. The narrow-gauge railway to Bala closed in 1946, the standard gauge line to Bala in 1960 so that only the Conwy Valley Line remained. And that is the story of Blaenau Ffestiniog, one that echoes so much of Wales, particularly the Valleys where the A470 was taking us; one of loss – the loss of industry, of transport links, of money, of faith, of beauty but not of soul.

Yet unlike its barren hillsides, Blaenau Ffestiniog today is also a tale of rebirth. It started with the remarkable tale of the little narrow-gauge railway, the Ffestiniog Railway, which trundled down to the sea at Porthmadog. Seemingly lost forever, in 1954 a group of railway enthusiasts took over the old line and started to painstakingly restore it as a tourist railway. It was no easy task; the fourteen miles of track were overgrown and earthworks often needed rebuilding, as too did the locos and carriages. But the biggest challenge was caused by the Central Electricity Generating Board who had constructed the Ffestiniog Pumped Storage Scheme which had flooded a section of the track bed with its reservoir. Between 1965 and 1978 a 4-mile diversion was built in which the railway looped over itself to gain height over the water and then plunged into a new tunnel. Built almost entirely by volunteers from all over the country, it really was a remarkable achievement and those who added their labours to the efforts must have felt justly proud when the first Ffestiniog trains rolled into Blaenau Ffestiniog station again in 1982.

And with the little trains came a rebirth. If mining once sustained this part of Wales, then tourism does now. Blaenau now survives on its trains and also its old mines reopened as museums offering mine tours or extreme sports centres offering such niche delights as zip lines over slag heaps and underground trampolining in the merrily-named Bounce Below complex. And in line with this upbeat and trendy, new image, money has been spent refurbishing the town centre and both Rob and I liked their efforts. After a tasty lunch of traditional Welsh soup in a café staffed with Welsh speakers, we admired the new central plaza which has poetry etched in slate on the pavements and the names of each of the old mines engraved on one of their pieces of slate. I never realised the rock came in so many different shades. “I love this place,” declared Rob, who hadn't visited since he was a small child. “A small community made from and surrounded by rock; it’s powerful.”

Blaenau paving

And so it was and what's more it also gave us the first indication on our route that others were thinking like us. In the men's toilets next to the car park, there was an impressive Blaenau Ffestiniog word map blown up and plastered across the walls. And one of the largest words on there?

A470

Friday, 18 March 2016

A470: Part 3: Llandudno to Dolwyddelan

Greetings!

It’s been a busy week this week for UTM as I’ve been hard at work editing all my travel videos for the past year or so. So, in the coming weeks, you’ll be treated to the v-logs of my trips to Scotland, Cuba, Madrid and the DPRK. Until then though, we have Wales…

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Links to all parts of this travelogue

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: Llandudno

Also check out my other Welsh travelogues:

Part 3: Llandudno to Dolwyddelan

The A470 heads due south from Llandudno to the unimaginatively-named Llandudno Junction, (so called because that was where the Chester & Holyhead Railway Company built the station where the branch line to the new resort left the mainline to Holyhead. That's a shame for if it had followed the banks of the River Conway which it picks up after Llandudno Junction, it would have gone through Deganwy. Like Llandudno, Deganwy is today a place dedicated to tourism, its centrepiece a large marina where the wealthy of the English north-west moor their yachts. It looks a modern place too, nothing older than the Victorians, but like its neighbour at the foot of the Orme, Deganwy is an ancient place indeed, and above the village, on two crags, are situated the scant remains of one of the royal castles of the Kings of Gwynedd, for a while in the 6^th century, their capital. It has its place, quite unexpectedly, in an ancient holy legend. When I was researching the history of St. Modwen for a book on sacred sites of Staffordshire, I read that Modwen made landfall from Ireland at Deganwy along with three other saints: Luge, Athea and the famous St. Brigid of Kildare. What was remarkable about this is that, according to the legends, the holy foursome travelled over from the Emerald Isle, not on a boat, but a small piece of land which detached itself and then attached itself at Deganwy. So much for Stena Line steamers! Whatever the truth may have been, it seems that Modwen went on to Burton a where she settled, (and later had a construction company named after her), taking Luge with her whilst Brigid and Athea stayed on the banks of the Conwy.

