Today certainly turned to to be one fantastic day, despite starting out a bit dreary. After breakfast, we headed towards Plas Newydd, a National Trust Property located just on the edge of Anglesey in Wales.
One never knows what to expect when visiting a stately home, and this one certainly came as a big surprise. The first inhabitants date to 1470, and the present home is an 18th century mansion that was built around a 14th century hall. It was the family home of the Marquiss of Anglesey.
It's an extremely large house, on an even large piece of property, located right on the Menai Straight, which borders Anglesey.
The gardens were far from vast, but beautiful nonetheless.
One extremely unusual feature was this bank of Cypress trees, planted in 1916. They came all the way from California!
The first room one enters in the house, is the original dining room, now barren, except for a 17.5 meter mural painted by the famous Rex Whistler sometime in 1934. It is believed to have been commissioned by the 6th Marquess' wife.
Note how the corners appear to be hallways, on either side.
The 6th Marquis had inherited the home when his brother the 5th, passed, childless. The 5th Marquis had squandered his fortune, and the household contents had been sold off to pay his depts. The painting and furniture were protected through his will. His brother sold his previous residence and moved into Plas Newydd where he went about making some improvements.
The house stands now with most of the rooms holding the bare minimum of items, keeping with the history of the misfortune of the previous Marquis.
It didn't take much time to tour the house, and since it was still relatively early, we decided to drive west to Holyisland and the South Stack lighthouse. Just look at how brilliant the skies had become!
We made the hike down..
and even toured the lighthouse, climbing the steps to the very top.
The views were pretty amazing.
In the distance, on the rocks, there was quite a bit of bird activity!
On our way down to the lighthouse, we had been chatting with a bird enthusiast who had brought some powerful telescope to view the birds on the cliffs. Within short time, we were peering through his equipment, watching Puffins hopping about on the ground! What an exciting moment for both of us!
I tried to find the spot where they appeared to be nesting, but could not manage to capture any photos of the cute little birds. But I do have this one!
It certainly was quite a hike as I'm fairly certain we walked about 4 miles. Climbing back up was no easy feat!
We drove back to Conwy, parked the car at the B&B, and headed back into the town for dinner. Afterwards, since the weather was so beautiful, we decided to seek out the entrance to the wall walk around the castle exterior.
The views from the top were stunning!
All in all it was one exciting day. And now it's time to recover!
Until tomorrow....
