Kat Zantow's Blog, page 4

6 Things to do in Cork, and/or the rest of Ireland

When you go to Ireland, you will either love or hate Dublin, probably depending on whether you love or hate Guinness. Or big cities. If you get tired of big cities, it is a good idea to check out smaller cities. Yes, you are welcome for that wisdom. 
I decided to base myself in Cork, for a few days. It is much smaller than Dublin, but still big enough to find plenty of shopping and bars with live music. I took a couple daytrips to elsewhere, as explained below. But Cork does have its own attractions. Like...
1. The Butter Museum!
Just think what you can learn here! The options are limitless! How is butter made? What impact has it had on the Irish economy? Why did you just spend three euros on this when you could have bought a beer?
I know these are historical butter churns,
but I am pretty sure that that one is a dalek. 2. Visit the Church of St. Anne (Shandon)

You can set your watch by the four-faced-liar. Then reset it when you see that the time on the next side is different. And the next side. And the next side. Actually, none of the clock faces are accurate. But that doesn't matter.

What matters is that you can climb the belltower and play songs with the bells to annoy the neighbors. They provide you with papers so you can easily play a complex arrangement like "Mary Had a Little Lamb" or "My Country Tis of Thee" and deafen the other people climbing the tower if they forget to wear their headphones.

AND when I went into the church, there was a rainbow memorial.
AND not far outside the church is a memorial to Mother Jones.
Not pictured: the fish weather vane on top.
Really the best part.
3. See Saint Finn Barre's Cathedral

I went to this church only because I climbed the bell tower and took a picture of a pretty building. Then I walked around asking Corkers what the hell this building was and how could I get there. A couple of people shook their heads and asked if I was sure that I wasn't showing them a picture from Dublin. Spoiler: I wasn't.

Not pictured: Evidence that the church also has a front. 4. Very long Daytrip to the Cliffs of Moher. 

While I would really recommend you actually take the time to go to the coast and stay in some smaller villages, you might find yourself pressed for time. I know I did. But could I go to Ireland without seeing the Cliffs of Insanity? Nope. My shameless movie tourist side prevailed, and I took a tour bus for expedience.

The bus takes you through may stops of minimal interest, including some old Druidic locations.  You get to stop and see some rocks that dissolved.

Rocks, formerly unholy. Now holy. And then you get to the cliffs and get to take tourist pictures.

Visual evidence I am in Europe and/or have no legs.And you get a couple hours to walk along the cliffs and sigh at the beauty. And read all of the signs that say things like "Need to talk? Call this number." I don't know what the jumping stats are, or how many tourists are blown off the edge while trying to take jumping pictures. But I do know that the cliffs are huge.

See that castle on top? Yeah.
5. Daytrip to the Dingle Peninsula.

I don't actually recommend taking a bus to this. Apparently the bus trip to Ring of Kerry is very good. But this was way too much time on a bus, and very little time to actually interact with the beautiful nature. Many stops in small villages that seem to cater heavily to tourists.

But the Dingle Peninsula does have some strikingly beautiful natural formations.

I want to be those people.
6. Blarney Castle

You're in Cork? Dude, you gotta go to Blarney Castle. Then you can kiss the Blarney stone, and get the gift of gab. Which is to say, you'll be blessed with eloquence for the rest of your days.

This is why I talk good.
The castle has a lot of little areas to walk around and explore. It's also a good place to relax.

Visual evidence I was in Europe and/or near a tree. 
AND you can see the Witch's stone, which kind of looks like those other dissolved stones, except vertical and a face.

Oooh-ohhh, witchy woman! 

Hot Tips for Dublin your fun.

Every day, the cost of living is Dublin.
Like a bridge over untroubled water.
After all, it's not Belfast.Hi there, friends! Long time no read! A brief word on free internet according to hostels: many hostels offer free internet. When you get there, you may discover that their definition of 'internet' is a slug that moves roughly the speed of dialup and cuts out every ten minutes. You may also find that you can only access it in the kitchen/by reception/holding your laptop up hopefully towards the sky. Or that it is only free between the hours of 10 and 6, when you are most likely to not be in said hostel. All of this contributes to my unacceptable lack of updates. Now that I have found a place with a solid connection, I can finally tell you about Ireland!

