Weekend travel to Chester and Conway

J's mother is still in the UK, and travelling around. This weekend we joined her in Chester, which is in North West England.

It has the most complete medieval walls in Great Britain and has a very lovely cathedral.








One of the most photographed things in the city is the clock, which was supposed to have been built for the queen's (Victoria) diamond jubilee, but the commitee in charge wasn't able to get their stuff together in time, so it wasn't actually unveiled until two years later, for the queen's 80th birthday.

Chester is also famous for the "Rows" which is a series of streets with two levels of shops.



We bought the best tasting cheshire cheese I've ever had at The Cheese Shop (they have a lovely name, don't they?), it's a locally made cheese (Chester is in the county of Cheshire) by the Joseph Heler cheesemakers, and is less crumbly and not as salty as the generic cheshire they have here in the grocery stores.

On Sunday we also took a day trip to Conway, in Wales.


Conway is another walled city, and has a wonderful and extremely well preserved castle.




We took a really great tour of the castle by a history buff. Presumably the tour was only going to take an hour, but he was so enthusiastic it ended up being over an hour and a half long.


He looks like a history buff, doesn't he?

It also looks like I've photoshopped a halo around him, but it's actually just a fingerprint on the lens, really.

We also looked around a very old and extensively restored house.


And finally, this is, Llywelyn the Great, who, a very very long time ago, founded an abbey in Conway.