Travel: Snowdonia Day Three

So today after a cooked breakfast, made by my lovely boyfriend whilst I was in the shower (it’s so lovely not to cook sometimes!) we wrote our postcards and headed into Harlech. We had such a lush visit round Harlech Castle- it is such a beautiful fascinating building/ruin. It was constructed in the 14th century by King Edward I, and played an important part in the conquest of Wales. The historical section they have in the middle of the castle had loads of interesting info on it, but I must admit I can’t remember much of it!


Health and safety-wise however, this place is absolutely crazy! I mean, personally I am usually against all these ridiculous guidelines and safety measurements you have these days, risk assessments for nothing, all of that jazz, BUT literally, the stairs you have to use to get to the battlements is thin as hell, there are no safety rails once you get up there, and also loads of the spiral staircases to get down are v v dark. I mean, I guess it’s refreshing to see the castle AS IT SHOULD BE, without loads of modern signs and things, but I felt so scared on the battlements it was mental. Don’t tend to get vertigo, but the feeling that I could fall down really easily was totally freaking me out.


Cute little gift shop as well, I bought a nice classic Welsh cookbook, which I’ll be having a skim through and cooking recipes from some point soon I think. Especially since my home-grown leeks are ready for harvest, and most of these traditional welsh meals are leek orientated. So after Harlech, we decided to have a look round Barmouth, which is this kinda sad traditional sea-side town near to where we were staying.

Theres something kinda sad about Barmouth. I mean, you could tell the town had been hit by hard times, because there were loads of empty shops/ restaurants (Including this café- Arousal Café!!! Ahaha! The C fell off a looong time ago by the look of the place) and lots of knackered pound shop places. It looks almost slightly abandoned I guess, but it was fun having a walk round there, at one point we found one of those old tuppence/10p arcades! OMG I used to spend so much money as a kid in those sorts of places, especially when I went to Ramsgate with my grandmother.

We eventually found, right at the bottom of the town, the NICEST pub!!! It looks so cool in there, it’s called “The Last Inn”, and it served one of the nicest plate of fish and chips that I’ve ever had! The pictures I took are rather dark I guess, so I hope you can see. The first picture is of me sitting on the ledge of what the Inn used to use to keep their beers cool- an open spring that was used as a kind of cellar I think?- and the second is of my lunch!
Hasn’t it been plated funkily? I love the chips in the mini-fryer basket-classic! I wish we’d gone there the night before actually, cause it said they did live music performances (of various genres) on Tuesday nights.


After that meal we decided to walk over Barmouth Bridge, which I wasn’t really aware of, but Nick said apparently it’s kinda famous. I googled it, and basically it is an old railway line as well as a pedestrian walkway, and it was built originally in 1867 (although parts had to be replaced at some point due to wood worms or something). It is a pretty bridge, and a nice little walk, so I would recommend it as an attraction I spose!


We figured after coming back off the bridge and having a quick cup of coffee that we had just enough time for a last attraction, so we thought we would check out a little sign we saw earlier, pointing to “Nantcol Waterfalls”. Must admit we did get a little bit lost looking for them, and by the time we found out where the toll booth was to pay to go and see the waterfalls, it was all dark, so we just walked and took a few nice photos of the fast stream that flowed from the waterfalls, and ended in the town of Llanbedr. Here we found a lush pub called “Tyr Mawr” (yeah….we never figured out how to pronounce it either…lol). If you stay in Wales anywhere near Llanbedr, you HAVE to check out this pub. It lays on a real ale festival the same time every year (unfortunately it started on the weekend 24th-25th September, the day after we left! Doh!), they serve some very nice ales in the pub, and they do some bloody fantastic rustic pub food!

I don’t want to slag the other pub off, but we had heard about this Tyr Mawr pub in the guestbook, but couldn’t find it, so we went to the other pub in town called “The Victoria Inn”, and yeah….it wasn’t very good. I mean the staff were quite friendly, but the atmosphere wasn’t nearly as nice, and the food couldn’t even be compared to the Tyr Mawr pub. I guess direction-wise, the only thing I can say is get into the main village, and if the Victoria Inn is on the right of you, turn left along what looks like just a load of houses, but eventually you will see the sign for Tyr Mawr. It’s a bed and breakfast as well as a pub and restaurant y’see.

Anyway, we had a couple of nice ales, I had an amazing lamb shank (which by the way, I noticed on a fair few menus in Wales, shanks are often called “henrys” instead. Dunno why) with a minted gravy, mixed vegetables and new potatoes, and Nick had a chicken and smoked bacon pie, with gravy, mixed veg and mash. Both of the dishes were stunning, the atmosphere was incredibly comforting and warm, and the local drinkers all seemed really nice. In fact, it was so funny, when we left, I made a point of saying to the man at the bar that this had been a lovely end to our holiday in Wales, and that the meal we just had was FANTASTIC. Just then one of the guys round the bar piped and said in a heavy welsh accent “Glad you liked it, my mum’s the cook”. Haha! Loved it. So traditional and no-frills, Nick and I loved the place.