Let's take a moment to talk about Dublin. And some hot tips to enjoy your stay.

Hot Tip 1: Read some books before you go.

This is a city made famous by Oscar Wilde! (Well, he was born there, anyway.) And James Joyce!
Look at that jaw! A Ulysses among men.
Statues gone Oscar Wilde.

Hot Tip 2: Dublin Castle.

This castle has seen better days. Right now, it is an architectural wonder. There are few buildings that are attached to other buildings that are built in so many different styles. It's worth wandering around, and the courtyard has some free information, and unnecessarily large sand sculptures for no apparent reason!


Classic Castle.Note the medieval looking tour behind the gothic looking part. Someone once escaped from that tower through the sewer. It was kind of a big deal.
Courtyard like a brick house & triumphant arch.But it's really outside the castle that the architecture really gets confusing.
Pop art turrets? Back to the courtyard. Went there twice in a week. 
First visit:  I couldn't shake the feeling a giant Lincoln would emerge from the earth.Second visit, and the completed work:
Somehow manages to make even less sense!
Hot Tip 3: Learn History.
If you go on a walking tour of Dublin, or speak to anyone in Ireland, they might mention some history. There was this time when the Irish Potato Famine happened, and all the potatoes rotted in the field. This would have been fine, according to our tour guide, if Britain hadn't continued selling off most of the food produced in Ireland to Britain. I don't advise making jokes about potato famines, unless of course you like being punched in the face.
Not pictured: the starving dog statue behind the starving people statues.
A good idea to ensure sympathy points.
A ship. A perfect replica of something.Hot Tip 4:  Guinness has a brewery in Dublin.

Enough history! I know the real reason you find yourself in Dublin. It's all about the Guinness.You can go on a brewery tour and learn all about the production of Guinness presented in a mildly hilariously commercialized manner. It is like an enormous ad, with a bit of history thrown in, and an explanation for what has always seemed a mystery: their old advertising campaign with toucans. 
Spoiler: an artist decided it was a good idea.
Guinness. Made of More. And Horses, apparently.
Happy!Fortunately, when you take a brewery tour, you don't just get to taste some Guinness, you also get to drink your Guinness while staring out over the entire city of Dublin from their Gravity Bar.

Dublin: just might be a unicorn.
Green roofs: probably related to copper, somehow.Back to the street level of the city. For the mellinium, the powers that be in Dublin wanted a really tall statue. They also wanted a defense strategy against the possibility that the city would be crushed by a giant balloon. They knocked out both goals with the spire.

Spoiler: it's actually vertical.
Hot Tip 5: The book of Kells. 
If you are in Dublin, you may want to pop over to Trinity College and see the book of Kells. In case you don't know, it's the oldest illuminated manuscript thing made predominately by four(?) monks on a tiny island. It is a masterwork of celtic knotwork and bright colors and things that are pretty. 
The best strategy to see the book is to kidnap a student at Trinity College, and make them select you as their plus one to see the book for free. And by kidnap, I mean make friends or something.
Trinity College. No relation to the Matrix.And when you do go to the Book of Kells, you get to see two pages of the book, some pictures and information about the book, and a walk through the Long Room library. It's pretty, and they display other written works of interest. Some Irish history ones, some poetry things, and in the middle of everything pretty understated, a couple of cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia, that are kind of way older than everything else.

The aptly named Long Room is, in fact, long.Or just say whatever, and go to an Irish Pub. They have a couple.

5 Tips for surviving Belfast

Belfast: more like bell-slow.

Belfast is a city full of things to do. Anyone working within the tourist infrastructure scoffs at any news mentions of Belfast as a dangerous place. Other locals are not afraid to greet you with a friendly "YOU DROPPED YOUR MAP YOU FRICKIN TOURIST!" the moment you get off the bus.

It is a calm city, in which you probably won't get yelled at in the street more than twice a day. Here are some helpful tips to make sure your visit is as pleasant as possible.

