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Holyhead, Wales June 8, 2005
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On our journey cris-crossing the Irish sea, we now crossed over the
Holyhead (pronounced like Holly as in Christmas) which is on the point
of Holy Island (pronounced as you would expect). This was an
important ferry terminal for those going to Ireland so has a good road
into the heart of Wales and ultimately to London. Our first stop was the Bodnant Gardens, an immense several layer ground with beautiful gardens on it. Their "small" home is shown here. |
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On "layer" 3, we found this beautiful building. It originally was a
pin factory (ladies hat pins), and had another floor underneath what you
see. It was going to be destroyed, so Mr. Bodnant had it torn down and
reconstructed here (brick by brick). The stream is many feet down the path behind the pin factory, so not everybody went there. I thought it worth the trip. |
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Coming back up from the stream, I found this little lake. As you can
see, the contrast exceeds what my camera can handle, but I still thought you
would enjoy it. The flowers are just an example of what there were many many beds - all pretty much different. |
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Our next stop is Castle Caernarfon (see below), but we crossed over some absolutely spectacular Welsh countryside to get there. Unfortunately, the picture is take through the bus window, but it still conveys a sense of the Beauty. |
| This castle was built in 1284 by Edward I as part of his plan to consolidate his conquering of Wales. He never actually finished it (he ran out of money), but even with an incomplete castle it was never successfully conquered from the outside. (However, it was conquered twice by treachery). |  |
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After a quick stop in the bank to convert remaining Euros into Pounds (and to hit the ATM for even more Pounds), we all dutifully got back on our buses (5 of them) and motored all the way from the middle of Wales to Holyhead once more. Here we boarded our tender and went back to the ship. We had farther to go this day, so had to leave "a mite" early. |
| The good news about leaving early is I was able to get some really good pictures of some more lighthouses. This justifies the sore shoulder I had carrying the heavy camera with long lens. (Even with the long lens, these are cropped to digitally zoom the photo.) |
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| Cork | Dublin | Iona | Portree | Orkney |
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