Becon Breacon-Road Trip in Wales

 

Wales is an extremely beautiful place for a road trip. They have several national parks in North, South, West & East side.

The largest are Pembrokeshire, Snowdonia, Becon Breacon which are hikers' haven and paradise to outdoors enthusiasts. We only managed to fit in two in our road trip to Wales in early weeks of Autumn 2013 - the Snowdonia and Becon Breacon.

Yet, it's too short as you would want to spent more days at each location because it's simply so beautiful.

That is why we are always late in our travel timing, it's so hard to leave each place that we visit as the views were so stunning and exhilarating.

Becon town is the base to spend the night as they have many little and cozy B&B places to eat. We didn't have enough time to explore the town centre and its historical Dinas Castell Castle because of the rain.

The kind gentleman in the town's local diner told us the castle grounds is not conducive to visit on stormy day.  Most of the locals wear heavy duty Paddington Boots for the wet grassy grounds, I was ill-equipped with my black velvet boots.  In the rush, I forgot to change into a hiking boots .

So off we go heading our way back to Cardiff through the Becon Breacon National Parks. The drive through the valleys and lakes where we were tempted to stop many times throughout the journey.

The strong icy cold winds hit us hard everytime we stopped hoping for photo opportunity, some stops we failed due to the unpredictable showers that falls unexpectedly.

Relentless and braving the cold, we did somehow. When you are in such beautiful country you simply cannot resists.

I just feel so sad to leave the beautiful valley, the first signs of human inhabitants - industrial townships.
Arriving at the outskirts of Cardiff, with some time left, we decided to check out Fagan Natural History Museum. Entry is free and transportation are available from Cardiff city centre. It's a unique concepts for preservation of historical monuments, castles and artifacts.

If you do not have time to visit the whole of Wales, here you can see most of the historical architecture of Wales. Some of the buildings and artifacts were excavated and brought here for public display and also for preservation purposes.

It's an outdoor museum that spread over an area as huge as Disneyland amusement park. So I would recommend allocating half or a whole day here, provided weather permits.

It's most probably best to visit in summer time but some photos on display at the centre showed snow covered rooftop of these historical buildings that looked totally awesome. So brave the winter cold if you dare. 

Overall, you can visit Wales in different time of the year as you still enjoys the beauty and serenity that this country offers with its countryside, valleys, lakes and endless terrain. Hikers should try doing a hike in summer or early Autumn.

Road Trip South to North Wales

Our road trip to Wales start with arrival to Cardiff Central Station. It's a two hours train ride from London's Paddington Station.

We drove from Cardiff heading north on the motorway M4 towards Swansea for a quick stop to check out the lighthouse at the cove and continue onwards to Carreg Castle at Carmenthenshire.

As its autum, it's was dark when we arrive at the castle ground so unable to gain entry.

We continue our journey towards Caernafon, the roads were in complete darkness in this cold and wet autumn night.  It's gets narrow and winding in certain stretches as we drove through several towns or villages that looks totally deserted.  There were also many road works along the road which slowed down our journey.

Finally, in about three hours we were relieved to have  reached our destination at Caernafon.  The B&B owners were kind enough to wait up for us as they retired early for the night. 

A quick walk around town in our search for food, we stumbles on the only place that's still open at such odd hours. The Bengal Spices, Indian delicacies. The food were amazingly tasty and good.
Exhausted, we slept like log for the night.

Next morning after an amazing traditional English breakfast at the B&B that is located within the Castle wall, we explored the famous castle ground.

Caernafon was also known as The Royal Town in North Wales. Due to its strategic location at a river mount, the port flourish as the main transport hub for North Wales. The Caernafon Castle was built by England's King Edward 1 after his successful conquest of the town from the Wales ruler. This castle symbolises England's initial invasion on Wales.

The castle falls to a state of ruins after a few decade of neglect. 

Today the castle and the surrounding town is in the UNESCO World Heritage list.