The Road Less Traveled

My grandparents wanted to drive us to my cousin's in West Wales, so, instead of driving straight from Cardiff to Fishguard, we decided to take a more scenic route and make a stop along the way. We went back up to the area around the Brecon Beacons and, per the suggestion of my aunt, stopped at Carreg Cennen Castle.

We drove through small towns and up winding country roads to get to the site of the castle, and it was absolutely marvelous. There were painters all around one of the nearby fields, trying to capture its splendor.

The castle itself was very impressive, but the views were the best part.

You felt like you could see for miles.

The castle itself was also very impressive. 

I may or may not be about to fall over on those steep steps...

My favorite picture: my Grampy taking it all in. 

Only regret? Not renting a flashlight so I could check out the cave that was connected to the castle. 

As far as we were able to go; it was pitch black. 

The stairs leading back up to the castle. 

After the castle, we continued on to Fishguard to see my cousin and her family. They own a fantastic B&B, so they put us up in one of their rooms. Talk about living in the lap of luxury! Every morning we would wake up, go down to the dining room for a cooked breakfast, go upstairs to get ready, and then walk over to their connecting cottage to hash out the day. Our room even had a tea station (yes, again with the tea. Sorry.)! But I'm getting ahead of myself...

The night we got there, we relaxed with a delicious meal, made by my cousin's husband who's an amazing cook. Then, we were able to just relax with a cuppa and catch up. It had been, after all, three and a half years since we'd last seen them. 

How Green Was My Valley

After we returned from London, we had one more day in and around Cardiff before going to West Wales. My grandparents, husband, and I decided to go slightly north and hang out around my Grampy's old haunts around the Brecon Beacons ~ he lived in the area as a child. I will always wistfully wish that I, too, had grown up there because, my friends, it is the most gorgeous countryside I have ever seen in my life.

My grandparents on our walk.

And, before anyone asks, no, these photos have not been altered in any way, shape, or form. It is really that green, and it was really that bright and sunny (unusual for the UK, I know). 

We parked at the trail head and we decide to take a walk next to the stream.

Past a few waterfalls. 

Until we reached the top. 

And the waterfall, with local students climbing underneath it for a class (I wish I had a class like that in school!).

On the way down, we continued to marvel at the beauty all around us. 

And talked about how fortunate people were to live around this unspoiled beauty. 

And were thankful that it was returned to its original splendor after generations of coal mining, at one point, turned the mountainside black. 

It was humbling to think of my grandfather's family living here. They may not have had much: picking edible berries off the mountainside to make a little bit of extra money, illegally fishing in these waters for food, but they still felt blessed. It makes you think about what we hold most dear nowadays. It makes me re-assess what I value most. 

After our leisurely stroll through the mountainside, we stopped in Brecon on our way back to Cardiff where I bought ingredients for dinner. Once back at the house, I made a tasty meal from my find at the market: sea bass, new potatoes, and green beans, all in season! 

After dinner, we met up with three of my cousins and their partners for a drink. I hadn't seen them for 10 years! That's right, 10. Thank God for Facebook, am I right? It was great catching up with them, and I was glad my husband was finally able to meet them. Now he only has a few more to meet before he has met all of the cousins in the UK. It was a great way to end our portion of the trip in south Wales. 

Never, Never, Neve Give Up

The next day, we decided to go the long way to our next destination and take a little bit of a walk. We went in front of a few buildings that people seemed kind of interested in...

And then took a stroll through the park... 

Before getting to our ultimate destination. 

To say that this place is moving is an understatement. I can't even imagine having thousands of these falling from the sky onto my city and my loved ones. 

Nor do I know how I would have handled the cramped conditioned while waiting for the all clear that the enemy has finished bombarding us...for the time being. 

People would sleep in here while waiting for the air raids to finish.

The bunker was reinforced with steel...

...and concrete.

It was awe inspiring to be in the rooms where some of the most important decisions in the war were made.

In the map room, you could see the last official placement of troops when the war ended, and you could see the pin pricks of past positions held. 

Once the war ended, the workers in the Churchill War Rooms literally just packed up and left it as it lay, so you see frozen moments in time when you venture down there: 

The keys to all of the room, left hanging on the door. 

