The Rest of the Story

Wales is a short drive from Bristol and remembering my trip with Lindsay more than a decade ago and sharing it with Bear, he really wanted to see Wales. We stopped on our way at the ruins of a Roman fort in Caerleon. These pictures were taken at the museum. There were also Roman baths for the officers and we toured the ruins but after seeing Bath, the ones here were less impressive.

We walked in the rain from the Roman baths to the museum and admired the little village.

We saw beautiful wood carvings along the way and had a cup of hot chocolate and a light lunch in a nearby bakery, watching it rain as we huddled under an umbrella and then the awning of the shop.

This little shopping area claimed to be the original Roman gate area and was filled with lots of wood carvings. You can see the Welsh writing on the entrance.

We drove on to the seaside city of Cardiff, one of the most visited cities in Wales. We found the famous Cardiff Castle and walked through the park that surrounded the castle grounds to get to the entrance.

The North Gate to the castle through the fence--view from the park.

A collection of stones caught our attention after just visiting Stone Henge, so we set up the timer on one of them and got a picture of the two of us!

The wall around the castle is lined with sculptures of animals guarding the castle, like this bear. The eyes are stones and life-like.

The ticket office has its own guard--an armored suit from the past.

The Welsh language is so interesting and it was fun to hear it spoken. It looks like you had your hands on the wrong keys when you were typing, but it has a beautiful sound. There were school groups touring when we were in the museums and we were fascinated by the sounds of this language.

The Welsh dragon is the country symbol.

Walking around the wall surrounding the castle with a recorded guide was a great way to learn!

The "Keep" is what they called this center building. Inside it was like a little village of its own with shops and homes along the wall.

The view from the top...

A combination of the ancient and modern--beyond the castle is the huge modern sports arena.

We traveled on to Swansea, another seaside Welsh town.

The tide was way out when we arrived. There is a walkway that goes along the coast and you could tell that the water was much higher when the tide came in. This area is called Mumbles.

We bought some Welsh cakes and walked along the street checking out all the shops.

At last, we found the shop we were looking for and made a special purchase.

Before we left that day, the tide was coming in...

Our last week was spent in Birmingham, exhibiting at the International Rotary Convention where we met wonderful giving people and shared Arbonne with them. Over 15,000 people attended from all over the world.