Wales: sights in green
The place name looks as if someone at Scrabble want to get rid of all the letters: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. It is the longest and hardest to pronounce place name in Wales, but the 13-year-old Billy goes smoothly over his lips. Again and again he speaks the monster word to us. Come on, try it in portions! "Chanwär pochwingär gogerisch ..." - it is hopeless.
We are glad that we at least know the name of the town we are in: Caernarfon, spoken Kairnarwon, a coastal town in the north of Wales. With a well-preserved city wall embracing a tangle of medieval alleyways. With an imposing castle that has 13 towers - and in which every firstborn English king's son is named Prince of Wales and thus to the British heir to the throne.
And with friendly locals like Donna Goodman, the mother of Billy, who is currently serving a Welsh dish: braised beef with carrots, parsnips and dumplings.
The 44-year-old tourist guide has created a network of people who invite paying guests to a family dinner. So that they find taste in North Wales. Because the region has more to offer than a green landscape and almost twice as many sheep as inhabitants: castles, swirling rivers, steam trains. Victorian seaside resorts. And "yr hen iaith," the ancient language that was probably created in the 6th century, making it the presumably oldest spoken in Europe.
Since the Welsh lost their land to the English, this language has become their home. And they did not let them take away. Not when English became official language in 1536; not when in 1870 the school systems were unified. The language was defended. And for that, she gave the Welsh people a sense of belonging, an identity. Today, about 750000 people can speak Welsh; one of them is now sitting with us at the table trying to knot our tongue in one word:
"Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch," Billy repeats. Fortunately, and perhaps out of pity for tourists like us, the Welsh also have an abbreviation for the place name: Llanfair PG And in the guide we find a German translation: St. Mary's Church at the pond of white hazelnut trees at the fast vortex on the red Grotto of the Church of St. Tysilio. - Welsh, it seems, is also one of the most accurate languages in the world.
When you drive across the country in Wales, the sky turns into a big cloud theater: slate gray cloud monsters sneaking up against the blue backdrop above us. Hunt in the sky. It's hard, they seem to move closer and closer to the hills, as if they want to crush us. And as a noise maker, the rain hisses with the Welsh-speaking broadcaster BBC Radio Cymru from the car radio to the bet.
"Our rain," Donna Goodman had said to us before saying goodbye, "is juicy, sexy rain, not that miserable English dribble." The weather is there, whether it pleases the Welsh or not. So, they've started to treat it like a whimsical buddy who's taken as he is - and whose fad is sometimes even hinted at. They simply let the air moisture bead off.
Like the young couple we meet as we walk in the Berwyn Mountains to Lake Vyrnwy: wearing Bermudas and Wellington boots; they wedge pants and hiking boots, no umbrella, no hood. "We are so used to it," she says, and the rain billows her red curls into a teetering wave.
Sheep graze indifferently in wet wool on the Rhiwargor Fall. Then we are finally at the lake. Where Lake Vyrnwy is not a natural lake, but a drinking water reservoir for about 80 kilometers away Liverpool: 120 years ago, the wall, behind which eight small rivers jammed and the village Llanwddyn sank, was the largest stone dam in the UK. In the "Lake Vyrnwy Hotel" we enjoy the view over the water, in which stands a light gray tower with copper-green pointed roof: It is the stopper in the big bath tub, in it the sieve is over the pipeline to Liverpool. But now, surrounded by mist, he seems enchanted - as if he had been placed solely between the wooded mountains, so that Rapunzel has a summer residence.
Then the next act starts in the big cloud theater: A few swallows fly high in the sky above the tin-gray water. The slate-colored monsters, which have just wrestled with each other up there, are exhausted. And in the gap that arises between them, the sun rises.
Guest in a surreal painting
The bay of Tremadog lies before us in a warm, soft light, as artists love it.And like people in a painting, we suddenly feel - in a surreal painting: Two German tourists stand in an Italian fishing village, which the artist has embedded in a Welsh landscape. A campanile towers over Mediterranean roofs. You can see the dome of a Florentine cathedral. A piazza with fuchsias and rock roses. Fountains, statues, columns and Mediterranean plants like palm trees and oleanders.
The title of the artwork, of which we have suddenly become a part, is Portmeirion. The artist who created it was Sir Clough Williams-Ellis - and he fulfilled his great lifelong dream. In 1925, the Welsh architect bought the headland in this bay, complete with a Victorian country house with overgrown park. And inspired by the Italian city of Portofino, he began to combine British buildings with Italian.
What was contrary to his dream, he quickly adjusted, like the yew trees, which he bent with wire to cypress shapes. He did not accept restrictions right away: why should not an Italian piazza be surrounded by Ionic columns, which in turn are decorated with Siamese temple dancers? Why not just embed an old ship in a quay wall?
