Wales Weekend

This weekend I went to Wales with the CEA Program. Its such a beautiful country with a rich history. My friend Sarah is a history major with a concentration in Welsh history and culture so we got the best insight into Welsh life (Editor's Note: Sarah isn't actually a history major with a concentration in Welsh history, as evident by her idea that one of the areas of the ruins was where they kept the llamas).

First we hit up a Roman amphitheater

Gladiator fights would take place here. It wasn't as big as I was expecting, but I'm sure it was much more grand back in its hay day. 

 Some of the ruins

 They had an old barracks too where the gladiators would live, but I was too lazy to walk over to it.

 This is Caerphilly castle

This is probably the oldest castle I've ever been to. It was insane and gorgeous. Part of one of the towers was destroyed. 

A wedding was being held in the Great Hall. So pretty! We saw the bride and groom walking around the little town taking pictures. This would be a great place to get married.

It looks like a face ^_^

KITTY!

Some more pretty sights

Fire place

The moat that surrounded the castle back in the day is still there!

Then we popped on over to a Welsh History museum. It was all outside, which was pretty cool. This is the area around the manor house/wool mill (aka the only part I was not too lazy to walk to). Wales is known for its high quality wool, which makes sense because there are more sheep in the country than there are people.

We spent the night in Swansea (Catherine Zeta Jones' home town!). Its right on the water and was so gorgeous. The little town was so cute and we ate at this really yummy American restaurant (unintentionally).

On Sunday we went to an old mine! I actually went down into the mine shaft, which was terrifying, but also really cool. Cameras weren't allowed in the mine shaft so please enjoy the following pictures of the outside of the mine:

We finished off the Welsh Weekend at my favorite place: Tintern Abbey!! Its an old monastery and probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. William Wordsworth wrote a poem about it, and the English major in me just couldn't get over the fact that I was in the same vicinity as he was when he wrote that poem. Unbelievable.

(Lauren is always in the way of my photographs)

Oh, look! A car park! (P.s. that's our tour guide in the right hand corner. His name is Tim)

This is the bus that I spent way too much time on this past weekend. But all in all, I am glad I went. Some parts of the trip weren't that exciting, but overall I found it to be a very interesting trip. Wales is a beautiful country with a rich history that I am glad I got to learn more about.