The Monday fun started Sunday night, around 830pm, when the power in the B&B went out. It was rainy and there was a little bit of lightning, but nothing to constitute power outages that we could tell. We never heard any thunder, and the wind was minimal.

When we woke up Monday, it was still out. However, we got our hot breakfast, because Gwawr our hostess, is awesome and has a stove that never turns off. It's gas, and I can't remember what it's called (Natalie?), but I had my melted Welsh cheese and toast with roasted tomato, and Natalie had her veggie big breakfast thing. And despite the rain we got in the car and headed for Caernarfon.

That pic to the right is us at Caernarfon castle, and remember that the power was out so there was no hair dryer or much in the way of light to get dressed. Don't judge us by our hair.

I wish I had the pictures of our drive, but they're haven't been uploaded to Flickr yet. Suffice it to say, we drove through a mountain pass with misty rain and fog so thick we were taking it on faith alone that the road ahead didn't just end, sending us careening over the cliff edge to a flaming Welsh death. There will definitely be a Massive Driving and Other Travels post next week.

However, we were lucky in that nobody else was out. Monday was a bank holiday, and apparently nobody in the UK gets out the door before 9 like we do. We were at Caernarfon by 10, and practically had the castle to ourselves. Which was nice, because it was effing HUGE.



It's the home of a permanent museum display about the Welsh Fusiliers. One of the giant towers was full, on all floors, with clothes, weapons, and other artifacts, as well as the history of the Fusiliers. We read about their part in just about every conflict the UK has been a part of, from the 16th century, to the American Revolution, to Afghanistan, where they occasionally speak Welsh instead of using a code. One room was like a memorial, and had the names of the Fusiliers inscribed into the walls like at the Vietnam Memorial Wall. Also, there was this cool stained glass:



Caernarfon was also known as the Castle of a Hundred Million Spiral Staircases.



Ok, not really. But we went up



and down



A LOT OF THEM. And, for the record, there is NO WAY you're getting up or down those in armor. That's why you had pages and stuff. The stairways were so narrow and steep, and the beneficial rope rails we had are not historically accurate. They were on their own way back then. Good lord.

Random cool shot from on top of a tower, with Welsh flag.



See all those towers? That's only about a third of the castle, and we went up THEM ALL.



In the bottom of one of the towers was this guy



And an older guy in civvies. They were so happy to see some real people that early that they pretty much forced us to listen as if we didn't know anything about swords and armor. I behaved and pretended to be a girl when they offered me the sword so I could whack on the dude's shield. It was fun. See?



I love this alcove, and want it in my house for a reading nook. I'd add pillows of course.



Can you see our car? It's third from the right in the back row. Good little Nissan Micra!



Isn't it a cute little town? I love rows of houses/shops painted like that.



Next, we headed for Criccieth. We were kind of hungry, but when we parked next to the castle the only place around was a hotel cafe closed for the bank holiday. So we tromped down to the beach. It was cold and rainy (of course) but the! ocean! We picked up some rocks for otterdancing and realized there was a a lot more rain blowing in.





We headed for the castle, which you can see poking up a little here. It was another crumbling Welsh castle, like Dollwyddelan keep. As we got to it, the rain came down in earnest, so we ducked into a little alcove and huddled there for about 15 minutes getting damp. Very damp. But the stone walls cut the wind and the view extremely dramatic. I thought, hey, I've read this book. This is where our intrepid adventurers sleep for the night, wrapped together under a big cloak eating hard cheese until falling asleep under the moon. Fortunately, we didn't have to say too long, and no Ring Wraiths showed up.

It didn't take too long to explore what was left of Criccieth.





Back in the visitor's center, we asked for a place to get some tea. We were cold, wet, and starving. Happily, there was a tea house a few blocks away. Instead of ordering something hot or healthy, we couldn't help just going with cream tea again.



It wasn't quite as good as the other, but still delicious! And Natalie snapped this, possibly my fav pic from the trip (despite the random head over my shoulder).



Our last stop of the day was Castle Harlech. Which is a castle, and town, shoved up onto a cliff. It looked very Euro with it's tiny (TINY) winding streets and town center piled on top of itself. (And there's our car again. What? I liked taking pics of it from on top of castles, ok?)



Harlech had a few spiral stairways, like this one which hasn't been renovated (clearly). But since we didn't have Adam anymore, nobody climbed it.



The coolest stairs were the ones just cut into the walls.



This chimney was so cool. There were three floors below it, and each floor had a fireplace with a chimney that spiraled up into this single one, so the smoke from below wouldn't get into the firepalce above. Keen, no?



Harlech!





Gorgeous view!



More stairs!





Last, but never least, the Cock Tower.



I don't even remember what it really said back there.

Monday night deserves a post of it's own, so... soon to come!