As we stroll down to the sundowner on the terrace of the mansion on the beach in the evening, we have to imagine him involuntarily: How he rose as a very old gentleman in Knickerbockern and Canary yellow knee socks to the workers on the scaffolding. There walls came in, where windows seemed attached to it. Untiringly brought his dream into the reality little by little. It was worth it: Portmeirion is the only thing Sir Clough Williams-Ellis became famous for.
The Yorkes of Erddig Hall were portrayed and their servants
Tender rain tingles against the windows of the manor house Erddig Hall on the outskirts of Wrexham. It is dripping from the linden trees in the garden. A wren blasts his songs into the sky, with the voice of a goose. We enter the long brick building through the servants' entrance as once the staff, past carpenter and blacksmith, slaughterhouse and yard; Stables, laundry, bakery. It continues, past the kitchen with hand-grip-thick tabletops and a patent roasting pan in front of the open fire.
Only then will we finally approach the stately apartments, which were inhabited for 200 years by the Yorke family. The Yorkers not only had the habit of calling all male family members Philip or Simon, but also a special relationship with their staff. That is why we are being piloted today by the service-door entrance.
Because servants used to have a permanent place in almost all mansions. However, a place in history, the rule usually does not give them a - rather you let still immortalize his pets for the ancestral gallery. At Erdigg Hall, however, things were different: when one of York's, a Philip, was portrayed around 1780, he came up with the idea of having his servants painted as well.
And thus established a long-standing tradition: Generations of York wrote from then on poems and diaries about their staff and let portray it.
Now they look down on us from the walls, dignified, holding in their hands the insignia of their daily work: William, the blacksmith, Jack, the gamekeeper, Jane, the maid. Older ladies from the National Trust lead tourists around, tell anecdotes of former times a dozen times a day with unspeakable enthusiasm. And how the last Yorke, again a Philip, could no longer receive the building; and eventually handed him over to the National Trust. He restored it - so that today we can go on a journey through time to the world of the servants of bygone days.
Two girls, Amber and Dilly, are sitting on the little wall in the market square of Llanfyllin, beer cans in their hands, their hair colorfully streaked, their boots spattered with mud. They hope someone will take them the last bit to Y Dolydd Workhouse. The Victorian workhouse used to quarter the poor, old and illegitimate. But today, both girls have paid 40 pounds each to listen to music and dance in the mud for three days: since 2004, a three-day festival has been held there. "The most versatile, peppy festival in Wales," promises the homepage, with live music from folk to rock to ska, a cabaret tent and a large area for children.
The event is "wicked", say also Amber and Dilly, so really cool. That she is completely rainy; that the people are camping in the softened field - it does not matter! The mood is "wicked", the mud is "wicked". "Come with us!" As non-Welsh we are unfortunately not suitable for the hot mud. But what the hell: We have experienced sexy rain and Welsh campaniles; and if need be, we can now ask without a stutter for the way from Ysbyty Ystwyth to Ysbyty Cynfyn. If we had to invent a Welsh proverb, his translation would be: Wales is wicked.
Wales: sights and information
Hotels, route planning and lots of other useful tips and many addresses you can get about: - Visit Wales; Brunel House; 2, Fitzalan Road; GB-Cardiff CF 24OUY; Tel. 00 44/29 20/49 99 09; Fax 29 20 48 50; www.visitwales.de - Visit Britain; British National Tourist Board; Dorotheenstr. 54; 10117 Berlin; Tel. 018 01/46 86 42; Fax 030/31 57 19 10; www.visitbritain.de
Book tips to Wales and its attractions
- Britta Schulze-Thulin: "Wales", travel know-how publishing house, 19.90 euros The travel guide provides detailed information about the country and its people, he also provides suggestions for sightseeing and hiking tours, describes the most beautiful pubs in the region, contains numerous tips and an extensive map section. Practical extra: the Welsh place names in phonetic transcription. - Britta Schulze-Thulin: "gibberish, Welsh word for word", travel know-how publishing house, 7.90 euros as little as possible buffalo? and still talk to Welsh in their mother tongue: This is what this phrasebook allows. Verbal translations also help to understand the structure of the language. A book for everyday travel? and a key to the hearts of the locals!
Welsh for beginners: Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon. A nation without language is a nation without a heart.
Canmol dy fro a thrig yno. Praise your country and live there.
Gwell fy mwth fy hun na phlas arall. Better my own house than the palace of another.
Bedd a wna bawb yn gydradd. The grave makes everyone the same.
Gwell digon na gwledd. Enough is better than a party.