1. Don't insult the architecture, even if it is an atrocity of modernism meets neoclassical, all in one building. Belfast thrives on the clash of cultures from different sources coming together. This fine building is part of a college right by the botanical gardens.
Cubism, meet columns and a sculpture? Ok, some of the college buildings are legit.2. Take some time to appreciate the rainbows. They almost make up for the five times a day you will get rained on from the bipolar weather systems. Oh, and probably acquire yourself an umbrella, or you won't be able to tell the raindrops apart from your tears.
I think Ireland was on the other end of this rainbow.3. Don't wear William and Mary gear. Well, you might get a high five in Protestant area. As you can see, orange day is a big thing, and William is so popular he gets a whole side of a building in the ultra-union-jack part of the city. You can take a black cab tour from all manner of Troubles veterans. You can request a bias so you can have the tour skewed perfectly to conform to your world view, or you can just take your chances. Anyway, don't wear William and Mary gear in the Catholic section, or you will get a high five to the face. William! And Mary! Loved of Old! Hark upon the &c &c.4. If you need cheering up after the tour of troubles, go to city hall!

Pretty enough building. What could improve its coolness?
Rows of artistic terra cotta warriors! He pandance if he wants to.5. The best way to survive Belfast? Get out of Belfast. You are so close to Giant's causeway, it is a necessary day trip. If you are very lazy, like me, you can find a daytrip bus and feel super tourist for a day. Doing it this way provides a couple benefits, other than avoiding public transportation hassles:


Pirate statue. You get to visit this castle just long enough to snap a photo!
Tiny islands near  Carrick-a-Rede, which is a tiny rope bridge.
You can pay five pounds? For the privilege of walking on a bridge.
Or you can stand around and take pictures.
You can guess which I picked.Now, to the Causeway!
Giant's Causeway is an important location for many reasons, not the least of which because Hermione teleported herself, Ron, and Harry here for no apparent reason except to provide some very nice scenery in the last movie.

You can walk around on the rocks, slip and fall and get a bruise, because the damps stones are super slick. You can also go hiking up a trail and walk on top of the cliffs. This is a nice hike, but at the top of the cliffs the geographical formations tend to be pretty much like normal cliffs and water, less distinctive than Finn McCool's legacy.

Natural geometric formations!
It's a pattern for a stone soccer ball/football.
Note: the thing I have to apologize most for while traveling:
the American use of he word football.
You haven't seen the last of rocks and water! Oh my no!
Pretty weird formation, right? And big.
Note the genuine rain droplets on the lens!
Cliffs: good for hiking!
Warning: uphill. 
From up here, giant is not the word I would pick.
Anyway, Giant's Causeway is the remnant of Finn McCool's duel with a Scottish giant named Benandonner. The story was explained to me thusly: 
So Ben hears Finn is the most badass of the Irish giants, and he's like cool. So he sends Finn a letter, saying Hey, wanna fight? Build me a causeway so I can come over and kick your ass!
Finn says cool, and builds a bigass causeway to join ireland and scotland, because giant's can't be bothered to take a boat. So Finn sits there and crosses his arms and watches Benandonner strut over from across the channel. As he gets closer, Finn realizes this is bad news bears, and he's like great scot, that is a great big scot. So, being the quickthinking guy Finn is, he gets his wife to wrap him up in swaddling clothes and put him in a crib. (What a baby!)
So when Ben finally gets there, the wife says oh hey, my hubby is out for the moment. Lemme just feed his son, and I'll go get him. So Ben sees this enormous baby, and thinks "Damn. If that's the size of the baby, I don't want to see the dad." So Ben runs back across the causeway, tearing it to pieces, and leaving broken rocks and a whole lot of bizarrely hexagonal footprints. Yay!

Seven things to do in Glasgow

Things to do in Glasgow!
1. Find beautiful night photography!
I would like to tell you I remember what this building is.
Cathedral, from the only angle without
all the scaffolding ever.2. Put traffic cones on top of statues!
Kidding. The Modern Art Gallery beat you to it.
3. Go to the Botanical Gardens!
Just don't throw stones.
Don't throw stone statues either.
It's like being inside a tropical UFO.4. Take a trip through time and space!

Whooville.5. Take more pictures of that Cathedral.


