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Mission Visits the UK - England & Wales, May 2013
Chapter 5th Caernarfon Castle, Travel & Portmeirion
Chapter 5th: A day of travel and adventure; Beginning with fooling the GPS; Caernarfon Castle; The Regimental Goat of the Royal Welch Fusiliers; The Excitement of driving in Wales; Arrival at Portmeirion; Hiking about the grounds and Dinner. Loads of detail about Dinner. The way to a surgeon's heart is apparently through his stomach.
The Royal Fusiliers Regimental
Goat and the
Goat Major. This
Will Be Relevant Shortly.
If there were themes for Sunday, they were: climbing things and roundabouts. (Not climbing roundabouts, just isn't possible as far as I know.) But I am getting ahead of myself.
Fortified with a splendid Bryn Holcombe breakfast this morning, I set out to tackle the back roads of Northern Wales. Lee had suggested taking the coastal road rather than the mountain road based on his experiences. Coastal views seemed like a more pleasant prospect, so I decided to follow his advice. I knew that the GPS (or SatNav as they call it here) would be bitching me out if I entered Portmeirion as a destination and then took the longer coastal route. ("Please follow recommended route." *pause* "You're still not on the recommended route." *pause* "Now you're ignoring me. In that case, God be with you in your quest.") So I decided to pick a town on the coast somewhere to the north-east of Portmeirion which was large enough to sport a McDonalds and set that as Destination #1. Then I could pull into the parking lot at Micky D's and set Portmeirion as Destination #2. (See, I can outwit a GPS...)
Poring over Google maps the night before, I randomly picked Caernarfon. (Everything in Wales seems to be spelled in this way. I know it's Welsh, which is technically a different language, but it reminded me of the spelling used in the 17th century English surgical journals where you know they’re basically just guessing.) As I was studying the landscape on the Google map, I noticed there was a castle in Caernarfon. Well then! Further research proved that this is another castle complete with walled town, so I decided to check that out.
I was a little leery of relying on the GPS for this (she had steered Lee and I wrong last night, after all.) I knew that the further into town I got, the more roundabouts I would have to contend with and the more I would be depending on her to see me through them.
The View from the Parking Area (There's
A Roundabout Just Beyond There)
But the world looked shiny and new this morning, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and attempt to go and see the castle in Caernarfon and let Ms. SatNav do the directional work.
The Streets of Caernarfon
This also allowed me to kill some time after leaving Colwyn Bay. If I arrived at Portmeirion too early, I'd have to wait for the room to be readied by the maid service. (It's always sort of embarrassing to be early to a hotel – you just sit there on some sterile couch while the clerk behind the corner tries to pay you no mind. I was to discover that Portmeirion had more to see than a TV tuned to some mind-numbing station in the waiting room. My grandpa used to call TVs the 'gol'dam noisy box' and at times I'm inclined to agree with him.) Other than the fifteen roundabouts which I had to circumnavigate in town, it turned out to be pretty easy to find parking and from there, enter the castle.
Caernarfon Castle 
One View of the Castle - See those Towers? I climbed them.
is a world heritage site. It was established by King Edward I in 1284. His son, the Prince of Wales, was born there and they've been endowing Princes of Wales there ever since. Charles was invested in 1969 and they had the chair he sat in set inside an exhibit to prove it. I dutifully read through the info on the installation of Princes and looked at the chair. (It was wood with a red cushion. I didn't take a photo because the glass was all smudgy and it didn't interest me that much.)
For whatever reason, seeing all this pageantry made me fall back on my ugly American roots and think of Frank Drebin's irreverent comments about the queen. I must confess that I wasn't all that fascinated with royalty and their regal role in Caernarfon; I was mostly interested in seeing where I could get to inside the castle.
Unlike the castle at Conwy, this one was almost fully restored. So I ducked into the first open door I found and was confronted with... stairs. They sure loved their narrow, scary, spiral staircases in these castles! Yep. I climbed up (and back down) miles of the things, I'm sure of it. 
Another View of the Castle - Climbed Those Towers too...
This castle was nothing like being pram friendly. I think there was a contest amongst the English castle architects to see which one could feature the most impossibly narrow and steep spiral staircases. If so, the Caernarfon Castle designer appeared to have at least three lengths on his contemporaries.
When I first started skipping up the steps, I made up my mind that I would climb each of the towers, all the way to the top, no matter how many staircases this involved. Yep. Uh huh. I confess that I only stuck with this goal for about 7 of the 10,000 towers. (OK, I'm exaggerating the number of towers. A bit.) It was cold and rainy when I arrived, so I had worn my winter coat over a sport blazer. After climbing all those stairways, I actually had to remove the blazer for fear that it would get soaked through.
Incidentally, while going down was less physically straining, it was far more mentally taxing. I actually had to rely on a rope to save me from tumbling down at one point. (What do you mean, 'Use the hand rails.' If they'd have put handrails in, only Anthony Daniels could have managed to squeeze by them on the way up.)
