To ward off jet-lag on our first day out, we decided to get into the sun and watch some medieval reenactors on the grounds of Plas Newydd (a manor house in Anglesey) in Northwest Wales. These sturdy fellows began with an extensive demonstration of medieval armor, and ended with this free-for-all in which the English oppressors were all skewered (much to the delight of the Welsh audience). Tidbit of history: you may have heard that a set of armor was so heavy that once a knight fell to the ground, he was as helpless as a turtle on its back - untrue! These folks demonstrated that a fallen knight in full armor could (with effort) raise himself back to his feet and continue fighting.

Beaumaris castle in Anglesey was our second objective. Beaumaris is a lovely, symmetrical ruin of a castle, complete with traditional moat - few of the other castles we visited had moats, relying mainly on their hilltop location for protection.

A word about "ruins": although most castle were substantially destroyed either to render them indefensible (the most common cause) or by scavenging, many very fine details remain. In Beaumaris castle, for example, the chapel and its entrance are in very good shape, giving the visitor just a glimpse into one bit of medieval life.

The lovely acoustics in this chapel made us wish we'd packed the Washington County Chorale in our suitcases. Since all of our other European touring has been with the Chorale, it was a little strange at times being just a researcher and tourist rather than being part of a touring choir. I think we saw many more details of places, but had less contact with the people than in our tours.

Conwy castle is my favorite castle so far. We stayed a week at a cottage just outside the town of Conwy, and so had the opportunity to get well-acquainted with the castle.

First of all, Conwy castle and its city wall are in very good shape, which allowed us to see the castle both inside and out. Second, although it doesn't look it, it's a very cozy, human-sized castle: the towers are close enough to each other that you can have a nice conversation with somebody in the next tower. Third, the castle is nestled against a rolling hill on the Menai Strait - a wonderful location for scanning the countryside.

And speaking of the countryside, Britain is a tiny place compared to the USA, and that tiny scale extends to everything - cars, roads, towns, and houses - especially roads. One morning we took a wrong turn on our way to the slate mines, and quickly found ourselves on this one-lane road. In the US, this sort of road would be marked (if it appeared on the map at all) as a farm lane. In Wales, the countryside is webbed with these little, one-way roads. Our Toyota-Tercel-sized car proved about as large as could navigate these roads - most cars were a lot smaller. If you happen to meet someone on this road (which is unlikely), you have to back up to the last wide-spot you saw, which might be a hundred yards behind you, around a few corners. You get used to it pretty quickly.

Once we found our way and made it through the slate-wall-lined, one-and-one-half-lane highway, meeting tour buses and trucks travelling 45 miles per hour and almost gouging our tires in the slate wall to avoid collision (but that's another story), we arrived at the Blaenau Ffestiniog slate mines - Victorian suppliers of slate to the world - nestled among man-made mountains of waste slate chips. A very dramatic setting. Here we took the inclined tram into the mine. The tiny tram is pictured on the left, and our car, with 6 big adults crammed into it, is pictured on the right (I got this picture by sticking the camera out the window).
The mine tour shows how slate was mined in Victorian times, drilling blast holes by hand, having only candlelight to see by, loading great huge blocks of slate into cars, then above ground working the blocks into thin slates to be used for roof covering. Slate is a sedimentary rock that splits easily along one dimension and is surprisingly flexible. An expert slate splitter can peel off a 1/16th inch thick slice, although most roof slate is thicker.

One of the greatly-underrated sites near Conwy is the Great Orme Bronze-Age Mines. The tour books panned this site, because at the time they were written (about 5 years ago) the mine wasn't much to see - just a few passages and a cat skeleton. Since then, however, an impressive amount of the labyrinthine mine has been opened to self-guided tours. You get a bump cap, a map of the mine, and a hearty "Good Luck" to send you into the mountain. Mighty exciting!
During Victorian times, a copper mine here broke into some earlier workings, but the Victorians (lacking carbon dating) assumed the workings were roman and ignored them. It wasn't until a 1990 survey for a car park revealed the extensive disturbances underground that a survey team mapped and dated the caves. When they were done mapping, they had found several miles of a Bronze-Age mine that was likely a world center of copper excavation during that age. Painstaking excavation has been going on ever since, revealing more of the mine to tourists and archeologists each year.

We wound up visiting the mines on two different days. Just 1/2 hour on the first day, because of the tourguides' lackluster review, then several hours the next day to take in all the newly-opened passages. The whole mine is very impressive for its age and size.

Plas Mawr (literally "Big Palace") is a spectacularly-restored Elizabethan town house in the town of Conwy. The rooms and rooms of delicately-plastered ceilings, finely woven wall-hangings, and carved mouldings show how comfortable and bright an Elizabethan house could be. Since many aspects of life hadn't changed since medieval times, some parts of the house, particularly the kitchen and pantry, also offer a look into medieval life.

In contrast to cosy Conwy castle, Caenarfon castle is the huge and imposing castle of investiture of the Prince of Wales. An on-site museum holds the slate throne of investiture of Prince Charles, while another, extensive museum covers the Royal Welch Fusiliers. It turns out that the "Red Coats" of the American war of independence were these select soldiers. Our independence turned out to be something of a Vietnam for the Fusiliers, whos museum in this castle delicately blames Britain's defeat in that war on everything from inferior powder to incompetent leadership - you can't win 'em all.

Caenarfon is also unique in its extensive inner-wall passages, which make a maze of the interior. We often passed people who were calling out to their friends "No, this way doesn't lead outside either!"