Traveling the UK: Snowdonia and Stonehenge

Me in front of Snowdon

WARNING: This post is chock-a-bock full of pictures.  Some of them are small so I can fit more on here, but if you want to see a larger version of any photo I post, just click on it.

So here’s the background:  I’m a long way from home, so I’m spending as much time traveling around the UK as possible.  My first excursion was to Wales, to visit Snowdonia National Park.  This was my first time seeing the English and Welsh countryside, and from everything I’ve seen, I can say that it’s just beautiful.  You could say that it’s just mossy green fields and hills covered by sheep -- and it is.  But the countryside is a rich, golden green color so unlike home, and it’s made of fields and rolling hills that stretch to the horizon in every direction, and the fluffy white sheep are delightful merely for not being the cows in pasture I’ve seen all my life.  The road are narrow and twisty and lined by low stone walls, and the countryside is dotted with small villages that look just like a postcard.  That image you have in your head of a quaint English town is probably spot on.

While in Wales, we visited the Italian resort village, Portmeirion, and we drove around Snowdon, the largest mountain in Snowdonia.  Along the way, we pulled over whenever we saw anything interesting so we could take pictures.  It was freezing that day, but we got some great shots.  All of it was definitely worth seeing.

I really wanted to see Stonehenge while I was here, so we planned a trip down there.  It’s only four hours from Manchester, which to English people seems like a really long way away.  My friends all warned me, ‘It’s just a pile of rocks in the middle of nowhere’ -- and it is.  But it’s so much more than that, too.  Think about how it got there!  How it lines up with the seasons and the movements of the sun!  The practical implications just make it surreal.

Charlotte and me in Stratford-upon-Avon

We also visited Stratford-upon-Avon on the trip down to Stonehenge, which is the town where Shakespeare was born.  Many of you know that I’m not Will’s biggest fan, but it was a cool place to visit.  We also drove through Oxford (I’m a sucker for anything related to Harry Potter, and the Great Hall scenes were filmed at Oxford University), but I sadly don’t have any pictures of it.  I wish I did.  The city was absolutely gorgeous.

The next post will cover my recent trip to Edinburgh, so stay tuned for that one.  It'll be up soon!