Castle Hunting

I decided that I had to see some castles this weekend. You can't really come to England without seeing some castles, right? I checked around a bit and found that Wales was probably the best place to go see castles. Apparently Wales has a lot of castles because the Normans & Welch had been beating the living tar out of each other there for centuries. Bad for them, good for me.
I woke up early and drove out to Cilgerran. Cilgerran is near the coast on the very western edge of Wales. I decided to stay in the South, although there are castles pretty much everywhere. I woke up at 6:00 am and drove all the way out, thinking I could just wind my way back during the day. It was a very pretty drive through Wales, lots of winding roads and beautiful countryside.

I arrived just after 9:30 am, which is when the castles open, at Cilgerran Castle. I won't bore you with the history, but there's a picture below.


This is a picture taken from the inside of Cilgerren Castle.

Next up was Carreg-Cennen. It is located on the western edge of what are called the Black Mountains. Although the term "mountains" can apparently be used very loosely here, as they were more of a collection of large hills than a mountain range. Oh well. The castle was perched on a high outcropping of rock and provided a great view of the surrounding countryside. See the picture below.


This is Carreg-Cennen Castle from a distance. Notice the sheep on the hillside.


This is a picture of the beautiful Welch countryside, taken from atop Carreg-Cennen.

I was starting to run short on time, so I skipped a couple castles and went straight back to Cardiff. Cardiff is just across Bristol Bay from Bristol, although the drive is quite a distance. I happened upon a castle called Castle Coch right away. This was a castle that was completely in ruins in the early 1900s, but someone with too much money decided to resurrect the castle and it's quite nice today. It's more of a new construction than a medieval castle, but it was still neat to see. Check it out below.


Castle Coch

Finally, the last castle I saw was also in Cardiff. Dead center in the middle of town is a large castle wall with a decent sized castle inside it. It was bit of a rip-off to go into, but it was interesting anyway.


Cardiff Castle. You can tell in this picture that the castle itself is built upon a pretty big mound of dirt. It is thought that the original fortress consisted of the mound of dirt and a wooden fort. There is a moat as well.

So that's my castle tour. I may go visit a couple more, but I think I got the flavor of things. I was surprised with how small the main part of the castles were. They weren't nearly as large as I had imagined they would be. They were still neat though. It's amazing to stand in something that was constructed almost 1000 years ago.