But if Deganwy Castle and its settlement are important, it is the fortress on the opposite side of the river which can be seen from the A470 after Llandudno Junction, which really grabs our attention. Conwy Castle is truly spectacular, a symbol of Wales instantly recognisable to thousands. It and the walled town which lie alongside it are undoubtedly the most worthwhile thing to see along the whole of the North Wales Coast and I never bore of wandering through its narrow streets, or gazing from the ramparts of its walls. It's an evocative place and nowhere else in Britain does a town feel so mediaeval, except perhaps in Caernarvon, further along the coast.

Yet as a symbol of Welsh pride and identity, Conwy is a poor one. It was built between 1283 and 1289 as part of a series of impressive fortresses ringing the mountainous regions of North Wales under the instructions of King Edward I of England. He'd just fought a war against Llewelyn ap Gruffudd, the last Prince of Wales in which he had achieved a total and crushing victory but at great financial cost. As he had achieved a similar victory only five years earlier and, as soon as he had left, the Welsh Prince had decided not to abide by his overlord's rules, this time Edward wanted to make sure that his domination lasted and so he ordered the construction of a “ring of stone – fortresses some with attached walled towns – around the mountains of Snowdonia where the Welsh Princes had traditionally had their strongholds. Fflint, Rhuddlan, Denbigh, Conway, Beaumaris, Caernarvon and Harlech still remain today as testimony to the power, wealth and vision of Edward.[1] He'd just returned from the Crusades and brought with him the latest castle-building technology from the Middle East including concentric designs and round towers, far more difficult to attack than the traditional square ones. The royal fortress from which Wales was governed afterwards, Caernarvon, was even built with hexagonal towers and lines of stones so as to reflect the Walls of Byzantium, the greatest fortifications on earth at the time and a potent symbol of the imperial ambitions of Edward who then turned his attentions to the rebellious Scots. And that's why it’s ironic that those great castles, Conwy, Caernarvon and Harlech in particular, are seen as symbols of Welshness, for they were built by the English to subdue the Welsh, they represented the end of any hope for Welsh independence and in their walled towns no Welshman was allowed to dwell and settlement by the English was encouraged. It's the same as an Israeli settlement being seen as a symbol of the Palestinian nation today, but when seven centuries or so pass, then attitudes can mellow I suppose. I recall going drinking in the pubs of Conway with my brother one night and being a little disappointed that the only language that I heard was English and all the accents on show were more Lancashire than Llanrwst. But then again, for a town in which the Welsh for centuries were barred, what else should I have expected?

Conwy in the 1300s

But back to the A470 and we were now trundling along at a reasonable pace. Not that we couldn't be too complacent mind; this stretch is notorious for its speed cameras and I know several people who've been caught there and having to be ever-alert, whilst perhaps a plus for road safety, nonetheless impacts upon the enjoyment of a drive.