 Caernarfon Castle - Actual Stairs. Note that these were not just in one tower of the castle, they were pretty much ubiquitous throughout the place. |
 Looking Up Another Flight of Stairs, Featuring My Friend the Rope (along the center post, front right) |
 Anthony Daniels. Unrecognizability Rating: 35% (It'd be higher, but past Journals hint at many SW geeks.) |
One of the thirteen Ninja Caernarfon Castle World Heritage
Guards Perches View of the Dais
Overall, it was a magnificent castle and I was duly impressed with the large slate dais that had been put in the center of the castle grounds for the induction of Prince Charles as the Prince of Wales.
I'd have liked to get a photo of myself in the center of it, but it was in the center of a grass courtyard being guarded by foreboding signs telling you to keep to the paths. (Even the boisterous kids running around in the courtyard didn't dare set toe upon lawn by the pathways.)
My guess is that if anyone even thought about crossing the grassy threshold from the walking path to the slate dais, only miracle would save them from the crack team of hidden Ninja Caernarfon Castle World Heritage Guards. (How the kids knew this, I don't know. Perhaps their parent's warned them. "Don't go on that grass or the ninja Caernarfon Castle World Heritage Guards will leap down from their perches and get you!")
 A View of One of the Caernarfon Castle Walls |
 Yet Another Tower I Climbed |
 A Ninja Friendly Interior Passage |
The Royal Fusiliers Regimental Goat and
His
"Goat Head Pieces" (That's what the sign says)
There was also a really interesting museum set up for the Royal Welch Fusiliers, an outfit that was founded in 1689, smack in the midst of the golden age of piracy. (Or at the beginning of it, depending on whom you ask.) They had a uniform from that period, which I dutifully took a bad photo of, hoping that Michael Bagley might find it interesting. They had a near period gun, which I dutifully took a bad photo of, hoping Ivan Henry might find it interesting. And they had the Regimental Goat which I took a dozen carefully planned photos of, hoping that I'd get a really good one.
It's a Regimental Goat! He had a headdress and led the Fusiliers in parades and was presented by the Queen of England! This was the coolest goat EVER! The Regimental Goat has his own handler who is called, I kid you not, 'the Goat Major.' If I weren't the Mercury ship's surgeon, I would have to be the Mercury ship's Goat Major. The Goat is the only serving member of the Armed Forces who still has a cigarette ration. (Because it is good for his digestion, natch.) Learning about the Regimental Goat alone made my 6 pound entry fee worthwhile.
 Royal Fusiliers 1695 Outfit Full |
 An Attempted Close-Up of the Royal Fusiliers 1695 Coat |
 A Near Period Gun of Some Sort |
 The Royal Fusiliers Regimental Goat Side View. (I hope this wasn't one of the actual Regiment Goats who got stuffed.) |
It's All On the Street Where the
Caernarfon Restaurant Lives
On the way out of the town inside the wall, I thought I might as well have lunch before getting back into the car. I stopped in a place I will not name (in order to protect the guilty) and had soup and half a tuna sandwich. I think this was the blandest lunch I've ever had in my life. The waiter said it was vegetable soup, but I strongly
suspect it was actually orange-colored paste like the stuff they gave you in kindergarten, only mixed to a gooey consistency with some chunks left over to pose as vegetables. The tuna was very very, very faintly reminiscent of fish and the mayo must
A Typical Road in Caernarfon
have been the same stuff they called soup, only without the orange food coloring. On that note, I took my leave of Caernarfon. Good goat memories, not good food memories.
The drive from there to Portmeirion was mostly uneventful, other than the 3000 roundabouts and the (occasionally) very narrow, walled road. I used to know a girl who hated driving next to semi-trailers. She would have probably just given up in despair and pulled over to sit weeping when attempting the drive from Caernarfon to Portmeirion because some of the walls on the side of the road were as tall as semi-trailers, only you could not get past them and there was NO shoulder. None! There was road and then there was wall. Period.
Fortunately that was good training for the actual road into Portmeirion, which was extraordinarily narrow in some places and blocked by oncoming traffic in others. They only let people with verified reservations onto the main grounds and I can completely understand why.
 Driving Portmeirion's in the Gate |
 Driving Through Portmeirion Village to the Hotel |
 Driving Back From the Hotel (Exciting, hey?) |
Photo: Pirated - The Final Episode Credit of the Prisoner for Portmeirion
The grounds of Portmeirion were everything I had hoped they would be. You could just feel Patrick McGoohan's ghostly, Prisoner presence here. This is not to say that you felt like a prisoner – far from it. It just made you realize how much of a character The Village was in that series.
For those of you who haven't seen the original 60s TV show The Prisoner, you must do so forthwith. You will be hopelessly lost for the next four chapters otherwise. Start with the first episode which is called (appropriately enough for this part of the Surgeon's Journal) Arrival. If you start in the middle, you'll not only be confused, you'll hate it. At least that was my initial experience. If you start from the beginning, you may be able to follow along with the admittedly off-beat story line.
Steps Surrounding the Lady's Lodge
I checked out the grounds first. I quickly learned that this was going to be the climbing portion of
The Steps Leading to the Band Stand
my exploration of Great Britain. There were all manner of slate and cobblestone stairways leading all over the village.