You don't have to look so grave.
The Cathedral building is hollow on the inside.
You can walk in, if you want to.
It also contains a flag from the time when a gator ruled England.
6. Find Victorians in a vintage festival!
I am half convinced they came from the Tardis.
Clearly, not steampunk enough.7. Learn to Thistle.

Teach me how to thistle,
teach
teach me how to thistle!

Scotland: contains castles

Oh hey there. 
Where did we leave off? Scotland. Edinburgh. Yes. Edinburgh was a great small city in Scotland. But once you've sampled some haggis, history, and whisky, you want more out of Scotland.
Just kidding, except for sheep, that's pretty much all you can find in the country. And one great place to find the history bits is: CASTLES!
On our adventure we sampled several fine castles. They each had a robust bouquet and a stony palate. They also tend to be on hills. Not a castle. Tower: seen from a castle.First up, we sampled Stirling castle.

Color scheme: Stirling Silver. Hi ho!It was, very much, a castle. Even had people dressed up in period costumes. Not many, but some. You push a button and they tell you about the history of the castle. You nod politely and consider gouging out your eyes when you notice the medieval codpieces. Instead you think just how far fashion has come in this day and age, and aggressively admire the castle.

Stirling: kind of a hike. You will regret packing too many siege engines.But wait, there's more! Not only can you find lots of random historical castles in Scotland, you can also find one (well, four in one) of the most important castles from the time of medieval Arthur. 
I'm talking Camelot, the temptation of sir Galahad, outrageous French accents, the works! 
Duane castle: filming grounds for every castle ever in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Awesome? Awesome. Made more awesome by the well-produced Audioguide that is actually narrated by a Python! (Fortunately, it's not in parseltongue.) 
Needless to say, it's a silly place.Despite the deep cultural significance of the castle, it is not overrun with tourists, so it's a nice break from the hordes.

This castle has seen better days: perhaps it was damaged
via Trojan Rabbit assault.The staff is friendly, and the audio guide kindly gives you information about the history of the castle, and which rooms were used for what in filming. But really, the staff is thoughtful. They don't want their guests to get tired, so they offer mounts for traversing the castle and ground. Yes, folks, coconuts are available upon request. 
Not pictured: me and friends galloping around the courtyard
with coconuts.But wait, there's more! Scotland also contains ruins! In the middle of nowhere and unattended. This thing was a medieval fort that had a less medieval fort built on top of it:

Not recommended if you are trying to stay out of the rain.If you want to go up to Loch Ness, you will run into Inverness, a very pretty, very small city.

Pretty! Yeah, it's pretty much just this one bridge.
Small place.But since you've come all the way to Inverness, you gotta go up and see Loch Ness. One way to do this: visit Urquhart castle. It's a castle that was blown up by its defenders because they knew they were going to lose. Always thereafter, the place has been cursed, and always rains.

Well, I'm just conjecturing about the last bit, but it did rain quite a lot while we were there. So did all of Scotland, come to think of it.

Loch Ness is behind he castle. This is a view from the castle tower:

Rocks and water! My favorite!Unfortunately, it wasn't deserted. The hordes were coming to attack and lay waste to the castle. AGAIN.

Despite the tourist bait on the boat, Nessie did not bite.So yeah. Castles. Scotland has them. It also has whisky. We went to Tomatin distillery, and I think I figured out a scene for the next horror story I write. This is the inside of a whisky still thing:

Yikes.But IRL, it doesn't turn into a horror film, it turns into whisky. And FYI, these Scottish distilleries have been mostly bought up by Japanese companies, because they were tired of Sake.
30 something year old casks? I would tap that.If you explore the highland, you will find the other Scottish treasure: Highland cows.

Moo.
So, dear friends, if you ever find yourself on a road trip in Scotland, bring an umbrella or twelve, and a raincoat, or twelve. Because, really. You will find castles and whiskey, but above all: there will be rain.
Scotland: contains rain.

Edinburgh, more like edinburrrrr

Scotland, or, the start of cold. In my travels through England, the weather was a heatwave induced perfect. Wales, mostly perfect. Scotland: I don't think I saw blue in the sky once. And when it rains, it isn't actually all that warm. It's pretty much got that San Francisco summer chill. By which I mean surprise frostbite or a light jacket.