The last predicted casualties of the war before the official numbers came in. 

The final placement of troops in the pacific when the war ended. 

Even though I have always had a profound respect for the people who endured this war, the Churchill War Rooms put it into even greater perspective from a militaristic standpoint. I have always heard stories about the war from a personal perspective: my grandfather running through fields to get to the nearest bomb shelter with planes zooming overhead, my grandmother collecting scrap metal after air raids from the airplanes that were shot down or damaged, my grandfather going outside during a bombing (when it should have been pitch black due to the blackout curtains) and being able to read a newspaper from the flames of a nearby city, my other grandmother's first fiance, a pilot, being shot down by the Germans, my great-great-uncle coming back from a prisoner camp looking like a skeleton and screaming from the nightmares he would tell no one about. Those are the stories I've committed to heart. This museum helped me learn about the people who helped boost morale, stood firm, and helped win that awful war. 

After an emotional day underground in the bunker, my husband and I decided to walk next to the Themes and just drink in the city during our last day there. Immediately upon coming above ground, we saw the iconic Big Ben, standing proudly against the gray sky: 

We took in the simple beauty of the Thames

And took a moment to silently thank all the people who perished fighting for what was right. 

"All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." ~ Winston Churchill

Olde London Town

After a couple of days in Cardiff, we took a Megabus over to London (less than £20 round trip!) and then we took a train from Victoria Station to my uncle's house. We hadn't seen my uncle and his family for three and a half years, so it was absolutely wonderful getting to spend time with them. His children have grown so much, and we had a blast hanging out and playing with them. My uncle and husband even had time to have a couple of jam sessions in the evenings. Seeing that ~ and singing along ~ was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip.

On our first full day in the city, we decided to do something different. Having been there numerous times before, we've already done a lot of the tourist-y destinations. Instead, we opted to do a cool sounding walk out of one of my uncle's books about the city: an old, historic city walk. We saw some sights that I had never seen before, and I'm so glad we did it.

We started at The Monument:

This building was erected to commemorate the Great Fire of London in 1666. It's 202 feet high, which is how far away it is from where the Great Fire broke out on Pudding Lane:

The Monument was also, unknown to me until I started climbing it, my hidden workout of the day: 311 steps to the top! 

However, once we got to the top, it was well worth it: 

After we had taken in the view at the top, we walked next to and then across the Themes. By that time, it was lunch time, so, using our handy dandy guide book, we found one of the oldest pubs in London to have a pub lunch before continuing on our "tour." 

Talk about comfort food! I love a good pub lunch. It's good, cheap food, and it's usually nice and hearty to help warm you up and keep you going, even if you're hiking all over London. 

Our walk took us by some amazing hole-in-the-wall places that we would not have known about otherwise. 

I had no idea there were still pieces of the old wall of London still standing:

There were so many hidden jewels down those side streets. 

Some of them were familiar. 

And some of them unexpectedly took my breath away.

I wish I had a picture to do this site justice. The above picture is a church that was bombed out in World War II. Instead of bulldozing it or trying to build it back up, they made a gorgeous statement about the resilience of the city and life springing from the ruins. They made flower beds in the exact places where there were pews, there's an aisle between the two sides of the church, and, instead of stone columns, they had roses climbing up wooden columns. I could not get enough of strolling down the aisle and taking in the peaceful, yet slightly melancholy atmosphere of the church. 

After the church, we went to an older section of the city: 

Where William Wallace met his grisly end.

One of the oldest corners of the city.

Oldest church in London

The oldest remaining houses in London ~ out of the grasp of the Great Fire of 1666.

Meat Market.

While in this section of the city, we met a sweet Cockney man who grew up in the area come talk to us about the history of this part of the city. He was in a long line of men who worked at the legendary meat market, and he even showed us where his dad and grandfather used to set up shop and the grooves from all of the carts over the years banging into the wall. It was very interesting, and he hung out with us during his entire tea break before getting back to work renovating the inside of the market. Talk about hospitality!

After the meat market, it was getting late, so we went back to my uncle's house for the night. The next morning, we went to one of the most moving museums I've ever been to: the Churchill War Rooms.