Aberystwyth via Harlech Castle & Cymer Abbey

Sunday, 27 October 2019

We woke up to blue skies.  Today should be a nice day.  We went down for breakfast and returned to the room and watched a bit of the World Cup Rugby match of Wales versus South Africa.  England won yesterday, and if Wales wins today then there will be England versus Wales in the finals.  Today's match is the talk of the town. 

By halftime we had to checkout of the hotel, but we were able to listen to the rest of the match on the radio.  Unfortunately, Wales lost, but it was a close match.  In about 50 minutes we arrived at Harlech Castle.

Harlech Castle is another Edwardian castle completed in 1289.  It wasn't as impressive as the other 2 castles we saw recently, but the setting was incredible.  Here are some of the better photos that Tim took:

After about 1 hour of exploring the castle, we continued our way to Aberystwyth.  As we were driving I noticed a sign for Cymer Abbey, so we made a u-turn and went.  Cymer Abbey was opened in 1198 and belonged to monks of the Cistercian Order.  By 1388 there were only 5 monks left, and in 1536, the abbey closed when Hentry VIII abolished all small abbeys.

Well, that was pretty cool and definitely worth the u-turn.  We returned to the car, and 1 hour later we arrived to Aberystwyth, our stop for the night.  We checked into our B&B and were happy with this view out our window:

It was now 3 PM and we haven't eaten since breakfast, so we headed out and went to Ultracomida, a tapas restaurant that was highly recommend in our travel guide.  The food was really good.

After eating we went for a walk and found the remnants of Aberystwyth Castle:

This town of Aberystwyth is really pretty with a nice waterfront area.

Aberystwyth is home to Aberystwyth University founded in 1872.  There s a new, modern campus up the hill from town, but the old, original buildings are still standing:

We returned to our room to enjoy watching the sunset out the window.  We had some bread and cheese and Tim a a couple of whisky and cokes.  We spent the rest of the night watching TV and I planned out the next week or so of our trip.

We are only here for 1 night.  Tomorrow we drive to St. Davids.  It is only a 2 hour drive...not too bad.  Hopefully we will find a couple of things to stop and see along the way.