Magical Journeys: Part Five

Ireland to Wales, magic all the way.

Bidding Inisheer a wistful farewell the next morning, we set off with no time for breakfast, a great deal of anticipation, and the Million Dollar Question: would our luggage be waiting in Dublin?

Hello, gorgeous.

Tracking it down took some time...in fact, most of the time I had set aside to get checked-in to our flight to Manchester. Though I had tried, multiple times, to check in online to RyanAir, their website insisted we had no flight that day. When we arrived at the counter and confirmed our reservation, we were told we had five minutes to check in before we were penalized for our lateness, and for some reason, couldn't do it there - we had to go back to a nearby kiosk, where we had to pay for the privilege of getting online, find the website for the airline whose counter was twenty feet away, and then attempt to check-in to our flight. I stared at the buffering wheel for a while, wondering whether to laugh or cry as it whirled away our remaining seconds. Finally I refreshed the site, at which point it finally pulled up our flight - one minute too late to check-in.

Back to the counter, where despite our explanation of what had just happened, we had to pay another 90 euro to a RyanAir employee, whose poker face was no doubt masking a maniacal glee in fleecing yet another tourist who'd foolishly walked into their web despite warnings.

I was too euphoric about our returned luggage to be much fussed about it all at that point, although typing it out now is raising my blood pressure. We made our way to security, only to discover that the Artist had somehow forgotten or lost his boarding pass somewhere between there and the counter. On the way back, the second time, I wondered aloud if there were a reality show camera following us secretly, as the level of travel drama we were experiencing could only be explained in the context of a slapstick comedy. Perhaps we were unwittingly starring in a modern National Lampoon film.

The flight was uneventful, the airport in Manchester small and unglamorous. We found our way to the train station, asked many questions of the fellow in the ticket booth whose British politeness was obviously the only thing keeping him from rolling his eyes, and settled ourselves on the train platform. I studied the kiosks, trying to make heads or tails of the schedules, lines, and tongue-twisting welsh names of the towns on each route. Periodically a recording would play, listing them off, and I mouthed them to myself, taking mental notes. 'U' is pronounced like short 'i'. 'Au' is a long 'i'. Double 'L' is...erm...double 'L' sounds like I am clearing my throat. What."

The train arrived - comfortable, practical, and a welcome relief to know we were on the last leg of our journey. Manchester was an urban sprawl of red brick in every direction. Homes, manufacturing districts, business centers, churches, hospitals and skyscrapers alike all formed a uniform rusty, maroon shell of a city - old, and tired, and crumbling at the corners. I wondered what it looked like in the areas not visible from the train tracks - which, to be fair, don't typically meander through the most lovely parts of any city. It had its own sort of quaint beauty, though, and as always, I wondered about the people we passed - what their lives were like, whether they liked living here.

Moody skies and misty streets, and they don't build things like this anywhere anymore.

I liked how the cars and signs were the only spots of brightness here. There was a nice sort of melancholy, unplanned color harmony about all that red brick.

Once outside the city we rode through endless rolling green fields, speckled with white sheep. Our ride stretched along the northern coast of the country to the small town of Colwyn Bay. We arrived at 9 p.m., and our AirBnB hostess was waiting for us at the station.

Her name was Jane, and she greeted us warmly, expressed surprise that my hair was darker than it was in my online photo, and seemed bemused when I explained I'd been wearing a wig in that. I embarrassed myself by walking to the driver's side of her car before she reminded me that passengers rode on the left in this country, and she toured us through a few useful parts of town before heading up the narrow road to her farm.

Jane's house, she told us, was close to 500 years old in certain parts. Its layout suggested that the rest was added on, room by room as more space became needed, slowly modernized until the current result was rambling and delightfully organic. We entered through a central room, one of the older bits - a cozy, lived-in space whose low ceiling, exposed beams and plaster walls were all spotlessly whitewashed. An enormous hollow rectangle at one end, the original hearth, held a small black woodstove and a few lamps and nick-nacks, but I could not stop staring at it and imagining iron cauldrons hanging from hooks over an open fire. Beyond the rugs, uneven slate tiles marched off to mysteries unknown, their surfaces rippling and glossy from centuries of passing feet.

Jane led us up a small stairwell to the left, warning us to watch our steps - necessary, due to their steepness.

AirBnB doesn't have disability requirements. Thank heaven.

The second floor held two bedrooms, tucked away under the peaked roof, hidden like birds' nests in the eaves. The doorway into our room was so small we had to duck to get under it - at least, Jane and I ducked, and while she was still warning us about the necessity, my husband decided to be hilarious by banging it loudly with one hand and pretending to have hit his head.

