Beddgelert Archives • Folksy Travel by Bill Smale

Blaenau Ffestiniog

Wales is a very beautiful place and it takes some time to visit the Small villages and countryside areas so plan on a minimum of one week but better too budget two or more weeks to really get to enjoy the people in the sites and the history. I stayed in Criccieth since it seemed to be a hub to wander off by public bus to places Close to Criccieth

Hungry seagull Close to Criccieth — This seagull was really interested in the small sunflower seeds I bought to feed the birds. Most seagulls were looking for bigger things like fish and were turning their beaks up to what I was serving.

Bus stop Close to Criccieth — This is where I got off the train to catch a bus

Train station Close to Criccieth — This is the small train station

Slate town Bill Smale — When you get up to this little town you see that it was used for slate mining and that’s about it. But it’s a cute place to spend a couple hours and walk around and see the abandoned quarries

Hiking path Bill Smale — A hiking path through the old Quarry

Layered slate Bill Smale — This shows how layered the slate is and how easy it would be to separate the layers depending upon the usage need

Many purposes Bill Smale — This rock is used for so many different purposes

Quarryview Bill Smale — The view from the quarry

I like dogs Bill Smale — While I have sympathies in this direction it reminded me of a certain friend who does dog rescue in Thailand

Beddgelert

for me this cute little town is in the top three in Wales. Of course everybody has their own things they want to see but the hills, the nature and the little village here is just so picturesque and quiet even though there are quite a few tourists

Moss growing — Just on the side of the path

River crossing — There is a river running through the village which you can cross using one of the Bridges

Fresh — I’m not sure if people go swimming here but the water looks very nice and fresh

Beautiful scenery — Beautiful mountain scenery and clouds and open fields

gelert’s grave — The tone was named after this dog but there’s a story about this.

gelert’s grave. A loyal dog misunderstood

OK, so this is the story of the dog that gave his name to this town. About 15 years ago I heard a story from my brother who rescued greyhounds after they had retired from racing. His story was about a Lord in England who had a greyhound and blah blah blah. It’s exactly the same story. It turns out, sorry to ruin the story, that, according to the information desk in town after I explained my brother’s exact same story, there is another story. Hundreds of years ago a shop owner in a small little village without a name started to lose business due to the reduction of customers and decided to create an interesting story to bring people back. He had a dog named Gelert who had died (I think I remember it correctly) and he made up the story about Llewelen, the famous unifier of the land owners of Wales in the 1200s, and his dog. So this is a real story but it’s a story. It brought back customers to the store and now it is a very famous place partly because of the story. But it is one of the top three beautiful little towns I visited in Wales so it really is a must visit place.

Crying Street — The best translation I could get without talking with a Welsh person is “the crying Street”. But please don’t trust my translation.

Criccieth

this is a cute little town where you might want to spend the day. They have a couple very nice coffee shops and the castle is pretty significant historically so it’s worth a visit.

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