We explored and adventured yesterday, starting with our drive to Caerphilly Castle, just between Newport and Cardiff, Wales.
You can read more about the castle here and here. The highlights include: built in the 13th century and believed to have never been taken in a siege. It was given to the state in 1950 and a restoration began, including re-flooding the moat.
After the castle we piled back in the care for an hour drive to the Cotswalds, an area of beautiful English countryside. We opted to stop in in a small medieval town called Lacock. Billed as a town preserved in ancient past, used for filming movies such as Harry Potter, and boasting an Abbey that was home to William Henry Fox Talbet, the father of negative and positive type photography. In Lacock we went on a Spy Trail (a downloaded packet from the internet) that lead us through a clue gathering exploration of the town and church. What a fun way for Layla to experience the town, especially since we found this neat playground behind a pub while exploring.
We stopped in at the Red Lion for a bite to eat (BTW, there have to be a million Red Lion and White Hart inns in all of England). Darcy had to take this picture after I told her about what the cheeky Brits had put in the dispenser in the men’s bathroom.
Dinner was again quite good. For some reason was expecting horrible food in England. Evidently that might have been the case pre 1990s, from what I read, but the food now seems to be quite good. I had the Scottish Salmon (smoked) and cucumber sandwich and a cider.
We ended the evening, after checking-in to our Hampton Inn, across the street at a Chequered Horse (a cross between a local pub and a chain restaurant, like Applebees. They were having a local pub quiz night, which we lost quite soundly, although we only came in second to last. I really can’t complain since most of the questions were about British pop-culture.
I learned that India Pale Ale (IPA) is not the same the world over. In fact, its definition varies wildly based upon the types of hops and access to certain malts. You can read more here if you’re interested. The Greene King IPA was good, but did not have the strong hoppy taste we’ve come to associate with IPAs on the west coast.