Our hostess whirled around with her hand on her heart, invoking the deity, before realizing the Artist was unharmed and laughing. She did not seem to find the humor in it, and I could see between my wig-picture and his antics she was wondering what sort of lunatics she'd allowed into her home.

We'd had nothing to eat almost all day, so Jane invited us into her kitchen and served us hot tea and homemade fruitcake, which was just as delectable and homey and cozy as it sounds. Possibly in an attempt to win her over after his shenanigans upstairs, the Artist asked her to tell us about herself. She politely deferred, instead explaining various must-know details about the house and our stay, what we could expect for breakfast, and where we might be interested in visiting the next day.

I had a nasty headache at this point, and we retired, exhausted, though not so tired that we didn't feel a certain thrill in digging our own lovely, familiar belongings out of our suitcases. Tucked away in our little loft bedroom, gazing on the whitewashed walls and wooden beams, I thought of Prydain and grinned at the ceiling.

I had found my Caer Dallben.

It's not a hotel; not a blank, personality-devoid, empty room. This is a home.

I rarely "sleep off" a headache. I also rarely sleep well in strange beds.

I did both that night.

I woke up to sunlight seeping around the curtains. All I had read had told me not to expect sunshine in Wales; every publication, forum, and website predicted rain, cloud cover, and more rain as the norm; Jane had warned us not to have high hopes of dry weather and it had rained or drizzled all the way from Manchester the previous night. I had expected nothing less than constant drenching, and had spent quite a bit on full raingear and waterproof containers for our phones and cameras. I had already made my mind up that if we did get any sun, to take full photographical advantage of it - so that trickle of light through the curtain propelled me out of bed and to the window.

That's....not rain.

Oh, heaven. I opened the panes and took a breath; the air was sweet and fresh and cool, it smelled like the pink and gold, green and turquoise impressionist painting spread before me. Leaving the Artist snoring, I yanked on my clothes and grabbed my camera.

Who will buy this wonderful morning?

Such a sky, you never did see....

Who will tie it up with a ribbon, and put it in a box for me?...

I heard the sun singing as it rose. Or maybe that was me.

How many sunrises have these bricks seen?

Save the planet, my friends. There are still places on it worth saving.

This place. It exists. And I've been there.

It actually looks like I know what I'm doing with the camera, doesn't it?

Thistles. But no Eeyore.

Garden in the morning.

Paint the world with light. If Thomas Kincaid were still alive he'd be crying with envy.

After half an hour or so I bumped into Jane, coming to let her chickens out; she thanked me for bringing them the sun from America. The Artist was up now, grinning at me from the bedroom window, and we headed into the kitchen for breakfast.

Muesli, toast, croissants, jam. They like their carbs in the islands.

Jane's warm, comfy kitchen.

I'm totally having wooden beams in my next house. Even if I have to fake them.

See, when you have an antique farmhouse you can get away this instead of having cabinetry and it actually looks charming and full of character. If I put this in my kitchen it would just look like I didn't know where my china was supposed to go. So unfair.

Why don't you get a job here so we can move, you?

We chatted with Jane over breakfast, and I explained my motivations behind our travel choices. An avid reader herself, she was intrigued with my description of the Prydain books, and amused and delighted when we warned her that I was about to don medieval costume for a photoshoot, declaring that she might just snap a few pics herself.

The light was perfection. We set up in the apple orchard because of course there was an apple orchard, though climbing apple trees in my linen gown was not the simplest thing to do and I don't suppose even Eilonwy would have attempted it in full regalia. But I hadn't been working out for the last year for nothing, and even five yards of skirt can be tossed over the shoulder temporarily. I managed to get into a tree and munched apples while the Artist shot and graciously put up with my impatient and imperious nagging over flattering camera angles, appropriate settings, and the need to  move around for different viewpoints instead of standing like a rock in one place.

Which all has a certain amount of in-character validity to it, to be honest.

Some people just don't know an f-stop from their elbow...

But I can't be irritated too long with this handsome face.

He puts up with my nonsense, so really, I get the better deal.

Where is that darn Hen Wen?

I had kicked my boots off to climb the tree, and carried them with me as we strolled through Jane's hay field, hoping to find the stream at the bottom. The undergrowth and thickness of the trees, once we reached them, quickly made clear that further exploration was impossible in our current state. It was too dark under the canopy to make photos practical. The ground was steep, and the bracken was composed primarily of blackberry brambles and stinging nettles, as I discovered unpleasantly before I put my shoes back on. In short, I told the Artist, if this was where Hen Wen disappeared into the woods, it's no wonder Taran had so much trouble following her.

