Snowdon

By shendyNo Comments
The Snowdon Mountain Railway gets booked up, so there's very little chance of being able to turn up and go. This means that you fork out your £25 (!) for the train without really knowing what the weather will be like. We passed through Llanberis on the Wednesday, a beautiful sunny day, and booked for the following day. Thursday was really nice in Llanberis, and most of the way up Snowdon. As we got about 3/4 of the way up, we found a bit of cloud - this was the view back down to the Llanberis pass. And by the time we reached the summit, we could see absolutely sod all - this is the new visitors centre from the summit. A pair of overly optimistic photographers... This is one of the trains making its way up. I did think about asking for a partial refund - not because of the weather, but because we had a diesel train, not a steam one. Still, we were lucky...
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North Wales

By shendyNo Comments
We had a few days pootling around bits of North Wales. We were based in Porthmadog, which turned out to be a really good base for getting around. Home of course to the Ffestiniog railway. This is the evening sun breaking through the clouds onto the Snowdonia hills behind Porthmadog. While much of Snowdonia is beautiful, you can't escape the industrial background of some parts. This is in Llanberis, and I think the Dinorwig hydro power station is in that hill. One of these hills is apparently Snowdon - taken from the road between Beddgelert and Llanberis. One really annoying part of Snowdonia is the lack of places to stop by the road and take photos of the views. The road down the Llanberis pass has great scenery but only about 2 places to stop. There was plenty of military jet activity. Unfortunately, by far the best view of a plane was one that appeared out of nowhere and passed very low overhead -...
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King Alfred’s Tower

By shendyNo Comments
I've been to Stourhead a couple of times before, but have never got round to going to the nearby King Alfred's Tower. It's 205 steps up to the top, so Mother decided against it and sat in the car and snoozed. When I got up there (wheezing slightly, legs like jelly), it was cloudy and with rain clearly falling nearby. Within about 20 minutes, it all cleared up, so I was able to take photos of dark skies and blue sky & fluffy clouds within a very short time! ...
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Stourhead

By shendyNo Comments
Mother came to stay for a few days, and while SWMBO entertained her for most of the time (Tyntesfield and Concorde [only open until the end of September]), I felt morally obliged to take a day off work and take her somewhere. We ended up going to Stourhead, somewhere she'd not been before, and one of the best known landscaped gardens. Fortunately, we managed to avoid the rain - the heavens opened just as we got back to the shop & tea room, which was a perfect excuse for a slice of cake. I think this is one of the nicest views there is - it looks completely natural, but you just know that a landowner with a firm opinion of his place in history combined with a egomaniacal landscape gardener probably uprooted several small villages and converted a small hill into a substantial lake. He probably then decided that he didn't like the colour of the water and had the landscaper...
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