Europe - Trip 1

Day 6 - January 13, 2002

View of Jackfield Bridge from Ironbridge

Up and at 'em at 8:30 we ate our breakfast, yacked with the proprietor of the B&B as we left and then headed to the Tile Museum just up the road still in Jackfield. The Tile Museum was really quite interesting with lots of mosaics and a rich history of style. There was also a geology wing that talked about how the area was well positioned to take the industrial revolution up a notch - it was a center with loads of coal, iron ore, good clay and water.

We dashed up the road to see the iron bridge of Ironbridge. Was quite impressive; the way we heard it was built by a loacal Iron Lord to prove that Iron/Steel could be used for structures.

Touring through the Cambrian Mountains

Heading cross country we went through Welshpool and ended up in Dolgellau just a few miles off the coast on the Afon Wnion. Just south of Snowdonia National Park (the park with the peak Snowdon), the scenery was absolutely spectacular. The town itself was almost storybook with extremely neat, small winding streets and some fabulous buildings. We stopped at the local tourist info place and got a B&B just outside of the centre of town. Our host was fabulously friendly and kept suggesting that we wanted tea and biscuits when what we really wanted was a nice pint of beer.

We got back to the town centre and it was absolutely dead - we literally had to have beers at 4 very different pubs before we found one that was serving dinner. Ended up eating at the local hotel (curry for Sue and halibut steak for Todd). Todd had to let the bartender know that the casked Robinson's Best Bitter was off and had to be changed - no questions asked and it was fixed in minutes.

Back at the B&B we finally acquiesed and had the tea and biscuits and then headed off to bed.

mmm... pretty scenery!