Why God invented the selfie.

The field had been mown recently and we threw ourselves down to gaze at the sky, blue and open, puffs of cloud surfing past on the wind. The Artist, gazing about, said it looked just like Vermont (another of our favorite destinations), and we laughed over the irony of crossing an ocean and shelling out thousands only to encounter such familiarity. But Vermont has no castles, and he was itching to see some.

Accordingly, we turned back to the house, with plans to walk into town and search out the nearest fortress.

But not without taking a few more pictures, because...priorities.

Would have been more dramatic on the Inisheer coast, but you make do.

Busting out of the wig for the walk back.

We walked down the half-mile to town, and twice were asked if we were lost; obviously the "tourist" vibe was strong. At the local library we were supplied with maps and info on bus routes and options for places to see. There was so much we wanted to do. It was difficult to narrow down, but eventually we headed toward the train station, stopping on the way for a bite at a local cafe where I made my first acquaintance with the divine creation that is the Welsh Cheddar Ploughman sandwich, of which I have no photos because it would have been sheer idolatry.

But here's a wee slice of Colwyn Bay, and yes, I suck at photography that involves streets and buildings.

We nabbed a couple of sketchbooks in a nearby shop and killed time before our train sketching the next pages of my comic.

Conwy was only a 15-minute ride away; soon we stepped off the train and into town, and faced a puzzling sight: there were turrets and towers rising in every direction, but no signage clearly stating, "this way to the castle". We turned right, toward the nearest tower. In a moment we realized that what we were heading toward was actually the perimeter wall, marching its medieval way all around the entire town. The tower near us had circular stairs inside, and we made our way to the top and out along the wall, from which vantage point Conwy Castle was clearly visible to the north, glowing and impressive in the afternoon light.

This was literally in an apartment building's back yard. I wonder if the people living there even think about how stupidly amazing that is.

The temptation to be Spider-woman was irresistible.

I think just possibly this is not the original stairwell.

Country on one side...

Town on the other. Stone buildings packed in like sardines. Fantastic.

Either way, a marvelous view.

What a sight. Shame it's actually a symbol of tyrannical oppression. But what can you do.

 The castle kept getting grander the closer we got, and finally we were staring up at massive, impenetrable walls that melded seamlessly into the stone it had been built from. I wondered whether modern engineering could replicate such a feat, or if it was a lost art.

Built in four years. With medieval technology.

On the backs of those it sought to rule.

So, brief history lesson: King Edward I of England was the motivator for the creation of the biggest and most well-preserved of the Welsh castles of the thirteenth century, and he did it to subjugate the native Welsh and their princes, militarily, physically and psychologically. His "iron ring" of castles strategically located around the country, therefore, represent a sort of national ambivalence - impressive, historical, providers of tourist dollars, but a continual reminder of an oppressive history, the effects of which still linger, if my impressions were correct. The locals I asked about the building of the castle answered with a mix of pride and mild bitterness - their ancestors, possibly, had been forced to help build this incredible place, and in doing so, helped create the very thing that dominated and suppressed them.

We paid our admission and headed inside.

No that's not intimidating at all.

Kind of like to imagine the ghost of Edward looking out that window. I wonder what he thinks of the place now.

Should we ring the doorbell?

On the outer wall. It took a while just to make it inside.

This was the view. One of them, anyway.

Or there was this view, but it's a little limited.

Made it inside at last. That's one heck of a living room.

We spent over an hour exploring the interior. Nearly all that is still standing was accessible to the public, with only an occasional gate or railing blocking areas that were too derelict for safety. Dizzying, steep stone stairwells spiraled up to the tops of the towers, dumping us out upon open-air saucers that felt, in that setting, as breathlessly sky-scraping as the top of any city high-rise. High enough, indeed, that the Artist kept nervously plucking me away from edges and railings, to my mild annoyance.

This one made him particularly uncomfortable.

But I couldn't resist the view.

Which has no doubt changed quite a bit over the centuries...

I wonder if the guards ever tried throwing random things to each other from here.

The sheer size and complexity of this place was staggering. I had expected...I don't know, fewer rooms, a simpler layout - the "life in a castle" types of children's books obviously simplify the average castle down to its most basic elements for ease of understanding. This was a labyrinthine mass of stone corridors and stairwells, twisting off into unexpected directions and surprising doorways - and this was now, when nothing remained of most roofs and many walls, allowing sunlight to illuminate much of what had once been closed-in; I tried to picture it as it once had been, multi-storied and divided into chambers, lit only with torches and candlelight, and marveled at the mental images.

Which way to go?

Those stairs are not for the faint of heart. Or for women in long gowns, for that matter.

