Wales (Cymru in Welsh) is a tiny little country, about the size of Massachusetts. Based on what we saw, sheep farming and mining are the biggest industries. Supposedly Wales supplies most of the slate for the slate roofs in Europe. We saw a ton of sheep. We almost wore a couple as hood ornaments, but stopped just in time. You
must be heavily into sheep if you make 'sheeppoopaper.' We didn't buy any, didn't want to touch it.
Fascinatingly to me, they have their own language which is required learning in schools. They are very proud of Welsh, and want to keep it alive. So pretty much every resident is bi-lingual. The signs are in both languages. After hearing it and seeing it, I'd steer away from Welsh, it looks like a difficult language to learn. We never encountered anyone that didn't understand English, but we found several we struggled to understand. You gotta love the fact that the Welsh word for 'out' is 'allan.'
Wales, like England, is covered with castles and we visited three of the best, Conwy, Canarvon, and Beaumaris. Pictures of Conwy are below.
When England's Edward I conquered Wales he built castles all over the place to help hold the country. The first castle we went to was in Conwy. (not missing a final vowel - the Welsh don't really use many vowels it seems - "th wlsh dnt rlly s mny vwls t sms" - Hey, I'm writing Welsh!!). I am convinced that the people that built these castles were SHORT!!!! Two things make me believe that, as noted in pictures below. First, the safety picture showing someone (me) bumping their head on the entrances into the castle - and the smallest house in Britain.
Conwy is a walled city as you can see from the pix. The castle walls were really in pretty good shape for being 800 years old. As you can see, it was a beautiful day in Conwy.
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