"Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"

Grand Tour of Wales:  Day 10-12

We spent our last few days in Wales in a converted barn in the Brecon Beacons of Mid Wales.

There was no internet access or decent cell coverage, and when we returned home to Amsterdam a few days ago, our home internet was also down. This effectively means that I've been offline for almost a week.  Holy disconnect!

It goes without saying that we all welcomed the chance to check out for bit and reflect on our trip and on Wales.

Here's what Abby had to say:

We spent our vacation in Wales.

We saw lots of castles and churches.  

But there weren't any princes or princesses living in the castles.  We were all alone.  It was like we really lived there as a family.  Daddy and Mama were the king and queen, and Reesey and me were the prince and princess.

We stayed at farmhouses and saw lots of cows and sheep.  Especially sheep.

We took an old train to the top of a mountain.  It was very cold at the top, and we were in the clouds.  There were sheep in the coldness.

We also went to a rugby match.  Wales was the red team.  The crowd made a big wave around the seats.  Afterwards, the server at the restaurant was very nice and gave us coloring books.

I had a wonderful time in Wales.  Nana Kay (great-grandmother) is from Wales.  We are going to send her a letter telling her all about our trip.

View from Rye Barn.

Much of the Brecon Beacons is national park, known for its rolling landscape and smooth moors.  It is considered a walker's paradise.

There are so many sheep that Reese declared it looked like the sky had rained those "puffy white things" (cotton balls).

The River Usk.

We even found a canal and a canal boat tour to do on one of our remaining days.  Apparently, we don't stray too far from Amsterdam nowadays.

Approaching the locks.

Approaching the locks.

Locks filling with water to raise our boat.

This particular canal is pretty cool in that parts of it are an aqueduct traversing the River Usk.

The aqueduct.

Steering across the aqueduct.

It seemed fitting that our trip ended with a visit to the Cistercian abbey of Tintern.

Its fantastic ruins took my breath away.

The Abbey dates back to the 12th century and was destroyed in the 16th century during the Reformation (windows smashed in, roof crushed).

Two hundred years or so later, during the Romantic period, it became fashionable to visit wilder and more remote locations, and Tintern Abbey gained attention for its beauty and raw state.  Artists seeking the "romantic" and the qualities of light that Mid Wales is still known for today, started visiting Tintern.

William Wordsworth, inspired by Tintern and the Wye Valley that surrounds it, wrote "Lines Writtem a Few MIles Above Tintern Abbey" in 1798.  The opening lines go like this:

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur.*—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

The sight of the monastery's cathedral structure is truly awing.

Entering it, I was reminded again of the scale of everything I'd seen in Wales.  Giant castles, soaring cathedrals, plunging cliffs, endless estuaries, hills that roll and roll and roll.  The people of Wales are fiercely proud and mighty, able to defend their culture, history and language over the course of centuries of invasion and subjugation.  The Red Dragon truly is a fitting national symbol.

The history of Wales is grand, and as so many of our photos from the past twelve days demonstrate, it's easy to feel tiny when set against this backdrop.

Yet, for all its magnificence, I couldn't help but be struck by the approachability of Wales.

It is a small country without a a truly major highway.  It's one major city is a town, really; and it's towns more like villages.  The mountains are dramatic, but not imposing. The sheep, heads down, grazing below the enormous, white cumulus clouds that populated the sky during our entire stay, seemed to still the land in a gentle hush from above and on the ground.  It's quiet in Wales.

The Welsh people are kind and welcoming, eager to tell you about the local "real" ale (ale brewed in a casket without additives and always served at room temperature). They have a unique place in history, having protected their culture and language despite subjugation; one cannot take a broad brush and label them as Englishmen.  Rightly, they take offense at that characterization, and because of these poignant defining qualities, they ultimately seem very knowable.
 

On a more personal level, we are, of course, grateful to have visited the country where Abby and Reese's only surviving great-grandparent was born and raised.  We are mindful of the precious opportunity we have to share this experience with her.

We are also grateful to have spent twelve days outdoors.  All of our activities and sight-seeing excursions took us outside, in fresh air.  Strangely, this is one of the most memorable aspects our our trip.   The light and sky are glorious in Wales, and perhaps someday I'll find the words to really capture this essential quality of Cymru.

In closing, to quote a hero of Wales, here is Dylan Thomas's most famous poem, "Do not go gentle into that good night," in its entirety.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.