How had men in heavy armor gone up and down all those stairs without killing themselves? The Artist pointed out that it had probably happened more than once. We hadn't brought my costume, and I didn't much regret it - the very idea of traversing this terrain in yards of skirts was unappealing. I wondered how medieval women had done it, and guessed that they probably didn't, for the most part. This castle was a masculine domain, a fortress for a military presence, not a home for a royal family; women who entered it were likely sequestered to specific areas and certainly wouldn't have been tripping up spiral staircases. So much for my romantic fantasies.

That's not to say there was anything austere about it. Edward had obviously not spared expenses; the soaring, gothic-arched windows visible in the inner walls still had fragments of elaborately-carved stone frames, and artist renderings of the original interiors were rich with lush detail.

Interior, looking into...chapel? I can't remember now.

Arches and walkways and towers, oh my.

The view down one of the towers. At least three levels visible, standing on fourth.

Another view, multiple doorways and windows on just one floor. No idea what kind of chamber this was.

Right this way, please.

The royal apartment was re-furbished a little in order to give an idea of how it would have appeared; the king's chamber and private chapel both still had a floor and glass windows, and in the king's chamber a crackling fire was projected into the fireplace while sound effects of crackling flames and harp music played over hidden speakers.

So I guess Edward sat here and thought about how else he could keep those pesky Welsh under control.

Convincing, no?

Interspersed at intervals, there were plaques telling the story, at a children's-book-level, of how Rhys and Gwilym ap Tudor had captured the castle in 1401 with only 44 men, by pretending to be carpenters and infiltrating the fortress while all its inhabitants were attending Good Friday services at church. Judging by the plaques, the Welsh are still very proud of this bit of chicanery.

It actually ended pretty decently for the Tudor brothers, though of course they eventually got up to other trouble.

After an hour or so, we left Conwy at closing time, and grabbed tea and dinner in a nearby cafe before boarding the train back to Colwyn Bay. The walk back up the road wasn't an appealing prospect by then, and we hailed a cab at the station. The driver, busy chatting as we headed up the narrow road, shared the apparently universal tendency of cab drivers worldwide to treat their own and their passengers' lives as mere trifles; he nearly ran head-on into another vehicle when we rounded a corner to find it headed straight toward us. After an enthusiastic slam of brakes, our driver gave us an amused side-eye as he backed up to a spot where he could pull far enough to the side to allow the other to pass.

We spent the evening chatting with Jane and watching the Olympics in her living room, swapping more book recommendations and having our Welsh pronunciation corrected. I learned the mechanics of how to say the double "L", though I never was able to reproduce it quite to my tutor's satisfaction.

I should've bought one of these.

The next morning Jane cooked us a full Welsh breakfast, and I dutifully snapped a pic for the foodie friends back home who had begun scolding me for not indulging their curiosity. We had no prayer of eating this much food but it was fun trying.

Fresh eggs, local sausage, baked beans, stewed tomatoes, mushrooms, bacon, toast, homemade jam and marmalade. 

Today's plan: train and bus to Betws-y-Coed to visit the Fairy Glen, a spot we'd seen photos of and decided we must see in person.

The bus trip to Betws took us through more beautiful, very New England-ish scenery, and deposited us in a delightful little village right in the middle of a charming little shopping and dining area - touristy in the best way possible, in the manner, of, say, Breckenridge or Estes Park. We spent an hour meandering through the gift shops before having a divine lunch.

And look, speaking of divine, I found Hen Wen!

The Artist bought himself a hat he thought helped him blend in.

Tea for Two and a Mediterranean platter - grape leaves, kalamata olives, hummus, balsamic vinegar, sundried tomatoes, goat cheese, chutney, pickled onions and a side of YES PLEASE MORE.

Google maps plotted a route for us to the Fairy Glen, which was only a mile or so out of town, but google maps is stupid and not to be trusted in Wales, because it does not know the difference between roads suitable for pedestrians, and narrow, wall-lined roads that pedestrians should never, never set foot upon lest they have no one to blame when innocent Britons mow them down like the idiots they are.

We tried walking along the top of the stone wall; nixed on account of the Artist's vertigo (and it wasn't doing much for me, either, for that matter). So we laughed at ourselves and apologetically hugged the walls, changing sides of the road whenever it curved so as to block the view of oncoming traffic, brushing against the ubiquitous blackberry brambles and tromping through nettles for a mile. It wound us through wooded countryside and we turned off at one point, marching through an apartment complex parking lot until a repairman on the roof yelled down to ask if we were lost, directed us to the next turnoff, and informed us that there was a much safer road to take on the way back. He also let us know there was an Only Men Aloud concert happening nearby the next night, but by then we'd be in Dolgellau.