So we decided to check out Edinburgh. Spoiler: there's a castle in the middle of the city! It's really quite hard to avoid. But why would you want to?
Castle rock; party rock.
At night, the castle is lit up with a haunting blue glow. Hope you like ghost castles. I know I do!

Ghooooossssttttt
Really, you can see the castle from everywhere in the city. Here's another view:


But really it's the frame you should care about.
Really, the important part of that picture is the window frame. Why? I'm glad you asked. This window happens to be the window in The Elephant House, which is a cafe. It's a view that's cited as an inspiration point for the famous literature that was composed in that very cafe. What literature? Oh, I don't know, a little obscure book and second book something to do with a boy wizard.


Elephants: not present in Harry Potter.The cafe sticks to its elephantine roots, and doesn't make a big deal of it. Except for the bathrooms. They're pretty moving, covered with graffiti of thank you notes from readers to Rowling. And I hear there's something about "wands at the ready" in the men's room by the urinal. I did not investigate.

And just outside of the cafe is a graveyard with a lot of very familiar names.

He Who Should Not be Named.
This gravestone needs to get with the program.Though the above is currently the most photographed grave in Edinburgh, it is a city with many really remarkable gravestones. There was a massive plague, so the graphic designers of the gravestone age tried to warn graverobbers and necrophiles that to mess with the graves would land you in your own grave right quick.
Plaguing stones:

Or it commemorates a dancing skeleton.
Maggie Dickson?
Or, more simply:
Yo, ho! A Pirate's Death for Me?
But really. Absolutely the most important thing to do in Edinburgh is to go on one of the free walking tours. Our guide knew his shit, and could bring the stories of the city to life. Plague stories, medieval punishment stories, Maggie Dickson the undead celebrity stories, and the history of the castle. It was a three hour stroll of entertainment and history. In a good way.
To keep it relevant, the guide demanded a volunteer when we got to the medieval punishment block. One of my fine traveling companions shoved me forward, so I stumbled up to the punishment octagon to learn the tragic story of my hypothetical medieval life.

I made appropriately sad faces while the guide narrated the medieval justice that would result after my husband died in the military and I was caught stealing bread to feed my three starving children. Without trial or jury, the shopkeepers would have arranged to nail my ear to the punishment octagon, and I would have to stand there for a day without a babysitter, food, water, bathroom breaks, or any food for my starving children. If I couldn't hack it, and tore myself away from the block, I would be marked forever as a thief. There would be shunning, and poor medieval thief would have no recourse but to turn tricks at the docks and face a guaranteed death by syphilis after two years.
Oh dear!Now all the punishment octagon is used for is royal pronouncements, which are proclaimed exactly three days after the news is released from London. On the bright side, the several-days gap will prevent the town criers from being duped by fake celebrity deaths on Twitter. 

England: Middle Bits

If you go to London, you will be left with the impression that England is entirely populated by tourists.

To learn that England is not entirely populated by tourists, stay with real English people! I was the guest of some very lovely people in the middle of nowhere! This involved a lovely thatched roof cottage, which was older than America (the cottage, not the people). It was a really great break from tourists. Tourists are the bane of my vacation! (Clearly, there is no double standard here...)

The town was very small, and very cute. It had a church that was very small and very cute.

Proportional place of worship!
With faces! 
Stone cold.
And from this tiny town, we took a day trip to the much larger but pretty small city of Lincoln. This city contained a very large Cathedral. Perhaps disproportionately large.

Small town, big cathedral.This Lincoln cathedral is pretty huge and elaborate. Much less cozy than the tiny church. Contains highly elaborate stonework. Such as the green man hiding in an archway below: 
Decoration within decoration,
because the masons had nothing better to do.
And drove over a massively enormous bridge, which was once upon a time the longest suspension bridge in the world. Now it's not the largest, but it remains disproportionately massive.

Bridge in the middle of nowhere: suspension of disbelief
made easy.This is getting disordered--somewhere in there, in England, I went out driving with a couple of cool people. No, of course I didn't drive, I would have ended up in the wrong lane, and it would've been awkward.

