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satyricaMay Day is M’s birthday and this year was her 40th so we were celebrating by tacking an extra day onto the front of our holiday and drove with Cousin A up to Stratford-upon-Avon. We had a wander about (in particular along the Avon to the church that Shakespeare is buried in, which is far more interesting for its lurid misericords), admiring the ridiculous amount of Tudor timbering, then had a nice dinner and headed to the RSC to watch As You Like It. It was performed really well although we were still groping to get our heads round what exactly the play is trying to say.
After a night in a guesthouse we did some more sight-seeing, taking in both the slightly underwhelming Shakespeare’s Birthplace and then striding out to Anne Hathaway’s Cottage: there’s an odd irony that all these places are trying to celebrate Shakespeare whilst exclusively focussing on his time in Stratford, so never really mentioning much about the most fascinating period of his life, although they were interesting as buildings if nothing else.
We picked up Culture Club Claire from the train station and then headed on to Snowdonia, where we were due to spend the next five nights in a cottage belonging to some friends of hers, part of a small village called Rhydymain in the south of the National Park. It was cosy and cluttered and after settling in and heading to the nearest town for supplies (Dolgellau, we ended up visiting Eurospar pretty much daily) went for an early evening walk through the beautiful woods just up the hill from our cottage, filled with carpets of bluebells and wild garlic, moss-covered trees and stone walls. We came back an experimental route along the stream that ran right past where we were staying but just about made it and set the pattern for the rest of the holiday by spending a very relaxed evening cooking, reading, playing games and doing the crossword.
We eased very slowly into our first full day, explored Dolgellau a bit more and then went out for a couple of walks Claire knew that were an hour or so each: the first she called the Torrent Walk, which was through some woods down one side of a cascading stream, then back up the other, and was incredibly lush and beautiful. The next was the Precipice Walk, which wasn’t especially precipitous (although still a bit much for A’s vertigo: he set a pattern of coming some of the way with us then turning back and doing his own thing lower down) but had great views over the estuary at Barmouth.
Saturday was due to be the sunniest day so we’d appointed it as our opportunity to tackle Snowdon and got up early, not least because it was still about an hour’s drive away; we were going up the Rangers Path, which had a fairly gentle first hour before becoming quite sharply steeper, where A left us to it. We could see the snow melting as we carried on climbing up, then as the paths converged near the summit it started to become really crowded with people (there’s a quaint little train that goes to the top and a building with toilets and shops when you get there), to the extent that there was a long queue of people to stand on the actual highest point. It was so thronged that you couldn’t really enjoy the spectacular views from up there but if you walked up the nearby peaks I imagine you’d have them all to yourself. Our path wasn’t too busy itself luckily and there was still plenty to enjoy on the much easier descent.
In theory we’d planned a walk-free day for Sunday, so M and I sneaked one in up the hill behind the village before the others got up. Later we drove over to Harlech and poked about the castle there, which had plenty to offer, stopping in Barmouth for tea and to admire the beach on the way back. Monday was out last full day and we’d set our sights on a nearby mountain, Cadair Idris, although Claire’s knee hadn’t enjoyed the way back down Snowdon and had to pull out. It was definitely the highlight of the holiday, a tarn, a ridge, stunning views in all directions, pretty quiet despite the Bank Holiday: A turned back after an hour again but made it up to a good height and came back to pick us up a few hours later, even though we didn’t end up coming down quite where we were aiming for.
It all came to an end on the Tuesday and we ate breakfast in a café in Dolgellau after cleaning the cottage, then headed off on the long drive home. The whole week left me feeling at once very relaxed but also quite tired, however I managed to head over to meet N (who is back in shows) from work in the evening; we had a drink then went back to crash out at his.
After a night in a guesthouse we did some more sight-seeing, taking in both the slightly underwhelming Shakespeare’s Birthplace and then striding out to Anne Hathaway’s Cottage: there’s an odd irony that all these places are trying to celebrate Shakespeare whilst exclusively focussing on his time in Stratford, so never really mentioning much about the most fascinating period of his life, although they were interesting as buildings if nothing else.
We picked up Culture Club Claire from the train station and then headed on to Snowdonia, where we were due to spend the next five nights in a cottage belonging to some friends of hers, part of a small village called Rhydymain in the south of the National Park. It was cosy and cluttered and after settling in and heading to the nearest town for supplies (Dolgellau, we ended up visiting Eurospar pretty much daily) went for an early evening walk through the beautiful woods just up the hill from our cottage, filled with carpets of bluebells and wild garlic, moss-covered trees and stone walls. We came back an experimental route along the stream that ran right past where we were staying but just about made it and set the pattern for the rest of the holiday by spending a very relaxed evening cooking, reading, playing games and doing the crossword.
We eased very slowly into our first full day, explored Dolgellau a bit more and then went out for a couple of walks Claire knew that were an hour or so each: the first she called the Torrent Walk, which was through some woods down one side of a cascading stream, then back up the other, and was incredibly lush and beautiful. The next was the Precipice Walk, which wasn’t especially precipitous (although still a bit much for A’s vertigo: he set a pattern of coming some of the way with us then turning back and doing his own thing lower down) but had great views over the estuary at Barmouth.
Saturday was due to be the sunniest day so we’d appointed it as our opportunity to tackle Snowdon and got up early, not least because it was still about an hour’s drive away; we were going up the Rangers Path, which had a fairly gentle first hour before becoming quite sharply steeper, where A left us to it. We could see the snow melting as we carried on climbing up, then as the paths converged near the summit it started to become really crowded with people (there’s a quaint little train that goes to the top and a building with toilets and shops when you get there), to the extent that there was a long queue of people to stand on the actual highest point. It was so thronged that you couldn’t really enjoy the spectacular views from up there but if you walked up the nearby peaks I imagine you’d have them all to yourself. Our path wasn’t too busy itself luckily and there was still plenty to enjoy on the much easier descent.
In theory we’d planned a walk-free day for Sunday, so M and I sneaked one in up the hill behind the village before the others got up. Later we drove over to Harlech and poked about the castle there, which had plenty to offer, stopping in Barmouth for tea and to admire the beach on the way back. Monday was out last full day and we’d set our sights on a nearby mountain, Cadair Idris, although Claire’s knee hadn’t enjoyed the way back down Snowdon and had to pull out. It was definitely the highlight of the holiday, a tarn, a ridge, stunning views in all directions, pretty quiet despite the Bank Holiday: A turned back after an hour again but made it up to a good height and came back to pick us up a few hours later, even though we didn’t end up coming down quite where we were aiming for.
It all came to an end on the Tuesday and we ate breakfast in a café in Dolgellau after cleaning the cottage, then headed off on the long drive home. The whole week left me feeling at once very relaxed but also quite tired, however I managed to head over to meet N (who is back in shows) from work in the evening; we had a drink then went back to crash out at his.
