Very Last Caernarfon pics
Jul. 3rd, 2026 08:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cmcmckThere is a little 19th century footbridge which runs back and forth on rails to open up the docking area:
( Here be pics: )
( Here be pics: )
St Peblig's church Llanbeblig
Jul. 1st, 2026 12:55 pmcmcmck Just down the hill from the Roman fort is the medieval church of St Peblig (this is a unique dedication) in the village of Llanbeblig.
Unfortunately it wasn't open but still worth seeing as it's 14th century.
This church also features in the Mabinogion
Unfortunately it wasn't open but still worth seeing as it's 14th century.
This church also features in the Mabinogion
Sunnycroft
Jun. 29th, 2026 06:41 pmcmcmckSunnycroft is our local National Trust property and is literally four hundred yards from where we live- you can see the roof of the building from our attic room windows.
It's a large upper middle class town house, a bit different from the nobby country houses that the NT often look after.
We visited on Sunday. We walked down the main avenue to the house- these trees are Wellingtonia, very apt for a town named Wellington. They are a species of redwood and therefore large!
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It's a large upper middle class town house, a bit different from the nobby country houses that the NT often look after.
We visited on Sunday. We walked down the main avenue to the house- these trees are Wellingtonia, very apt for a town named Wellington. They are a species of redwood and therefore large!
( See more! )
More Beddgelert pics
Jun. 29th, 2026 02:34 pmcmcmckWe walked through the local park to the church. How many parks do you know with mountains?
( More pics! )
( More pics! )
Beddgelert and a faithful hound
Jun. 28th, 2026 09:40 amcmcmckI'm afraid the cut is playing up so bear with me!
Beddgelert is pronounced bethgelert. The double D in Welsh gives you a 'th' sound- a soft 'th as in 'then.
It means 'the grave of Gelert'.
The village was voted the prettiest place in the world in a recent online poll.
The railway station with the mountains in the background. The WHR takes you up through the hills and you get a view of Yr Wyddfa (aka Snowdon) en route.
The station with the mountains in the background:
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Beddgelert is pronounced bethgelert. The double D in Welsh gives you a 'th' sound- a soft 'th as in 'then.
It means 'the grave of Gelert'.
The village was voted the prettiest place in the world in a recent online poll.
The railway station with the mountains in the background. The WHR takes you up through the hills and you get a view of Yr Wyddfa (aka Snowdon) en route.
The station with the mountains in the background:
( See more: )
Ar ddychweliad Llywelyn, neidiodd y ci yn waed i gyd i groesawu ei feistr. Dychrynodd y tywysog a brysiodd i chwilio am ei fab, a gwelodd grud y baban yn wag, a'r dillad gwely a'r llawr yn llawn gwaed. Yn ei ddychryn, trywanodd y tad y ci â'i gleddyf gan feddwl ei fod wedi lladd ei etifedd.
Atebwyd gwaedd farwol y ci gan gri plentyn. Chwiliodd Llywelyn a chanfod ei fab yn ddianaf, ond gerllaw gorweddai corff blaidd anferth yr oedd Gelert wedi'i ladd. Dywedir na wnaeth y tywysog wenu mwyach, a chladdodd Gelert yma."
And that in English:
"In the 13th century Llywelyn Prince of North Wales had a palace at Beddgelert. One day he went hunting without Gelert "the faithful hound" who was unaccountably absent. On Llywelyn's return the truant stained and smeared with blood joyfully sprang to meet his master. The prince alarmed hastened to find his son and saw the infant's cot empty, the bedclothes and floor covered with blood. The frantic father plunged his sword into the hound's side thinking it had killed his heir. The dog's dying yell was answered by a child's cry. Llywelyn searched and discovered his boy unharmed but near by lay the body of a mighty wolf which Gelert had slain. The prince filled with remorse is said never to have smiled again, he buried Gelert here. The spot is called Beddgelert."