Not that the stretch from Llandudno Junction to Llanrwst is really that great. It's not a bad road but I felt myself wishing that instead of driving, I was riding the rails on this section of the journey. After my childhood holidays, my next great love affair with the country next door was with her railways. As a teenager I began my independent travels by taking the train from my home near to Stoke-on-Trent to places round about. Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, the Peak District, Nottingham and Derby, I explored them all by rail, but my favourite trips were all Wales-ward, always involving a change at Crewe first. Although this is a book about a road trip, no one can write about Wales without mentioning her trains for they are amazing. I've travelled the globe pretty extensively by rail and yet the Welsh rides still stand out as being world class. There's the North Wales Coast Line from Crewe, through Chester to Llandudno Junction, over the river under the imposing shadow of Conwy Castle, across the Menai Straits to Anglesey and Holyhead where the ferry waits for Dun Laoghaire. It's the rail equivalent of the A55-A5 and it's a magical journey, the train clinging to the coastline, past castles and cliffs, the light dimming as we cross Anglesey, the knowledge that we're en route to another land with all the chatter in the coach conducted in melodious Irish accents and the nun sitting opposite me engrossed in a Maeve Binchy novel. Or what of the Cambrian Coast, pulling out of the magnificent station at Shrewsbury, heading through the moody hills of Mid Wales, pausing as trains pass at Machynlleth, (you can take the Aberystwyth-bound service from there), then Dovey Junction, a lonely platform in the middle of nowhere, (which always reminds me of the Arthur Askey film the ghost train in which the main characters are forced to spend the night on a similar lonely station), then the glorious Cambrian Coast itself, clinging onto the cliffs at Friog, crossing the magnificent mile-long bridge into Barmouth, spying Harlech Castle high on the rocks above you, Porthmadog, Criccieth and the Pwhelli, truly the end of the line. Or instead the Heart of Wales Line, over a hundred miles of lonely scenery punctuated by unpronounceable stops and glorious viaducts before backing up on itself at Llanelli and then finally rolling into Swansea. But the best of the lot has to be the Conwy Valley Line which follows the A470 closely all the way from Llandudno Junction down to Llanrwst, Betws-y-Coed, Dolwyddelan and Blaenau Ffestiniog. The valley is gentle at first and your eyes focus on the estuary itself, a vast lake with speedboats and yachts at high tide or a mudflat criss-crossed with the patterns of birds' feet at low, then after Betws-y-Coed it gets more rugged as we leave the Conwy Valley behind and enter the Lledr Valley, in and out of countless tunnels until we enter the mother of them all, the two-mile burrow under Crimea Pass before finally bursting out amongst the slate tips of Blaenau. It is one of the world's great train journeys and I enjoy it immensely every time that I take it.

Our first stop, Llanrwst, is notable to train travellers for the fact that this tiny town has two stations. With a population of just over 3,000, it doesn't really warrant them, but the reasoning is that the original was too far out of town so they opened another next to the centre in 1989. That's now Llanrwst whilst the old one has been renamed North Llanrwst. This time though, we were interested in neither, pulling up in the compact main square to buy some essentials, (well, beer...), for the night ahead. In her programme on the A470, Cerys Matthews talks at great length about the town which she knows well since one of the members of Catatonia hailed from there. She makes much of the local motto, "Cymru, Lloegr a Llanrwst" (Wales, England and Llanrwst), which dates from the time of Llewelyn who granted the town a degree of ecclesiastical independence and which has caused it to believe that it is independent of both Wales and England. This feeling is so strong locally that in 1947 the town council made a bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Unsurprisingly it failed, but the legend remains, most notably in a rock song by local band Y Cryff.

Not that any of this rebellious thinking was apparent to us. We instead merely bought what we needed to, then wandered around its pretty narrow streets before admiring the graceful stone bridge over the Conwy and then making our way again.

Llanrwst

Just across the river from Betws-y-Coed, we left the A470. This Welsh Route 66 was proving to be no match for its more illustrious American cousin for it doesn't even do what it claims, namely stretch from the tip to the toe of Wales. For a couple of hundred metres it simply disappears. When the patriotic renumberers got to work in the seventies, they forgot a bit.

Well, perhaps. Actually they probably knew full well but chose to keep the old numbering for those few metres for here the A470 crosses – and follows the same path as – a far more illustrious highway: the A5.

The A5 truly is one of Britain's great roads. Not necessarily to travel on; anyone who has endured the section around Cannock would never wax lyrical about it, but because of its lineage. The A5 is a Roman Road, straight as a dye for much of its route, linking Londinium (London) with Wroxeter (now abandoned, in Shropshire). It has existed as one of the main thoroughfares in England through the Dark Ages and Mediaeval Period but in the 19^th century with the advent of toll roads the whole route was upgraded and extended through the troublesome terrain of the Welsh mountains to Anglesey and thence Holyhead thus linking London with Dublin, capital of the latest country to join the United Kingdom. The engineer who was assigned the job was Thomas Telford and he did it masterfully, gradients never exceeding 5% so that mail coaches could ply the route easily. Many of his original features survive, particular on the section through the Welsh mountains and for that reason it has been designated an historical route worthy of preservation and thus that is why, for this section only, the A470 does not take precedence. Not that we saw much of Telford's work mind on the short distance we travelled along his masterpiece before turning off to the right, but there was one monument of note, the glorious bridge over the Conwy made out of cast iron on which is inscribed the following:

'This arch was constructed in the same year the battle of Waterloo was fought'

