A week on the road

This evening, to mark our first fantastic week on the road in the UK, we decided to celebrate and have dinner in a nice restaurant situated on a tree-covered hillside overlooking the village of LLanberis (prounced Clan-bear-is) where we're staying for a few days. We dressed up in our nice clothes, made a reservation, and were cheerfully afforded the white table cloth and twelve-pieces-of-silverware treatment. Concetta had the fish, I had the chicken, and we shared an apple crisp with our espresso. It was undoubtedly the best food we've had since we arrived in the UK. Last night, at a small cafe down the road, I ended up with some sort of spinach and cheese concoction that didn't taste like either one. When I ordered they asked what I'd like with the Spinach-Cheese surprise and I said salad. Not wanting to disappoint me, they threw on a portion of every salad they could lay their hands on in the kitchen, which sort of made the plate look like several plates full of table leftovers swept onto one dish. Tonight, however, I think we finally found out where the real chefs in Wales are working.

Today we rode the cog railway to the top of Mt. Snowden, the highest peak in the British Isles. Fortunately, though the sun didn't show up for much of the day, we didn't have any rain either. The ride, should you ever make it over here to northern Wales, is absolutely thrilling and breathtaking. In service since 1896, the little narrow gauge trains relentlessly huff and puff their way to the top while affording riders the most magnificent scenery you're likely to see anywhere.

Unfortunately, due to work being performed on the upper terminus of the line, they didn't quite haul us to the summit of Mt. Snowden. However, in the end I was rather happy they didn't. The wind was blowing so hard just down from the summit where they halted that it was difficult to remain on your feet without holding onto something stationary. I definitely kept well clear of the edge of the cliff for fear that I'd be swept over.

Later, back on the valley floor and after our usual tea break, we headed off to ride yet another train which ran from approximately the same part of town but this time out around the lake instead of up the mountain. The ride behind the little steam locomotive was neat but rather tame in comparison to our morning adventure.

The most interesting part of our afternoon involved a visit to a wonderful museum dedicated to those Welshmen who made their living in the Slate industry. They have a complete facility here, much like we Nevadans have with Ely's Nevada Northern Railway, that looks as if the workers just clocked out for the day and left their tools on the workbenches. All the machinery still functions, some was even in operation as we passed through. For those of you who don't know anything about slate, at one time it was a highly sought-after building material for roofing before the days of asphalt shingles.

The slate operations in Clanberis, Wales, were known world-wide for their superior quality. Beyond that, the artistry that it took to hand split single roofing shingles out of large blocks of slate boggles my mind. Our ancestors were truly talented folks, one and all. In the bottom photo, look above the crane to see the big "V" in the hillside where they quarried the slate from the mid 1800s.