Our Blog - Newport, Wales

The next morning, we headed out by car, taking care to try not to hit anybody as I was driving on the "wrong" side of the road. Tom kept on saying "you're getting a little close over here". We actually didn't end up very far from Cardiff ... a mere 20 miles between the two hotels. First stop, just on the outskirts of Cardiff at the Castell Coch.

Unfortunately, it was closed for a bit of time for maintenance, and we just happened to hit during this closure. We got there a few minutes early and had hovered a bit at the gated entrance, then went and turned around and parked (also somewhat hovering near the still-gated entrance). Seems someone saw us and pulled along side and told us that it was closed but we could leave the car there and walk up to see the outside, which is what we did. The castle sits up on a hill and is somewhat Victorian in style.

So after that relatively quick stop, we went to the town of Caerphilly for their castle. This one sits right in the middle of town and is, literally, a fortress. It is listed as the largest castle in Wales and even was used as a filming location for the BBC series "Merlin". It was initially built in 1268 but then was destroyed in 1270. In 1271, it was built again, surrounded by a series of moats and islands forming a new style of castle defenses with concentric 'walls within walls'. We took a whole set of pictures ...

More on the dragon later ...

One of the towers, the South-East tower, started leaning and eventually part of it collapsed.

We peeked into the Great Hall, which has been totally renovated (this is used in the TV series Merlin) and can be rented out.

The dragons ... These two are named Dewi and Dwynwen (and since we left, they seemed to have had babies). They are Welsh Dragons which are part of The Dragons Tale, a program through the Welsh Government’s historic environment service. You can get more details on The Cadw Dragons' Tale if you want. But the short summary is ... there were these two dragons at Caernarfon and they fell in love. Dwynwen was feeling ill and they found that she was carrying eggs and recommended that she lay the eggs are Caerphilly Castle. So here we see Tom making friends with the dragons as they have arrived at the castle.

Another short drive and we came across the Caerleon Roman Fortress. Roman Wales was the farthest point west that the Roman Empire in Roman Britain extended to, and as a defense point the fortress at Caerleon, built in AD 75, was one of only three permanent Roman Legionary fortresses in Roman Britain. There are three parts: Fortress Walls, a Roman amphitheater, remains of a Roman barracks, and a bath house (including a frigidarium, tepidarium and caldarium, as well as an open-air swimming pool). I'll start with a picture of what they believe it looked like so that you can have that in your mind, and then you can see the remains. They did a nice job with lights and audio clips so that you could really get a sense of how the Roman military would use the baths and pool. In the 3rd picture, the gap in the rock is actually where the water would flow between the various rooms. The last is what is left of a mosaic floor.

Here is the amphitheater, or what is left of it. While there isn't a *lot* left, you can clearly see the base of the various walls and the mounding that the seats would have been built on.

From there, we headed to our guest house, and then played our first round of golf. You'll start seeing a trend going through the Wales blog ... some days we have lots of pictures and have done lots of tourist things. Then we'll have other days where we see 1 or 2 things and then play golf (so no pics).

Continue to Day 4: Newport to Hay-on-Wye or go back to the main Wales vacation blog page