A5 Bridge, Betws-y-Coed

After the A5 the countryside became much wilder, pine-clad slopes closing in and jagged rocks on either side. We drove for a couple of miles down the valley, first of the Conwy, then the Lledr and then saw the sign that we craved, our camp site for the night, a favourite haunt of mine by the banks of the Lledr which Rob had not stayed at before. We turned off our faithful friend and headed down the slope and over the river to the field where we put up our tent in amongst crowds of midges and then, as the sun set and the clouds came out, lit a fire, cracked open the beers bought in Llanrwst, (now keeping cool in the river), and began to expound on the Welsh soul and the road that runs right through it as the sun slowly set beyond the peaks of Snowdonia and a million and one stars came out to take its place.

Camping in the Lledr Valley

[1] He also built the castle and walled town of Aberystwyth but those fortifications were all but obliterated by Olver Cromwell three and a half centuries later whilst at the same time he took over and improved some Welsh castles, most notably that at Criccieth.

Friday, 11 March 2016

A470: Part 2: Llandudno

Greetings!

Today’s offering, the second part of my Grand Tour of Wales, deals with Llandudno, a fine Victorian seaside resort that I’ve visited countless times ever since I was a small child. It’s by far and away the finest resort on the north coast and if you’ve never been there, then please do. So, let’s buy an ice cream or some candy floss and take a leisurely walk along the prom. Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside…

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Links to all parts of this travelogue

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: Llandudno

Also check out my other Welsh travelogues:

Part 2: Llandudno

Llandudno, where the A470 commences – or ends, depending on where you start – is different to the other resorts dotted along that northern coast. Rhos-on-Sea, Colwyn Bay and Prestatyn seem to me to be housing estates by the beach; Rhyl is some apocalyptic vision of how bad a seaside resort can be if all planning, taste and money leave town, but Llandudno never fails to please; it has a gentility and class all of its own.

Part of that is the setting. Nestled on a curving bay in-between the Great and Little Ormes – two rocky headlands jutting out towards the Isle of Man – it seems as if God designed it purposefully to be made into a holiday resort with an elegant row of hotels lining the front. Dubbed the Queen of Welsh Resorts from as early as 1864 and still the largest resort in Wales it is also one of the oldest. Its development began in 1848 when Owen Williams, an architect and surveyor from Liverpool, presented Lord Mostyn who owned all the land thereabouts including the Great Orme, with plans to develop the marsh lands behind Llandudno Bay as a holiday resort. These were enthusiastically taken up by Lord Mostyn and over the decades that followed the town became a model Victorian seaside resort. During the years 1857 to 1877 much of central Llandudno was developed under the supervision of George Felton, the Mostyn Estate's architect and even today the grand sweep of his vision remains. Indeed, it is what makes Llandudno what it is and what sets it apart from its brothers and sisters further along the coast. However, Llandudno itself has a much older history than just as a resort. Even when the developments started there was already a community of over a thousand souls residing in the parish which was named after its church, the Church of St. Tudno which still stands on the slopes of the Orme. Tudno was a 6^th century monk who established his first church here and healed people with water from one of the many wells on the Orme. Even Tudno though, was not the first resident; the majority of those thousand or more souls in the parish in 1848 were employed in copper mines and there is evidence of mining on the Orme back to Bronze Age times. Llandudno today may, superficially, be very English in character, but its roots are as Welsh and as ancient as anywhere else in the Principality.

Llandudno

Perhaps we should have a word here about St. Tudno, for one of the features of Wales is that it positively abounds with figures like him, obscure Celtic saints who set up a hermitage in some improbably scenic location where, with a beard as long as your arm, they would praise God in their ancient tongue. Their names are in almost every place name, for the prefix ‘Llan’ (which literally means “enclosure”) signifies a church, (as all ancient churches were in enclosures), normally coupled with the name of the saint who once dwelt there, such as Llanbadarn, Llangurig, Llanilltud, Llangollen and, perhaps the most famous of all, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch which, sadly, does not mean that it was the home of an impossibly long-named saint, but instead is a Victorian construction that translates as “The Church of St. Mary in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool of the Church of St. Tysilio of the red cave”.