I went over to the shops to see what sort of Prisoner gear they had. There is actually a shop devoted to the Prisoner in the Portmeirion Round House, but the teenaged attendant was busy chatting with another teenaged girl and seemed to have little interest in waiting on me. So I decided to save my purchases for later, which turned out to be a good choice for several reasons as you will soon learn.
I had
The Map to the Miles of Walking Paths and Surrounds - in Welsh and English
paid for breakfast and dinner (something I highly recommend if you decide to go here), but I had an hour and half until my dinner reservation. So I decided to see where the beach trail lead. I discovered that it went on for miles and involved, you guessed it, lots of climbing. The grounds are amazingly lush, however, so I took a million photos only a handful of which I will share in this chapter. (I suppose this will make you pirate reenactment purists breathe a sign of relief. It's only fair to warn you that this is just the calm before the storm that will follow in the next few chapters. So take note.)
Photo: William S. Kessler
A 'Real' Monkey Puzzle Tree
Most of the photos in the series below are self-explanatory, but I should comment on the first one, which is of a tree. Somewhere I had heard there were monkey puzzle trees along the walking paths and I felt sure that this was such a tree, so I took a photo of it. Had Lob been with me, I would have placed him on this tree and photographed him with some extraordinarily witty comment about MP Trees.
Photo: The Bagleys
Lob, Having Other Plans
However, it turned out this this is not, in fact, monkey puzzle tree at all. Rather than having such a bizarre appearance as this, they are rather pedestrian looking pine trees whose sole distinguishing characteristic is a small pyramid of needles on the top, as you see at left.
Of course, being the author of this Journal, I could have told you that first photo below was a monkey puzzle tree and only the well-educated monkey puzzlers would have been able to call me on it. However, I haven't got it in me to fool you all like that. Alas. It does give me an excuse to bring Lob into the Journal, however, something for which I'm sure you're all grateful. (Lob was originally supposed to make this trip with me, but that failed to happen for reasons I forget. He probably had other plans or something like that.)
 A Not-MP Tree |
 The Path Up Into the Forest |
 A Frog of Some Sort |
 A Quiet Spot in the Forest |
The photos below are mostly from the part of the path that wandered along the water. Of note here is the lighthouse, which was featured in the Prisoner episode Arrival, linked to previously. (See, if you don't go and at least watch that episode, this Journal will be really hard to follow.)
 The Path Along the Water |
 The Lighthouse |
 An Oriental Pavilion Along the Pathway |
With that adventure out of my system, I trotted back to my room (which was actually more like a condo) and got
The View of the Village from Chantry Row 2
ready for dinner. Before I get to dinner, I must say that I LOVE Portmeirion. It's elegant without being irritating. (Meaning there are none of those people hanging around you trying to 'help' you with everything. I don't want help for the most part. I want to enjoy my privacy and anonymity.)
The porter drove to my room (because I am staying in the village and it is a goodly distance from the hotel to pretty much anywhere else in the Village. Then he showed me the room in a rather easy-going way and discreetly left. If you have to have your room shown to you, that's the way to have it done.
I was staying in Chantry Row 2 the first night, which was up on the hill of the village. (I know this now, but I couldn't remember the name of my room for this life of me while I was there. I just knew how to get there. This is SOP for the Surgeon while at an event, to be honest.) It was very comfortable with two bedrooms en suite and a shared sitting room. I was in a two bedroom place because they didn't have a single room available for that night when I booked.
 The Path to Chantry Row 2 (The Blue & Green Ones On the Right.) |
 The Shared Sitting Room - OK, Not Really That Exciting... |
 The Chantry Row 2 Master Bedroom - I Show This Mostly So You Can See the Decor. (The Wallpaper is Original.) |
Now, about dinner. I should warn you that this is going to be positively gushy, because the food here was everything that the bland
A Portmeirion Salad - Lovely, Isn't It?
Caernarfon restaurant was not. It started with the most wonderful salad I think I've ever had, containing tomatoes, fresh herbs, goat's cheese, avocado dressing and these little Hershy's Kiss-sized dollops of sauce that must have been made of liquid white gold. It was served on a piece of slate, a local Welsh product and presented in a perfect rectangle of dress. For dinner, I chose a rarebit souffle (which is cheese, not rabbit) (unfortunately) (although being a vegetarian I couldn't eat rabbit anyhow) on a bed of the best wild rice concoction I've ever tasted with a side of veggies - carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, nestled in more fresh herbs and little dollops of a different sauce of white gold. The only place I went wrong was the dessert, which was good enough with sorbet and some sort of ice cream and a pastry... but it wasn't quite what I'd hoped. I should have had the chocolate dessert. I don't know what came over me. Still, the meal was so good that I decided to order port wine and coffee to complete it. I might just retire to here.
On my way out, I chatted with the hotel front desk clerk to set up future dinner reservations and find out about switching rooms. (Not because I didn't like my room, but because they were so booked here that they had to put me in two different rooms during the stay.) While there I noticed a weather forecast that listed rain for tomorrow, but showed an image with clouds covering a partial sun. "Does that mean we're going to have some sun tomorrow?" I asked. "I'll see that we do," she replied with a grin.