Trip report: January 7 "Closed on Mondays"

[cowgrrl]

As you might guess, the title of this post contains a bit of foreshadowing...

Our original plan for that day was to take the train to Caerphilly Castle. However, the forecast was rain (surprise!) and we'd heard from Michael, another guest at the Inn, that this castle is mostly ruins and therefore mostly outdoors. Few chances to get out of the cold and rain. But we were still wanting a road trip. One of the innkeepers suggested Merthyr Tydfil, a town that also has a castle to explore, but is also much more of a town so there could potentially be other places to see. Upon closer examination of Merthyr's castle's brochure we discovered the castle is closed on mondays during the winter. Drat! But at least during the train ride we'd get to see some of the Welsh countryside. We decided to go to Merthyr Tydfil anyway.

When we arrived in Merthyr, the sun was out! We found the visitor centre and got walking directions to the castle. I'm sure the castle is walking distance from the center of town, but definitely not a short walk. Probably a couple miles. I wouldn't know because we never got there. We stopped to take photographs of a rainbow and behind the rainbow there were ominously dark clouds. Did we want to continue onward, toward a castle that's closed on mondays? Nope! We turned around and started trudging back toward the center of town but the sky soon opened up, bringing with it a wind-swept rain and we were drenched by the time we reached somewhere we could duck into for lunch.

As we were getting on the train to return to Cardiff the sun came back out again! Upon returning to Cardiff we set out toward Cardiff Museum, which we'd heard is quite nice, but when we got there, the sign said "closed on mondays!" Oh joy. :( We ended up in the Cardiff City Centre visitor center, where they had a display about the history of flooding in Cardiff (extensive, and going back many centuries.) And that was our museum for the day.

Rainbow and ominous sky!


Proof we were actually in Merthyr Tydfil!


A view from the train on the way back to Cardiff

Comments

[neptunia67.livejournal.com]

Nice pictures! How do you pronounce "Merthyr Tydfil?"

When I went to Dublin with my then-husband, we took a train ride to a town called Dun Laoghaire - pronounced "Dun Leary" - I never did get the hang of pronouncing Irish words, and I am not sure if they are considered Celtic or Irish.

[cowgrrl.livejournal.com]

For the correct pronounciation, see serennau's comment in my LJ. She answers your question much better than I can considering she used to live in Merthyr Tydfil! :-)

[secret-willow.livejournal.com]

Sorry to see that you got rained out of the castle but you got to take in beautiful sights none this less.

[cowgrrl.livejournal.com]

We'd just been to a castle the day before (see my previous post) so it was no big deal missing this one. We'd have only been able to see the outside of it anyway.

[maymorning.livejournal.com]

Dag nabbit, that's where I moved from! Cyfarthfa castle is a museum and also houses the two lower forms of the high school. My daughter went to school there. It's pronounced mirth-er tid-vil, to the commenter above who was wondering, and means Tydfil the Martyr, after a Celtic lass who was killed by maurauding Irish Picts.

It's not really a castle as such, more a crennalated old mansion house, built by the iron master family, the Crawshays. I used to live in a village above the town, by the way, called Pantyscallog.

[cowgrrl.livejournal.com]

Aha! I was right!!! I thought the name of that place sounded really familiar, from your LJ, and even mentioned to denicemarcell that I thought this might be the place you'd lived previously!

Next time, obviously, I need to go to Aber! :-)