Cymru to you

Wales, or Cymru, was somewhere that we did not see at all last time we visited the UK. So we wanted to make sure that we visited this time. It's very hard to judge where to go when you visit somewhere you've never been, so armed with the sage wisdom of my father, (cities are the same everywhere, there's nothing welsh about Cardiff) we aimed for a small town near the Brecon Beacons national park. Abergavenny (Y fenni) is a small market town with perhaps 1,500 people. We stayed in a rundown pub that rebadged itself as a backpackers to avoid renovations, which was fine by us. About a mile out of town the walk took us around picture perfect views and victorian homes.

The ancient castle ruins stand at the height of the town, with bounding squirrels too fast for our camera. The balmy welsh summer maxed out at 14C with constant rain, so we're pretty glad we ignored most advice about needing shorts and packed the thermals instead. We hadn't expected to be pretty much conpletely devoid of internet service which has caused some rather panicked rain sodden walking through tiny bus-deprived towns hopelessly looking for a touristy steam railway. We found the railway eventually and as soon as we entered it stopped raining, until we went outside again. I'm beginning to think wales resents our presence.

Yesterday we took the sunday bus route which takes carless senior citizens out of their homes to see the countryside. It's a free service for them but for anyone with all their teeth it was £9 each. Not a bad rate for an all day trip around the Brecon Beacons. The weather put on a show for us (14C and rain) so we stayed on the bus with the guided tour. A bit awkward on a full size coach with six people including us, the guide and the bus driver. It was good to see the countryside though, with its rolling hills and sheep with tails.

Today we tried to get up early but with my cold wearing me down i'm getting a bit grumpy. So we got up early-ish to catch the train to oxford for lunch. Of course we would pick graduation day to visit oxford, so all the colleges are closed [grumpgrump]. It's still very pretty though and in parts we nearly saw the sunshine.

Currently we're on the train to York (yay for free wireless on first class carriages) and onward to the land of James Herriot.