We blazed by the Stratford upon Avon tourist trap.
House: not quite authentic.Really, the most authentic part was the gift shop!

Not pictured: Shakesbear shirts. 
And Stonehenge! We found some stones.

Stonehenge is a dish best served old.
Oh yeah, and there was Liverpool.

I still have no idea why these towers were being towed...
The straws that broke the Costa's roof.
Very unfortunately, I ran out of time and didn't get to see the slavery museum. I wanted to compare/contrast the presentation to Virginia's approach. (Later, in Glasgow, I went on a slavery walking tour, which was all about merchant triangle traders. Sorry, the chronology is starting to fracture around the edges). But I did see the Beatles museum! It was a rare example of audio tour done right.

And you can't hang out in Liverpool without going to the precise and detailed replica of the most popular venue of the Beatles' heyday. The Cavern!

Second Cavern replica I walked into that day.Unforgivably unchronological tangent:
Back in London, once upon a time there was a train station:

How do you know when the King's Cross?And I think that's about it for England.

Swan heard Mumbles, but what did the Swansea?

Wales Part III:

Good God! Are we still in Wales? You are so behind on your blog! At least get to Scotland before you leave Ireland! Sheesh.

Ahem.

As I was saying, I was instructed by those in the know that the cities are not the reasons to go to Wales. That the natural beauty and sea cliffs are where it's at. Thanks to those in the know, I definitely had to check out Swansea.

Not pictured or present anywhere: swans.
It was decided that a boat tour was necessary. I learned quite a lot about the coal history of the region. I think. Maybe learning was the wrong word. It was a whole lot more industrial than I ever dreamed. And they have bubblers in the river so the fish won't die. JUST LIKE THE POND AT HOME.

Irrelevant: ducklings.And that was cool. But I had wanted to see some things in Swansea, like, I don't know, any of their museums. Bad luck for me: the entire city was under construction, so all the museums were closed.

Good luck for me: the Mumbles are just a short bus ride away! And they had a castle!

When choosing a preservative, remember:
salt > direct assault by an army.The castle was nice and quiet but for the sound of pigeons cooing. They also had a great view of the other Mumbly bits:

Pier also closed for construction.Fortuitously, neither ocean nor rocks were closed for construction!

Scale note: It's a lighthouse, not a milk bottle.There were also some more rocks and ocean bits:

Why is the sky more washed out than shore?
And you could walk on rocky bits:


It was pretty. 


That's obviously too many pictures of ocean and rocks. Here's a famous Swansean boat:

You have to wonder just what the quote marks are implying.Overall, Mumbles was a wonderful harmonious area. It was quiet, as mumbling is mandated by law. I even saw some nature running around, coexisting in peace.

Bunnies. I was reminded not to trust them in a future episode.It was a really great place to wander around and appreciate the nature things. It also answered a question that has plagued me for years: 

What would Red XIII look like as a boat? 
Answer: Pretty Badass.Did I mention there were rocks and water?

Note: picture contains rocks and water.It's great in person. Trust me.

Pembroke: All the Stairs. Tenby: more like 10-Sea.

Despite the good Doctor, it doesn't take too long to run out of things to do in Cardiff. Sure, you can sit around the glorious sun filled bay and drink cider. But when in Wales, consider taking the time to see some nature. Sea-cliffs come highly recommended.

I wandered around for a couple days. Heard there were some castles in the country. I decided to go to Pembroke Castle.

This was no simple voyage. A three point five hour train ride that turned into a three hour train ride plus an hour of bus and waiting for the bus. See, we were most of the way there when one of the train cabins started filling with smoke and the train just kind of stopped. But they fixed it enough to get us to the next station and dump us unceremoniously onto the pavement! It's cool, they sent a bus. Seven sunburns later, the bus arrived, and I finally reached the land of Pembroke.

Medieval-era learning tent outside.It was a strikingly well preserved medieval castle, with all the charm of bare stone castles. Plus displays inside with mannequin/sculptures acting out historical scenes. I couldn't decide if it was cheesy or creepy. Maybe just cheapy. But it DID have a tall tower with a very high ceiling. I think there used to be intermediate floors. The obvious upshot: THE TOWER INSIDE LOOKS LIKE AN ARTISTIC ROBOT EYE.

