Tuesday, August 16th, 2011: Drive to Criccieth, Wales
Bob: We were both sad to leave Holmeshead Farms as we had had such a nice week there, but Monika had already reserved rooms for the next five days in Wales so we really had to go. We enjoyed a last hearty breakfast while we watched the rain falling steadily outside, and although I was not looking forward to making the long drive in the rain, the fact that we would have gotten cold and wet if we went for another walk made it somewhat easier to leave our cozy nest. Fortunately we had accumulated enough English cash by repeatedly hitting all the ATMs we ran across in our rambles during the previous week that we could pay our hostess the 478 pounds, all in 10s and 20s! We stopped off at the Kirkstone Quarry to pick up our "HOLT" sign, slate coasters, and teapot stand, but fortunately they accepted a credit card as we were almost out of cash after paying for our B&B. The rain continued as we drove out of the Lake District and southward toward Liverpool although it varied in intensity from a light sprinkle, where I could do the speed limit of 70 mph, to a moderately heavy downpour that forced me and all the other drivers to slow down to 55-60 mph. Having a car with relatively new tires relieved worries about aquaplaning as long as I kept the speeds reasonable, so I could just focus on keeping up with the flow of traffic in my chosen lane. As in Germany, I found that I typically wanted to go a bit faster than the trucks in the leftmost lane but a bit slower than the speed demons in the rightmost lane, so I stuck pretty much in the middle lane as a result. |
Monika: After a week in the Lake District it was time to move. I had wondered whether I would be bored by the end of the week, and it turned out that I really would have liked to stay another week. But the weather seemed to say: "Go! Go!"--it was once again raining buckets. So we had one last wonderful country breakfast, before packing our stuff into the car and driving down to the slate workshop. Our sign was indeed done and looked beautiful, and we payed for it and for the 4 coasters and teapot stand. And went on our way. Our reservation for the Lion Hotel in Criccieth included coordinates that I programmed into the GPS. The drive to Criccieth supposedly was going to take 3 and a half hours...well, maybe. We drove in the rain around Lake Windemere past Ambleside, through Windemere, and on to the M6. We then stayed on the M6 past Liverpool to the north coast of Wales, where we caught the A55 highway that went along the North coast all the way to Holyread where the ferries to Dublin depart. But we got off before the island of Angleside and curled around the South coast of the Lun peninsula to the little town of Criccieth. While driving past Liverpool the GPS wanted us to actually drive through Liverpool and take a toll tunnel to the north coast of Wales. This really did not look very promising and we stayed on the route we had planned. I was highly amused to find that after the GPS had recalculated our route, the estimated time was actually 7 minutes shorter! |
Bob: After we turned off the M 6 motorway and headed over toward Chester and the Welsh border, the rain became intermittent and finally ceased all together. That was nice because it afforded us our first views of the Welsh countryside. The lush green fields and stone walls looked a lot like the valleys in the Lake District further North sans the lakes, but in Wales we were skirting the seacoast on the northern boundary with views out over the Irish Sea. I was getting rather tired of the driving and the car needed more fuel, so we stopped at one of the official rest areas complete with a Shell gas station that also fortunately accepted a credit card and had a cafe, a Subway shop, and an "OK Diner" as various sources of food. Curiously, for a long stretch of the motorway we also saw these little food chuckwagon-mobiles at every little space where you could legally pull off. Someday we will have to check the food quality and price at one of those things! |
Monika: After a little over two hours of driving, we stopped in a rest area for a Subway sandwich and to fill up the car. When Bob started to get tired after another hour and a half of driving we were almost at our destination. The GPS really did get us correctly to the hotel by about 2:30. Since we left around 10, that meant it took us 4 1/2 hours. Taking 30 minutes lunch break into account, that was not bad, especially when considering that it was pouring rain for over half the trip. But by the time we arrived in Criccieth it had stopped and the sun was actually peeking out. |
Bob: When we curled around the northwestern corner of Wales, the road dropped down to a two-lane highway, albeit a much broader two lanes than I had been used to coping with in the Lake District. That allowed me to keep the speed up a bit so that we arrived in Criccieth by about 2:30 p.m. The Lion Hotel was a large, 3 story white building with black trim in the middle of town, so it was quite visually prominent. Thankfully it also had a dedicated parking area in the rear with spaces for our little Punto. I had been driving over four hours and had been coping with the rubbery, balky transmission for a very long time that day, so I was just as glad to park the heap and move our luggage into our room. It really is hard for me to imagine that the same country that produces Ferraris, Maseratis, and Lamboghinis can produce a car with a manual transmission that is so difficult to shift correctly. Doesn't Fiat have any pride? |
Monika: Bob parked the car and the hotel had received our advance reservation, so we settled into room # 33 on the second floor (3rd for Americans, since for Europeans start counting ground floor, then first floor...). Luckily there was and elevator to help getting our luggage up to our room. The room was cheerful with two windows, two chairs and a little desk. It also had a nice view of the surrounding area. |
Bob: I needed to decompress for a while , but after a bit of reading and a snack we both felt like exploring the town. So we wandered up and down the main street and side streets of Criccieth, working our way eventually downhill to the waterfront. There we found a HUGE beach, at least 1/4 mile long, and very surprisingly there were people actually in the water swimming in addition to the usually cluster of families having fun above the waterline. I thought one was wearing a wet suit but most of the others just seemed to be wearing swimsuits so maybe the water was warmer than it looked. Just up the hill from the beach was a small but quite pretty castle perched right on the hilltop. It was closed for the day but we added it to the list of things we might look at whilst in town. The town of Criccieth itself had quite a few nice-looking shops as well as a couple of restaurants and a bar or two. We spent some time checking out a second-hand store where Monika bought some nice porcelain spice jars that ended up in a wire rack just over our stove back at home. We also found a hardware store where we bought some coffee mugs with the dragon symbol of Wales emblazoned on it. By then it was coming around to dinner time so we climbed back uphill to the Lion and settled in to consume the last of our rolls and cheese for our evening repast. The Wifi in our hotel was free but limited to the public lounge downstairs, so we spent an hour with our email and Facebook pages before returning upstairs and settling back into Room 33 for the night. |
Monika: We settled down for a cup of coffee, no cocoa so Bob had decaf, and some cookies. After resting for a while, we were ready to take a look at the little town. It has one major road with several antique stores and some restaurants/pubs. There also was a little hardware store where I found two nice little coffee mugs with the Welsh dragon imprinted on them. A little further on was a store that billed itself as a craft store, but it really was a second hand store. There I found 5 small bottles for spices. The uniqueness came in that the name of each spice was in several languages, English, German, and French, and a picture of the plant was painted on it. Really charming. The five bottles were for cinnemon, clove, pepper, paprika, and nutmeg. Since these were spices I use regularly I bought them at 50 p each. Bob started worrying about packing it all, but somehow we'll manage. We kept walking to the sea and I was surprised to see a large beach and even more surprised to see people actually in the water. This is, after all, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean. But people seemed to be having fun. We walked up the hill towards the ruins of an old castle that we had seen earlier from the windows of our room and decided that we would take a look at it tomorrow. Today, we were just ready to head back for some Abendessen. We shared my left over Subway sandwich and had another roll with cheese and that was as good as it gets. After that we went down to the lounge, since we had been told that there would be WiFi available. And indeed we were able to get all our E-mails and let people know we were still alive and well. But that was enough excitement for one day and we went back to our room to download pictures, write the journal, read, and take one more picture of Criccieth Castle at sundown. |
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