Castles and more Castles

We rose and partook of the English Breakfast that was a part of our hotel stay and then checked out. We were amazed that the same lady that welcomed us the night before, was also waitress, checkout and most likely got the groceries and did the maid service as well. I don't know where she got the boundless energy to run such an efficient place but I admired it!

Since Dave and Linda were leaving for Ireland, they wanted to get some money exchanged at the local bank before we headed out. It took some time for Dave to get the money exchanged and then he explained that the teller was new and so he had to change dollars into pounds-sterling before he could exchange that into euros. We were confused but we laughed about the irony. We wandered through Tenby one last time and then realized we were on Upper Frog Street and we looked and found we were also at Lower Frog Street. We decided we'd better head out and get to Pembroke Castle so that we would have some time to explore it.



David and I had explored the outside of Pembroke Castle in the spring and recognized that it was large, but now that we were looking at the interior we realized we didn't anticipate how large it truly was. There has been quite a bit of restoration done to Pembroke but it has been well done. There is a Norman tower that is still in tact except for the floors. Amazing!! They have also established some well done displays inside which are well worth seeing. Although we could have stayed longer, we needed to think about lunch and getting Dave and Linda to the Ferry so we departed.



We ate at Molly's behind the castle and had some pretty good sandwiches. Then we were off to Pembroke Ferry Station. Dave and Linda caught the Innishmore Ferry from Irish Ferries for the remainder of their vacation and so we said our goodbyes.

Looking at the time, our journey home and the route we decided we could take a short jaunt to Carew Castle. On the drive we noted that St. Mary's of Carew had an additional rounded part outside their tower which we hadn't recalled seeing on the churches before but figured it must be a staircase. Carew didn't disappoint. Their restoration has got some of the rooms covered. They have 1 large hall and 2 smaller rooms and have some large open rooms. I started looking at Carew for a potential SCA event. However there isn't any nearby public transportation outside of the ferries and there is only one pub/inn nearby. The castle itself is rumored to be haunted but, in it's day, it would have made quite the manor house.



Well, will you look there, we still have time . . so off to head back to Laugharne Castle. Laugharne was as beautiful on the inside as it was on the outside. They are still working on restoration and so some of the areas are still delicate but they've gotten one tower done so you can go up in it and view the water from the top. They also allow you to see the inside of the writers room.



Well, we'd started a theme now as there were 3 castles that were owned by 1 gentleman at one point and time and we'd seen 2 of them in one day. The last was across the water at Llansteffan so off we headed in that direction. After some one lane roads and ending up in what I thought was the middle of nowhere we saw the castle up on the ridge and so we headed that direction . . . only to find that there was no vehicle traffic allowed near the castle and so we parked in the town and walked up a couple of switchbacks and some hills to get at the top. Luckily, the castle is open to the public without charge which I still find amazing considering what is there. The trek was worth it as the Castle has gorgeous views. The castle itself is quite large but it doesn't have too much left to see. After we spent some time wandering around and taking pictures we decided we really should head home.



We stopped for Petrol and David used the opportunity to check the map and saw that we were close to Castle Carreg Cennen. Of course as we travelled toward this castle, David didn't tell me the name, just that we would be able to see it in it's glory from the roadside. Off the main roads, we went through some cute little towns before we arrived in the small town of TRAP where they provided us some Castle signs to follow. The trip was well worth it as the castle was, in fact, impressive.



It now being around 7 pm and us still needing dinner we did get back on the road and head towards home. We stopped at a services and had Burger King along the way and made it home and all but fell into bed. It was a fun vacation with Dave and Linda and tomorrow David had to head back to work while I worked on blogging our adventures.