June 12 Caernafon Castle, Wales

June 12 Caernafon Castle, Wales

After completing the conquest of Wales, Edward I built a string of castles to solidify his hold on the place. Two of them, Caernafon and Conwy, are close enough to visit in one trip and still in fairly good shape (Prince Charles was invested as Prince of Wales in Caernafon, although they held the ceremony in the large courtyard because they were concerned about the condition of the Queen's Tower). Today I took the train to Conwy, dropped my pack at a nice B&B near the train station, then took a bus over to Caernafon. The castle is very impressive - like Carlisle Castle, it stands at one end of a wall that encircled the entire town at the time, and includes inner fortifications within a very large enclosed courtyard. The walls are quite thick, and the towers have double walls with passages on every level and arrow / gun slots for shooting through. The castle was falling apart and partially dismantled when it was rescued and largely restored in the 19th Century, but you can see in some of the pictures where a whole part of one tower is missing.
Both Caernafon and Conwy castles stand next to a river estuary, and in each case it had been dredged out for navigation, so the castles could be resupplied by water. And in both cases, the effect of standing on the battlements looking out over the bay, or the farms, is greatly enhanced by the cries of sea birds.