Do castle towers dream of Welsh sheep?So Pembroke was nice, but it didn't have sea cliffs.

Note the distinct lack of sea cliffs.So I took the advice of the nice people I had been train-stranded with, and took the first train to Tenby, which was back towards Cardiff. (Yes, this was a psychotically planned daytrip).

Lo and behold, though I could have sworn I smelled smoke, the train transported me safely to Tenby!

Rocky ain't got nothin on this.
In case you aren't well versed in Welsh beach hotspots, Tenby is a picturesque beach community with cute shops and a medieval wall jutting out of the cliffs. It even has sand!

Sand > Brighton's pebbles
It was a beautiful day. I'm talking sunshine and lollipops nice. I was all ready to buy a summer house there when people started warning me that the weather was not, in fact, typical.

Condemned monastery (too easy). 
Nice is not the typical weather? Suddenly it made a lot more sense that the whole place had a weird sort of Florida retiree vibe. And by vibe, I mean, I passed a couple stores that were advertising walkers, and some places that used Bingo as a selling point.

They also had some mini-sea-cliffs.

Hard to traverse with a walker.
It was pretty. And windy. 
Not pictured; the 75,000 snails that live there.On the whole it was a disappointing day. I went to all the trouble of coming to wales, and I didn't see a single whale.

Much like the rest of my trip, I saw some seagulls:

Unlike the gulls of Bath, this bird is at least thinking about eating sea creatures.

Cardiff: The Tardis of Wales

Wait, wait, I didn't post about Wales yet? The experience that transcended time and space? Let's talk Cardiff. For starters, it has a castle right at the top of the city.

The castle, being invaded by the alien sportscraft landing behind it.
If you're in Cardiff, you probably should take the time to see Cardiff Castle (above). There is a wall and some battlements and a keep (see below). The keep (below) is exactly as old and rundown as it looks. But the Castle (above) is a castle.

Once a hardcore Norman fortress, the keep is now flagging.But I'm talking about the castle. You wouldn't know looking at the bleak stones outside, but some rich people owned it! A coal baron's acquired it and died, and his son, with all the whimsy of a medieval enthusiast, hired some decorators.He liked color and medieval-style murals. If you don't go inside, you will miss things like this:

signs and ropes telling you not to touch things!Which is nice and all, but you also get rooms like this:
"The Arab Room" designed by a guy who dropped acid through a kaleidoscope!They also have some birds that would be happier if they were elsewhere.

Owl, performing "Howl", by Ginsberg.
Or maybe he was just telling me his fav. tv show.But you didn't come to Cardiff to see a castle or listen to the hooters. You came there to see the Doctor Who Experience. You might worry it's disproportionately geared towards children. And it is. But don't let details like that get in the way of finding a blue police box. The Experience was an interactive funthrough, part animatronics, part Matt Smith  in a video. We, the "shoppers" were trying to save the Doctor from...well, I won't give you spoilers. But at the end is a museum of props and costumes and all of the Doctor's worst enemies.
It didn't work.They had all kinds of models to demonstrate the progression through the gazillion years this show has been on the air.

It was close, but I was not exterminated. You can't get to The Experience without passing through Mermaid Quay. Well, you can, but it's right there. It's a nice place to hang out and have a drink in the sunshine, and smell the mix of sea breeze and evidence of lax drug control.

I don't light up, but a torchwood.
If you watch Torchwood, you can see a plot relevant memorial on Mermaid Quay. If you don't watch Torchwood, you can see the memorial anyway, but it's totally a spoiler in the middle of the street. Warning: spoiler below.

Warning: spoiler, but you already looked at it.And all around Cardiff you can see bits and bobs of the Doctor. The variety of Victorian and futurist architecture is pretty conveniently located for filming.

But sometimes you just need stairs.

You're a Pandorkica.And there are just generally a lot of stores around the places that are fun to look at. There is a chain in the UK called Americandy.
An improbable astronaut. Have I mentioned I miss space programs?