This is a fine mess you've gotten us into

This morning we had to bid farewell to our hosts, the Pitmans, at Tan-y-foyl to depart for the south of Wales.  Of course, since we're spending most of the day in the car we have some very nice weather.  We again chose the more scenic route which meant we would spend much of our day in the car. We made a brief coffee stop before continuing on to our first destination.  We visited a real Welsh butcher which is quite interesting.

Our first real stop was at Powis Castle and Garden.  These gardens were incredible.  They had a huge variety of flowers and trees in very well manicured , multilevel gardens.  Their fruit trees were full of fruit and their flowers were all in bloom.  After roaming around the gardens we took a quick tour of the house.  This one, while decorated in period pieces, is in one piece and could be lived in at anytime.  The house was nice but the real draw was the gardens.

The real adventure began when we were close to our destination for the evening.  With a little time to kill, our driver asked us if we would be interested in visiting an old priory ruins.  He thought they were worth the drive, so we decided we were up for the adventure.  We really got the opportunity to see real rural Wales.  The roads barely hold one car with hedges tower up on either side of the road.  If you met another car one of you had to back to a wide spot in the road to allow the other to pass.  It became even more exciting when a whole heard of horses needed by which left us backing for quite a long distance.  The priory wasn't exactly where the GPS showed it (yes, the GPS had all of these little country roads which were little more than a one car driveway).  It was really an adventure!

We did finally find the Llanthony Priory, which was well worth the drive (of course, I wasn't driving!). We had the place all to ourselves for most of our visit.  You could see the remains of the priory including the chapter house and chapel.  In one corner there's still a working pub, but we were a hair too early to have a brew.  Maybe next time.  These priories are all over the countryside because the monks and nuns were forced out of England when Henry VIII decided he really didn't like the restrictive rules on marriage in the church.  The rest, as we say, was history.

After our visit it was only a short distance to our guest house in Crickhowell.  It's really lovely setting, with a river outside our window and rolling green hills in the distance.  I believe a lot of people come to the area for walking trips which we would call hiking.  However, we're not going to have time to partake in the many trails on this trip.  While not what I had planned for the day, the adventure into the woods so to speak was the highlight to my trip into Wales.