Good evening. The weather finally turned today with clouds and drizzly rain almost all day. The good news is that the temperature dropped about 25 degrees to the upper 60s so that was a welcome change. The sun came out later in the day but now it’s clouding up again a bit.
Today we drove a 45 mile loop to see 5 castles. All but the last were built during the time of the Norman invasion (1066) and most were in pretty bad shape. Our first stop was White Castle.
Next we moved on to Grosmont Castle but the gate was locked so we could only grab a picture from the road.
Skenfrith Castle was next.
Then it was on to Monmouth Castle. This one was in the middle of Monmouth, the largest town in this area. Monmouth Castle is where Henry V was born in 1386. He’s the King that successfully ended the 100 Years War, which actually lasted 116 years. But I guess the 116 Years War didn’t have the same ring to it. Henry V is the king who spoke the famous line, “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” that was used in the best TV program ever…Band of Brothers. BTW. For you BOB fans, the last surviving member of the 506 PIR died a few weeks ago. They’re all gone now.
We planned to have our picnic lunch at our last stop, Raglan Castle, and we did. Except it was still raining so we ate our sandwiches in the car. Raglan Castle was a late medieval castle. This is what it used to look like.
Here’s what it looks like now.
After finishing at Raglan, we were less than 15 minutes from home so we had an early afternoon. Peter took a nap while I started packing up our stuff to head out tomorrow.
We decided to eat dinner out at a special place. Yesterday someone told us about Skirrid Inn which is only about 10 minutes from our cottage. It is one of several inns that claim to be the oldest inn in Wales, about 900 years old. Whether it is the oldest or not doesn’t matter. It was still very cool.
Tomorrow we’re heading back into England to spend the night in Cheltenham in the Cotswold region. It’s supposed to rain all week but if it’s like today it won’t be bad. It barely drizzled. Good night everyone and thanks for following our adventures.
I must say that the chefs of Wales need to understand that a beef lasagna actually requires lasagna noodles! I would have probably been tossed out of the pup for questioning their dish.
I would have loved to have been there for that!!