Well, we then went home, had a bottle of wine, and played another game of Scrabble! I LOVE scrabble, haha! I hate losing though; I am definitely a bad loser. I won the first game by a MILE (mostly helped by “squad” on a triple word- OoooOoh!) but the second game he beat me on the last word! Jammy git! Lol. I like this picture- i managed to get my dog Misty onto the scoreboard....awwwww!Well, we had a lush time in Wales, and someday I will definitely go there again for a little break. I think if we did another cottage holiday though, I reckon we should try The Lake District, a lot of my friends really recommend visiting there. I hope you found this little Northern Welsh guide helpful!

Travel: Snowdonia Day Two

So I woke up the next morning and after having an amazing shower (it was this funky modern shower with, like, a steam room function and all these funny jets and a radio- it was so cool) I heated up me and nick some croissants and we had some with my lovely damson jam for brekkie. I loved the farmer's dogs there- as soon as we left the cottage to go out for the day, (and then every time we got in at the end of the evening) these three dogs would come running up to the door/patio windows. So sweet.

We decided since the weather was looking all right that we would drive to visit Portmeirion for the day. It is an iconic Italian style village this guy called Sir Clough Williams Ellis designed and built between 1925 and 1975. Some of you might know Portmeirion/ find these pictures vaguely familiar, because it was the set for a cult classic TV series from the 60s called “The Prisoner”. Mum, Dad and Nick really loved this show, and I’ve seen a couple of episodes so I found the place quite fun/ kinda recognisable.

After looking around a bit, going to “The Prisoner” shop, checking out the little areas, we stopped off for lunch at a café we found. If I’m honest, it wasn’t AMAZING. It was a place that did Italian food, but also cakes and coffees and things like that. The menu sounded like a proper Italian place as well, so we both had pizzas and they were a little disappointing. Wood oven baked, and nice and thin, but the cheese and toppings were of poor quality. I definitely have a recommendation for you if you visit Portmeirion- DON’T go to this café, go to the posher official Portmeirion restaurant. It’s down at the bottom of the town, right next to the coast; near the weird fake boat that they built that’s set in concrete, but at full-tide looks like a proper boat. Insane. The whole place is like that, just a weird dream of someone that had enough money to make it a reality- a strange closed off Italianate village in the middle of north wales. Just utterly bizarre. Anyway, back to the point- we saw the menu for the posh restaurant and it looked really nice, and the meals were only a few quid more expensive than the average café place (I say the meals- food was well priced, but they were selling really REALLY expensive wines to go with your food, I mean we’re talking £60 bottles+ . Mental.)

So after checking the place out, walking for a bit on one of the scenic walks they have round there (they have a forest walk and a coastal walk, both take about an hour, so we didn’t really have time for the whole thing) and set off in the car to a village where we could catch the Ffestiniog Railway.

The Ffestiniog railway is an old fashioned steam train driven railway, which travels from Porthmadog (which is where we caught it) to the small slate mining town of Blaenau Ffestiniog . The trips about an hour each way, and there is a mix of beautiful Welsh countryside/ mountains/ seaside views that you get on it. I do highly recommend it, it was a really nice and beautiful trip, BUT I will mention that it certainly aint cheap. For a standard 2nd class return ticket (theres only 1st and 2nd) it costs £19, and the first class one costs £29. We got two second class tickets- but literally, if you’re going to spend money on this railway trip, you may as well shell out the extra tenna to get first class, because 2nd class was very cramped, which is not what you want if you’ve just spent £20 on a ticket to have a comfortable traditional steam train ride.

So yeah, we did 2nd class on the way there, then we thought, screw it, let’s go 1st class on the way back- and it was luuush! We got the carriage right at the front of the train all to ourselves, which was cool because we could see how the old train works and everything. When we drove back, we decided to have dinner at this place that a lot of people had recommended in the visitors book back at the cottage: “The Castle Restaurant Armoury and Bar”. It is a gourmet Caribbean restaurant situated in Harlech- we couldn’t believe it, here we are practically in the middle of nowhere, and we find a gourmet Caribbean place, what are the odds? Oh, and check out this sunset I took a picture of before we went into the restaurant- isn’t it stunning? It was weird cause it was really really cloudy and rainy, but there was still this magnificent sunset.

I was excited as well, because I’d never been to a Caribbean restaurant before, but I guess I knew what to expect from it- especially since we watched Levi Roots “Caribbean Food Made Easy” recipe program the night before (soooo coincidental!). I was so impressed by this place, quite a cosy little restaurant. Which had a fairly cool looking bar area on the 2nd floor that you could book for parties and events. Nick had a chilli and lime marinated chicken, and I had the beef and coconut curry. Both of these came with rice and peas, a vegetable curry, a pumpkin and spinach curry, salad and either a roti (with my curry!) and macaroni pie with nick’s dish. I took a picture of it- doesn’t it look luuush?? Gert portions too.


I liked the look of the dessert menu when I came in, so I didn’t have a starter. For my pud, I chose the mango bavarois, and nick had the “Chocolate Box”- which was kinda like layers of chocolate mousse and chocolate sponge, encased in a hard chocolate shell. Both desserts were quite nice but nick’s was better- jealous! We then decided to go home, watch a bit of TV and plan the next day. As a final note, I have to say that if you do any travelling in North Wales, make sure you check out Harlech, because there seem to be a few really nice looking decent restaurants in that little town, plus some charming traditional cafes for lunch too, I highly recommend you visit the place.

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.