After a lovely few days in North Wales, it was time to head to our respective homes - me to London, Mum and Dad to Devon. I had a train from Shrewsbury booked for the afternoon and we didn't have to rush to get back there, so we took a meandering drive through the beautiful Snowdonia National Park, and visited Beddgelert.
I'd been to Beddgelert when I was a kid, and it was the site of my favourite (and possibly the saddest) Welsh fairytale. It was in a book of Welsh stories that a family member gave me as a present when I was young, as my family is from Wales. The story goes that Prince Llewelyn comes home from hunting to find his baby missing and his dog Gelert greeting him with a bloody muzzle. Fearing the worst, Llewelyn kills the dog with his sword, only to hear the unharmed baby crying and seeing a dead wolf in the room... which the dog had killed. It's such a sad story and the Prince apparently took great care to bury his heroic dog. Beddgelert is therefore named after this story, meaning Gelert's Grave.
Whether it is a true story or not, I don't know, but the town of Beddgelert is a lovely place in North Wales surrounded by mountains. If it is true, Gelert has at least has been remembered throughout history as the goodest doggo ever to have lived in the village.
We had time after Beddgelert to pop into a National Trust place nearby, Powis Castle and Gardens. There wasn't quite enough time to do them both, so we chose to have a wander around the gorgeous gardens, since it was such a sunny day!
The gardens at Powis Castle are quite French in the way they look, having survived the English fascination in the 18th Century of Capability Brown-styled gardens. They are still very formal in design and have lovely tiers up to the castle, which was a lovely orange coloured stone. The whole place was just divine, with the wisteria and the other flowers blooming, the curiously shaped hedges and lovely sculptures throughout.
It being a Sunday, we had booked into a pub in Shrewsbury for a Sunday roast lunch, so I would be nice and full before my train ride back to London. It was quite delicious too! A great finish to what was a really good long weekend in North Wales.