Wales

This was my third visit to Wales, but my first to the northern isles. We landed at Holyhead (pronounced ‘holly head’ as if there were another L in there), then hopped a bus to see the Welsh countryside. Just at the entrance to the port, we were greeted by the red dragon, the national symbol of Wales.

Rural Wales is really pretty. Farmlands, hedgerows, hundreds-years-old stone walls dividing property, farm houses, it’s all here. Even an occasional standing stone from the prehistoric times.

In between rural farmlands, there were occasionally little villages and towns, all with names I can’t pronounce.

We were given a short photo stop to take a pic of a bridge - it’s the oldest major suspension bridge in the world and it links the island of Anglesey to the Welsh mainland.

Prior to the bridge’s opening in 1826, the only way across to the mainland was by ferry. The Menai River below the bridge is tidal and water is constantly either rushing in or out, creating dangerous whirlpools and currents.

Speaking of whirlpools, the next town we visited was known to me due to its name. I had no idea that it would be on the itinerary, so I was pretty stoked to see it in person. You can see the name of the town here on their train station.

Yes, there really are four L’s in a row in there and no, I can’t pronounce it, either.

The name is a description of the area with all the words smushed together. Here are the individual words broken apart, if this helps:

It translates to “The Church of Saint Mary in the hollow of the white hazel near the fierce whirlpool and the Church of Saint Tysilio near the red cave.”

At 58 letters, it’s the longest name of a town in the world. It’s the second-longest one-word name of any location (there’s a hill in New Zealand with an 85-letter name, but there’s no town with that name).

OH, OK, I’ll save you from googling it.
The name of the hill in New Zealand is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. It’s Māori and translates to "The summit where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, the climber of mountains, the land-swallower who travelled about, played his nose flute to his loved one".

Back to Wales!

On the way back to the ship, we passed lots and lots of sheep and even a few old limestone kilns (square brick things in the pic above).

Once back at the dock, I hopped aboard the shuttle to Holyhead to get a look at the port town.

This nice footbridge led from the port entry over the train tracks and into town.

The town is quite small, with lots of smushed-together buildings lining the narrow streets.

The town seems to have a bit of a rebellious streak in it. Lots of the locals have gone full-on with individualizing their look with radical haircuts, hair colours, tattoos, piercings, and interesting fashion. School let out while I was walking around and the teens were even more expressive - they wore school uniforms, yes, but there were wild, Flock of Seagulls style haircuts and goth jewelry. I even found a little shop that sold ingredients for magic potions and books of spells (although you’d never know it by looking at the storefront).

The potion shop is like a ‘store within a store’ housed inside the Bargain Box. If you go there, remember: it’s “levi-OH-sa” not “levio-SAH”

There are a few older freestanding buildings in town as well, such as this lovely Town Council building.

At least one pub owner kept their sense of humour during Covid.

Eventually, I got to the shore and headed away from where the ship was docked. From our stateroom balcony, we could see a looooooong breakwater with a small lighthouse at the end. I wanted to see if it was possible to walk out onto it.

This is only about a fourth of the whole thing. Have a look at the satellite photo below, noting the giant cruise ship at the dock to give it scale.
At 2.7 km long, it’s the longest breakwater in the UK.

I knew I wouldn’t have time to walk the whole thing, but I did want to see if I could get onto it and take a pic back at the shoreline, which had some nice cliffs.

As I neared the area where the breakwater would meet the shore, I noticed a rather odd sight in the distance.

It looked to be near the breakwater, so I set out to figure out how to get to it. That led me to a narrow little road.

It was a much longer walk than I had anticipated, but eventually it came into view. How sad.

It did look better from the side that faced the sea, as the gutted bits weren’t as visible.

Such a structure has got to have some history to it and I wondered why it wasn’t being taken care of.

A local man happened to be passing along the road and I asked if he knew anything about the building. He said it was the private residence of Mr Rigby, the contractor for the breakwater, built in the Victorian era. Later, it was the Soldier’s Point Hotel, then it was abandoned for many years. A new owner had plans to refurbish it and open a maritime museum in it, but fire gutted it in 2011 and that’s how it sits today. It’s unknown if it will ever be repaired.
Well, that sucks.

I was running out of time, so I only got to the start of the breakwater for a photo of the shoreline.