One of my friends in Houston has a sister-in-law who lives near to where we are staying. We emailed back and forth for several months before we arrived, and we finally met on Tuesday. Stephanie and her husband, Sandy, took us all around the Cheshire area, pointing out interesting homes, pubs, churches, etc.
We stopped for a pint in a pub, then went to another place for lunch. I had the best chicken pot pie, although that's not what they called it.
After touring Cheshire, we drove around Chester, which is where they live. It's got a lot for tourists to see and do and they pointed out sights we should come back to visit. Couldn't have asked for a more fun couple!
Wednesday we drove around Wales, beginning with a visit to an enormous garden named Bodnant. Absolutely stunning how enormous it is. There's a privately owned house on the grounds that is huge, but we couldn't go inside.
After we were finished touring the gardens, we left and drove through Snowdonia National Park. Beautiful vistas of GREEN!!! Next on the agenda was a stop at Swallow Falls, a very pretty waterfall just outside of Betws-y-coed, another extremely popular tourist village.
Once we left the falls, we drove to the Pontcysylite Aqueduct. It's a structure that these narrow boats traverse on and you can walk across it--its way above the ground--it gave Rich the willies. :)
We had dinner at our local pub and were in for the night.
Today, Thursday, we drove to a nearby village to a Tesco Superstore (like a Walmart), did a little shopping and then went for a walk on the local beach. OMG, it was so cold and these kids were running around like it was 90 degrees outside. It was actually about 62, with a STRONG wind and overcast. I was all bundled up, they were playing in the water. Crazy!
We decided to try out this local nursery we'd heard served lunch (weird, right?). It was super busy, we were lucky to get a table! It's an enormous plant store, along with a huge gift shop and a restaurant. You'd never guess there was a restaurant there if you didn't know.
After lunch, we drove to view another Trust property, this time a place called Erddig. A Manor house built in 1684 for a wealthy family. A lot of the original furniture was there. The gardens were ok--not as elaborate as some we've seen.
Sorry I haven't been blogging much, we've been busy! The pictures won't upload now either, so I'll have to try to do that later.