Given that two of my ancestral groups, the Jews and the Roma leave stones like this at places of memory, I loved this! :o)
And in a ruined cottage, look who is waiting for us. The faithful old hound, Gelert still keeping watch:
His nose and head have been given many a pat and we did likewise. :o)
More from Beddgelert next time.
And that in English:
"In the 13th century Llywelyn Prince of North Wales had a palace at Beddgelert. One day he went hunting without Gelert "the faithful hound" who was unaccountably absent. On Llywelyn's return the truant stained and smeared with blood joyfully sprang to meet his master. The prince alarmed hastened to find his son and saw the infant's cot empty, the bedclothes and floor covered with blood. The frantic father plunged his sword into the hound's side thinking it had killed his heir. The dog's dying yell was answered by a child's cry. Llywelyn searched and discovered his boy unharmed but near by lay the body of a mighty wolf which Gelert had slain. The prince filled with remorse is said never to have smiled again, he buried Gelert here. The spot is called Beddgelert."
Given that two of my ancestral groups, the Jews and the Roma leave stones like this at places of memory, I loved this! :o)
And in a ruined cottage, look who is waiting for us. The faithful old hound, Gelert still keeping watch:
His nose and head have been given many a pat and we did likewise. :o)
More from Beddgelert next time.
A trip on the narrow gauge
Jun. 27th, 2026 10:00 amcmcmckCaernarfon is no longer on the mainline railway having been a victim of the 'Beeching axe' in the sixties, but it is on a narrow gauge line, the Welsh Highland Railway, which is, at 25 miles from Porthmadog to Caernarfon, the longest narrow gauge line in the UK.
This line has some of the biggest narrow gauge locos in the world. They are Garratts, those monster articulated locomotives and they are just a bit impressive.
We decided to take the line to Beddgelert of which more later.
But for now, some pics of one of the monster engines.
It used to belong to South African railways and is still in that livery:
The (very Welsh) driver enjoying a cup of tea before setting off:
( More pics! )
This line has some of the biggest narrow gauge locos in the world. They are Garratts, those monster articulated locomotives and they are just a bit impressive.
We decided to take the line to Beddgelert of which more later.
But for now, some pics of one of the monster engines.
It used to belong to South African railways and is still in that livery:
The (very Welsh) driver enjoying a cup of tea before setting off:
( More pics! )
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Jun. 25th, 2026 11:36 pm![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
denise posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_maintenanceFolks may have noticed that the site has been slow for logged-out users over the last while. This is partly because we separate traffic by logged-in, "logged out but have visited the site before", and "logged out, never visited the site before" and assign the fewest resources to the last category (because we're pretty confident the overwhelming majority of it is bot and scraper traffic, even if it's often impossible to say for sure). The flood of garbage traffic is a plague and a scourge the entire internet is dealing with, and it's hitting small sites the hardest as operators get better and better at cloaking their requests to look like real, authentic use. We long ago hit the point where adding more resources is a possible solution (because they just eat them up as soon as we do), and splitting traffic lets us keep the site usable for our actual users without wasting too much server power on garbage.
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We've now, lucky us, reached the point where the "logged out, have never visited the site before" path is just flooded all the time, and the "logged out but have visited the site before" path is suffering some of the overflow. We've made some changes to the routing to try to improve things for logged out users who have visited the site before and keep it at "it may be a little bit slow, but at least it works" instead of "it keeps timing out", and we've seen some improvements, but if you're accustomed to browsing the site while logged out, I'm really sorry but it may continue to be a little miserable.
You will get the fastest page loads and the best performance by browsing the site logged in. If you are having trouble loading the front page to log in, bookmark the direct login page. We can't route the front page to the "more power" server pool, because it's a common target for garbage traffic, but we've switched /login over to "more power" and we'll try to keep it there as long as we can unless it starts getting slammed, too.
The castle exterior
Jun. 25th, 2026 12:11 pmcmcmckThe castle totally dominates the town it was built to protect.
To the right there is the Queen's gate which was once approached by a ramp and external gates:
( More pics! )
To the right there is the Queen's gate which was once approached by a ramp and external gates:
( More pics! )
