Summer solstice For quite a few years already, summer solstice has been happening on either June 20th or June 21st (usually the 21st). In fact, it is believed that somewhere between 4000 and 5000 years ago people already knew about this event (see also our post about the Newgrange and Knowth visit, a couple of days ago). Not too long after Newgrange and Knowth were constructed, some ancient guys in prehistoric England built this other thing we now know as Stonehenge, to celebrate the longest day of the year.Read more...
The Big Pit Waking up in our separate Dragon Inn hotel rooms in Crickhowell is less of a silent blessing than we may have hoped. The snoring or showering noises are replaced with the clattering of another downpour and the local traffic. As agreed, we’re in the hotel restaurant at 8:30 for some breakfast. I sample the traditional Welsh breakfast (which includes ’laver bread’ and ‘glamorgan sausage’) and Pim has the traditional British breakfast (with black pudding).Read more...
Cymru There’s a funny thing about Welsh. It seems most words in this language have at least one of ‘c’, ‘w’, ‘y’ or ’ll’. Some words are just (seemingly) random permutations of these four options. And we figure the remaining words are borrowed from foreign languages or something. I mean, who comes up with a town name like ‘Mawddwy’ and how on earth do you pronounce that ? Or, worse still, ‘Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch’ ?Read more...
Dubbin’ in Dublin Our last day on the Irish isle was planned to be spent in Dublin. However, since we missed Newgrange yesterday, we’ll try that again today. Sure, it means paying twice for all those toll roads and more driving around but what is a roadtrip if you’re not driving?
We get up around 9:00 and make our way down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Turns out, it’s not as good as we had hoped so after quickly stuffing down some bacon and eggs we check out and jump in the car.Read more...