And she’s back again.
After spending a great weekend in Cologne at the festival, an ICE, a Eurostar and some local train took me to Cardiff Main Station where Mark welcomed me. I spent the first three days on my own (since other people have to work, it’s not all fun and games you know), walking in Bute Park and walking to Cardiff Bay on Tuesday, an extended visit in Cardiff Castle on Wednesday, where my audio guide presented an unexpected resource of puzzlement: if a number has been pressed in a forest and nobody notices, does it exist?
On Thursday I went to the National Museum’s halls to escape the sudden outburst of sunshine. But I must not be dismissive, it offers nice exhibitions: a geological tour on the origins of Wales, biodiversity (basically stuffed animals == not so nice), and a Darwin-themed section where my cheap Dover edition met the original book On the Origin of Species *yay*.
Since the Welsh Proms, an annual concert series, took place at the time of my visit we went to two concerts at St. David’s Hall, Wales’ national concert hall: the Bond Prom featuring (I think) each of the movies’ themes, played by the Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera and hosted by Honor Blackman, the actress who played Pussy Galore in Goldfinger. Together with the vocalist, whose performance definitely improved (while her change of outfits converted against a big Ferrero Rocher towards “Goldeneye”) in the second part of the evening, it was quite an enjoyable evening.
The next night it was Celebration Prom: Verdi’s Overture to Nabucco, Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and Schubert’s Symphony No 9 (The Great), again played by the Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera. I enjoyed having some background stories about the musicians given to me by Laura. Nothing better than a bit of gossiping on the cheap seats.
On Friday we left the city for the North of Wales, stopping in Merthyr Tydfil (a small town with lots of history spanning Prehistory to Industrial Revolution) to walk through the museum there and arriving at our B&B in Criccieth in the evening. My lovely hosts treated me to a birthday dinner which left nothing to wish for except a bed and 10 hours of sound, digestive sleep.
Enjoying good weather on Saturday, we went to Mount Snowdon for a train ride on a small steam train (the “Wild Aster”) around the lakes. Then I undertook the hike to the summit of Mount Snowdon – which was completely pointless from the aesthetic’s point of view (thick fog had gathered around the summit in the afternoon) but nevertheless very enjoyable. On my way back I even saw the “Yeti” emerge from the fog (not due to high-altitude euphoria, it’s the name of one of the steam trains going up to the summit).
Back at the B&B I was utterly defeated at Trivial Pursuit by the others – I still claim it was intentional, because the loser got to eat lots of chocolate (I am not ashamed to admit that it was me who spontaneously invented this rule).
We finished the second game on Sunday and left the house at noon because by then the storm had lessened and the rain fell nearly vertically again. We went to see Portmeirion, an architect’s idealised view of an Italian village, with a hint of Greece.
Afterwards we drove to the Llyn Peninsula to get me my proper view of the Ocean (or at least the Irish Sea). Gazing at the horizon melting into the Sea always reminds me of how upon reading The Neverending Story I imagined Nothing must look like, or feel like.
And on Monday Laura drove us back to the South again where I caught my flight back to Vienna via Paris.
Well. Some final remarks seem to be required now. First, of course: a big warm thank you to Laura, who drove us around patiently the whole week end, and to Mark.
Then – I think the need to talk about the weather makes sense in regions where it’s bound to change at least five times a day – some jokes even claim that pale people simply missed the one sunny day of the year.
And finally, it might be a journey to Ireland next year since I’d been quite tempted to desert car at Holyhead and catch a ferry.
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