jumarem

23rd June 2012

Hi all

With our time in Europe up we caught the ferry from Calais to Dover last Wednesday, to spend the last 2 weeks of our holiday travelling through The UK. We spent the night in Dover then headed off Thursday morning to see Stonehenge on the way to Bath. As luck would have it, the 21st of June falls during the Summer Solstice. For the Druids, who worship the sun, the summer solstice is a very important day and Stonehenge the place of worship and celebration on this day. Not very good planning on our behalf because it means that Stonehenge is closed to the public. Apparently more than 14500 people converged on Stonehenge that morning to await the dawn and celebrate the sun......unfortunately it was one of the wettest Summer Solstices on record. For us this meant a very long delay on the roads as Stonehenge is right on the highway. The upside was that you can actually see it from the road so even though we didn't get up close we could still snap a few pics.

We arrived in Bath late in the afternoon and booked into a lovely little English pub for the night. We had a lovely meal and a really nice chat with some locals in the bar before heading to bed. It has been raining since we arrived back in England and although it is summer it has only been around 11 - 16 degrees, so we are feeling the cold a bit.
The next morning we had a look around Bath and visited The Roman Baths which was really interesting.
That afternoon we left Bath to head into Southern Wales. We arrived in Bridgend, near Cardiff within a couple of hours and had a look around part of what is known as the Heritage Coast. This is a really popular tourist destination for the 4 days of Summer they actually get here! We decided we would spend the next day driving the length of Wales to end up near Hollyhead so we could catch the ferry to Ireland. We asked several locals about the trip and what would be some interesting things to see along the way. The trip in total, along the freeway, is only about 4 hours but no-one could believe we were going to go "all that way" in one day!!!! Of course, we did, but, instead of sticking to the freeway we took the back roads which has become one of our favourite things to do. You get to see so much more and we love passing through all the little towns along the way. I feel as though I have repeated myself so often in my blogs but once again the scenery was just beautiful. Wales has had a lot of rain this summer and there has been some flooding in some parts of mid Wales. We stopped at a small village in the Elan Valley where there is a loch. The loch is at maximum capacity and so there is loads of water cascading over the loch wall...it was amazing.
We arrived in Caernarfon, near Hollyhead, about 8.30 this evening. Tomorrow we will cross to Ireland.....a bit worried about he weather though.....hope the ferry is not too rough!!!!
Well that's all for now. Will leave you with some shots of Wales and will blog again soon.