Tudno seems to be pretty typical of these early Welsh saints, several more of whom we’ll encounter as we drive south. Little concrete is known about him but he is said to have been one of the seven sons of King Seithenyn, whose legendary kingdom Cantref y Gwaelod in Cardigan Bay was submerged by tidal activity. According to the theory, Tudno studied at St. Dunawd's college in the monastery of Bangor Iscoed, in order to make recompense for the drunken incompetence of his father, which had led to the loss of the kingdom under the waves. Seeking a place to live out the religious life, Tudno went to the great ancient limestone outcrop of the Great Orme. He lived initially as a hermit in a small coastal cave with difficult access known as Ogof Llech, and from this base he constructed a church which was replaced in the 12^th century by a larger structure which still stands on the headland today.

St. Tudno’s Church

When we arrived in Llandudno, although the sky was grey, the rain had mostly cleared and the bay looked magnificent; the sweep of hotels with the Great Orme behind, then the tank grey Irish Sea with its ranks of wind turbines harvesting the gusts in the cloud. They are a new addition to the scene, an army of metal eco-warriors planted out to sea in the last decade, but I rather like them as they swish in the gloom, their blades cutting a never-ending circle in the sky.

It was in Llandudno that the road first taught us something. In the Radio 4 documentary the writer Mike Parker states that “The Welshness of the A470 lies in its paradox, in its pluralness... its ability to infuriate us.” With twists and turns aplenty later on, we'd expected this “Celtic knot” of a road to do just that later on, but it managed to succeed even before we'd driven down a metre of its tarmac. On the sea front we were confronted by a dilemma: which of the roads ending there was the one that we sought? “I bet Route 66 is better signposted than this,” declared Rob as we finally settled on the one that we thought it was and took photos there. Consulting his iPad moments later revealed that we'd got it wrong: the A470 was the next street along, the one that we'd just passed. A knot indeed, infuriating in its plurality. Yet we both liked it. A Welsh Route 66 the A470 may be, but first and foremost it is Welsh. Route 66 traverses a vast, boastful and confident nation; of course it would be well-signposted. Wales is none of those things. She has been subjected by her neighbour for far too long to be boastful and confident, and as for size, well Lorraine King describes it best in her A470 song: “A celebration of a nation you could fit into a postage stamp”. So, it was right that it should be an unheralded, hidden beginning. Yes, we both rather liked that.

The humble beginning/end to the Welsh M1

By either side of the (genuine) end/beginning of the A470 are monumental hotels as envisaged by Owen Williams in his original masterplan for the marshes. Inside in well-lit dining rooms sat the ranks of the retired, dining on roast beef or steak and chips, gazing out into the gloom beyond, hoping that it would clear completely so that they could have a stroll before bedtime. They are atmospheric places, those grand hotels with names like the Majestic or the Hydro, symbols of a bygone era inhabited by people like our grandparents who holidayed in groups where everyone followed the same itinerary, being picked up at a convenient spot by the Shearings coach and treated to the dubious delights of a garden centre en route. Us children of the Post-Modern Era where everything is about the individual who follows their own specially-tailored package struggle to see how they could endure, let alone enjoy such a holiday, but that was what they yearned for after weeks of hard toil in the factory, mine or office. Strolling hand-in-hand along the wide promenade with an excursion up the Orme to look forward to on the morrow; that was their idea of pleasure. The hotels that flank the end of the Welsh Route 66 are the Marine and the Imperial. We stood in front of the entrance of the latter, half-expecting Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple to emerge from the doors under its stained glass portico, ready to solve a murder on the pier, musing on the Wales of the holidaymaker that we were trying to go beyond and then got in the car and turned on the ignition. We were off! Two days and 178 miles later we would have discovered the very soul of Wales and be wiser men for it. Well... perhaps.

Rob at the Imperial Hotel

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Saturday, 5 March 2016

A470: Part 1: Introduction

Greetings!

And welcome to the first part of a new travelogue, the account of my 2014 trip along the Route 66 of Wales, the uninspiringly-named A470. Wales is a country close to my heart and one that I know well and this travelogue is my tribute to it. I just trust that my affection for the Principality comes through.

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Links to all parts of this travelogue

Part 1: Introduction

Also check out my other Welsh travelogues: