Conwy Castle

Conwy is a walled city with  close to a mile of the wall still walkable. We walk through arches in the wall going to and from the main part of town.

 We took a small group castle tour today. The guide was excellent. The castle is huge and having a guide who determined what to show us was beneficial. We walked a small part of the wall on the way into the castle. It's high but there are guardrails. Lots of steps on the tour and we were given the chance to climb one of the towers. I made the mistake of doing that. Very narrow spiral staircase.  My legs were shaky by the time I got down.  But the views were spectacular from the top. 

The towers are where two parts of the wall join. 

This castle is one of three in the area that Edward I had built when he invaded Wales. The castle took only four years to build, finished in 1287. The three castles are designated World Heritage sites. We will probably see at least one more. The castle was almost in total ruin by the 1600s but restored in the 1800s. It became popular with artists and eventually became a tourist attraction. 

The Bored Soldier. The oak sculpture was made in 2012 using details from 13th century architecture. It's represents the fact that castle guard  duty is 95% boredom. 

We also went to St. Mary's church. There were two volunteers there who told us the history of the church. They are proud of the fact the foundation of the church dates back

to 1173, making it older than the castle. It's been restored and changed over the centuries but some parts are ancient, like this screen and a baptismal font from the late 1500s. 

William Wordsworth visited Conwy around 1798 and wrote a poem called "We are Seven" that may have been inspired by a conversation he had with a young girl in the church cemetery. It does have the line "Two of Us at Conwy dwell". There is a We Are Seven  grave in the cemetery to honor the girl in the poem.

Conwy is known for its mussels. We had them last night. They seemed like any other mussels except the sauce they were in was so good it could be soup. We tried their sample dessert plate. The pudding and tiramisu weren't good but the apple crumble was delicious.