So today dawned beautifully sunny and calm, at least down in the valleys (see, picking up the local lingo, in my head I said “the VALLeys” like a true Welsh person) and even though I hadn’t thought of it when planning this trip, I decided to take the train up Snowdon if I could get a booking.
The landlady of the pub told me how to get there and the drive took me through the most spectacular landscape. Although of course I knew there were Welsh mountains I just didn’t picture the pretty, sheltered havens in the valleys (that word again) nestled among the majesty of the soaring crags behind. The sheer size, and I mean “sheer” in every sense, takes your breath away.
Found my way to Llanberis where you get the train. Found a very grumpy car park attendant so refused to give him any of my cash and found a better place down the road. Walked back to the train place and found the ticket office. Was about to walk in when I espied the firmly worded notice that you could only get through this door if you already had a ticket. Hmm. Found the door on the other side and went in. To the same space I would have arrived at if I had used the first door. *sigh*
I hadn’t figured on going up Snowdon because the Professor was known to rage at the vandalism of the Victorians who put the railway in, and also to scoff at the grockles (don’t know the Welsh equivalent) trundling up by the carriageload. But there’s no other way for me to go up, not with my iffy knees and feet, and the weather was so glorious this morning, I decided to give it a go.
The little train was one carriage long and the seats so close together that I had to sit sideways on. I have long thighbones and when you combine this with my capacious arse, which means my thighs don’t start as close to the back of the seat as most people’s, I take up a lot of room front to back. It’s one way to get a double seat all to yourself and also a way to get daggered looks from the conductor chappie. They do and try and pack them on and I was taking up two seats.
Unfortunately it was too snowy today for the train to go to the top, so we stopped at Clogwyn. I have to say that the trip reminded me somewhat of the cable car ride in Wellington. The website calls this train “the trip of a lifetime” – it seriously isn’t. It is lovely to go through the oak trees and after that the landscape is majestic and it was mountainous and steep and bloody cold at the top and all the things you associate with mountains, and I really enjoyed it, but, in my lifetime? come on.
I’m really glad I went up there today, it is four weeks since the Professor died and I felt very close to him today. He climbed Snowdon two years ago with a friend of his, they used to climb something or other every year, and I wish now I’d come with them and gone up on the train and met them at the top. But he used to look forward to it as some regeneration time and it didn’t occur to me then to tag along, especially bearing in mind rants re railways up mountains, see above.
After I left I discovered a friend from school days had also been on Snowdon, and in the cafe either when I left or just before I went up. Perhaps our trains crossed at the crossing point! I haven’t seen her since 2008 and it is freaky that we both happened to be on the mountain today. Freaky.
How fantastic that your old friend was up on the mountain too.
sounds like you had a lovely and meditative day. I would love to visit Wales as my partner’s part Welsh. But I’ve only spent a cold and wintry afternoon at a showjumping ground there.