Helpfully marked.

At last we found the Bed and Breakfast that marked the way to the Fairy Glen, turned onto the worn dirt trail, and paid our 50 pence in the lock box.

The trail itself wound us through some beautiful, bucolic countryside. Everywhere, I cast a critical eye, evaluating each view for potential sites of events in the Prydain chronicles, and reflecting that there was no way I could possibly make any of my comic backgrounds "too green". 

Are you coming, or just going to stand there taking pictures?

Magical.

It's daring me to walk past it at night.

The path eventually entered the woods, and ran alongside a steep ravine, at the bottom of which a tea-colored river churned. After a few yards we hairpinned down into the gorge, sliding down natural slate steps and over moss-slick earth, to find that we weren't as alone in our journey as it had seemed. Though we'd seen no other creature on the trail, the glen itself was hosting a handful of other hikers and photographers.

And the glen? Magical indeed.

From mystery to mystery...fairyland, this way.

Dreamscape.

I feel like Ophelia should be down there somewhere.

He just follows me everywhere, even over slimy moss-covered slate boulders.

I think this is where the companions got the Cauldron stuck in the river.

Or maybe here.

What's a fairy glen without a fairy queen?

That smug look is because I successfully changed into this dress in a public setting without breaking any decency laws.

And that one's because I told the rest of them all along we were going the wrong way but Assistant Pig-Keepers never listen.

And this is me pretending that my feet are not about to freeze into solid blocks of ice.

We spent an hour here, climbing boulders, paddling in the river, taking pictures. When we finally hiked back up the trail, I knocked my head against a tiny gauze bag tied to a twig, holding a chunk of white quartz - somebody's gift to the fairies, no doubt. Given how long it had obviously hung there, they must not have thought much of it.

Maybe they prefer calcite.

We found the alternate route back to Betws and enjoyed a leisurely stroll, blessedly devoid of speeding vehicles, through silent, shade-dappled, dark-pillared pine woods.

And don't forget the boulders.

Cathedral.

Our trip back to Colwyn Bay was uneventful, and we wound up getting a ride with the same cab driver who'd almost killed us the night before. That evening we followed Jane's advice and had dinner at a small pub a short walk up the road from the farmhouse. The locals had gathered there after a funeral at the church next door to it, and were having a rousing sing-along in the courtyard, though not, to my disappointment, with any traditional music. We chatted with a couple at the table next to us, drank a sheepish cocktail because we aren't versed enough in alcohol to evaluate local brews with any degree of sincerity, and headed back to the farmhouse happy.

The next morning, we bid Jane a very reluctant farewell. We had gone from tenants to friends in the days we'd spent there, and she extended a sincere invitation to come again, next time perhaps even with our whole family (poor woman, she was so bedazzled by our charm that she had no idea what she was offering). I gave her my tattered copy of The Book of Three, as she had grandchildren visiting who were exactly the right age to be introduced to it, and listened in delight as she skimmed through it, pronouncing all the names in the proper Welsh (which, it turns out, is not very much like the author's pronunciation guide dictates - Alexander having Americanized his character and place names enough to be palatable to his audience.) I am still kicking myself for not recording her saying them...beautiful names, lyrical, with lightly trilled 'R's and round, full vowels. She drove us into town, and we parted with promises to stay in touch, even if only occasionally.

Bidding farewell, under a properly Welsh cloudy sky.

The librarians in Colwyn Bay, the day we'd gone in for help with maps and destinations, had expressed a certain amount of perplexity when we'd explained what we were doing. It seemed to be a sort of "throwaway" town on the tourism maps, certainly not a place to be sought out by anyone who actually knew anything about the area. "Why here?" they asked. The short answer, of course, was because we were bound by what was available on AirBnB, and Jane's house had fit our needs.

But now, looking back, I think there was more at work. In my mind, I had come home - figuratively, as it existed in my alternate fantasy universe, home as it felt for the character I'd identified with since I was seventeen; home in a literal sense; not ours, but someone's. This was why I'd been drawn to AirBnB to begin with, why I hadn't wanted to go the simpler but less personal route of hotel and resort, and it embodied everything the experience was supposed to be, but more than that...

We wound up where we were meant to be, and it was perfection itself.

Special lady, special place.

Jane, if you ever read this...thank you.  

Diolch yn fawr. 




This is part 5 of my recap of our vacation. Read the other parts here:

Part Four: Perfect Day on Inisheer
Part Three: Hello Ireland
Part Two: Why Air Canada is the Devil
Part One: The Big Reveal