Travel: Snowdonia Day One

Hey everyone! So I wasn't sure whether I was going to write some travel entries on my little holiday to Snowdonia, because I figured our cottage that we rented was kinda in the middle of nowhere, and that we would do some self-catering, and if lucky have a few bog standard meals out. Well I was completely wrong, had rather a nice little foodie experience out in Wales, so I thought I would fill you all in on it.

First of all, I had decided to go on this trip because I really REALLY needed a break, to be honest. I know I went to New York in February and all that, but I had all the stress of the end of my A levels, and then I’ve been working full time over all the summer, and so I thought just before I started University I should at least have one week off to recuperate. Also, it was Nick’s birthday and our three year anniversary so I thought it would be a nice way to celebrate. I didn't want to fly anywhere, but I still wanted to get away from it all, so I thought getting a nice comfy cottage in rural Wales was a perfect idea. I found this nice one bedroom cottage near Harlech called "Becws”, which means “Bakery” in Welsh, because it used to be an old Bakery (they still have the old oven and everything, it was cool). It was a very nice place actually- not as secluded as the pictures/ descriptions on their website indicated, but nice enough. I've just put a load of photos of our cottage on here because I didn't really take any photos the first day.

As it was self-catering, I thought, right “what shall I bring with me??”- and I remembered I had those £50 Waitrose/ John Lewis vouchers, so I thought I would use one of them up (you have to spend at least 50, cause they can’t give you change back on a voucher. I know, it’s weird) getting me and nick some lovely food for our holiday. To be fair, most of that £50+ was spent on booze, as I bought 1.4 litres of gin to make Sloe Gin with later in October (for people’s Xmas presents- watch this space!) and a really nice bottle of Pinot Noir- but basically the rest of these items are what I recommend that you take with you on a self-catering trip:

Instant Coffee, Tea, sugar, milk, orange juice, loaf of bread, ready cooked All Butter croissants, butter, jam, bacon, sausages, eggs, tomatoes, baked beans, cheddar, brie, grapes, apples, little gem lettuces, nice ham, and some form of chutney.

These essentially are the perfect items to bring to ensure lush self-catered breakfasts, and sandwiches to make on the trip there and the trip back (it took 4/5ish hours to drive from where we are in Bath). Usually at self catering places they provide fairy liquid/ washing up gloves and kitchen roll (not at ours though- stingy or what?) The drive there was lovely actually- we took the AA route instead of what our Satnav recommended and it involved driving through lots of beautiful Welsh countryside (although the rounds were really good quality and not windy at all). Much nicer than the motorway route we took back, lol. So on day one we had a lovely drive up there, had a little look round our local villages (the ones either side of us were “Llanbedr” and “Dyffryn Ardudwy” ) and settled into the cottage for a bottle of wine and a film, and planned the next day ahead.