11 Sept 2014

Thursday, 11 Sept 2014

Change of plans. The past two days have been long, especially with Michael doing all the driving (He does not want to navigate). We had planned to go the Wales and make a couple of stops. One at on outdoor museum and Tintern Abbey. We decided we had seen enough ruined abbeys and we wanted a shorter day. So instead of going to Cardiff, we went to Caerphilly to see the castle. Yes, it’s in ruins, but it is quite extensive and you can wander around it – both inside and out. You can climb spiral staircases in the tower, walk on the battlements, see the eating implements that would have been used when the castle was built in 1271. A lot of it was built in just 3 years in response to political and military threats.

As you can see, the castle is surrounded by water. The Earl figured out that water defenses were the way to go after the siege of Kenilworth failed.

Everyone feeds the birds that hang out in the lakes. There are a pair of swans and the cygnets have not lost their cygnet plumage in favor of the adult white.

So we did the castle, had a nice lunch in Caerphilly and set off for Chipping Camden and Ebington, the location of our next stay. We spent most of the day on 6-lane highways, which helped the driving a lot. But the directions to the farm on their web site were different, depending on whether you were coming from London, or the southwest (us).  We stumbled around Chipping Campden a little, then decided to follow the Tom Tom to Ebington and that worked.

We’re up under the eaves at the top of the house, which dates to the 14^th century! homefarm

Very nice dinner at the local pub, the Ebington Arms, which is within walking distance. I should have taken a picture of my sea bass with pearly barley, king oyster mushroom and tiny clams. Michael has the fish and chips. Even better than Killarney. Local beers, too.