2023 United Kingdom, Day 31: Conwy

Bike Route: Llanberis to Conwy 24mi 1700ft of climb, plus 10 miles roundtrip from Conwy to Llandudno

Accommodation: Bright and airy ensuite bedroom (Airbnb); hosts Amanda, Kev, and son. At the top of a steep hill outside Conwy, on a quiet residential estate. King-size bed, with an ensuite shower room and walk-in wardrobe, TV, tea-making facilities, and easy check-in. Small outside area for your private use which is a real sun trap in the morning. Access through a side door, through a small utility room. Lock on the door for your privacy. Ideal location for hiking and sightseeing. Microwave and minifridge in the bedroom.

Dinner: The Castle Hotel. Brochette starters, chef's special mussels in wine and cream sauce, smoked haddock risotto, and creme brulee.

Ken's 73rd birthday!

After a restless night, we were up with the sun at 4:30. We were really in an idyllic spot, in a little cabin in the woods, with light filtering into our bedroom through floor-to-ceiling windows on two walls. We did try to enjoy it, but that pesky passport issue was causing a little tension.

At 8:00, Ken called the police nonemergency line and connected with an officer who told him we should either wait where we were, in Llanberis, for a while and see if the officers from the day before contacted us again, or go to the nearest open police station, in Caernarfon, 10 miles away. We couldn't quite figure out how going to Caernarfon was going to help, since the people who had the wallet were in Llandudno, which was 30 miles in a different direction. We had a little coffee and breakfast, and packed up our bikes, thinking our best bet would be to proceed to Llandudno and talk to the police there. Still no call back from the Llanberis officers.

The original plan had been to leave Llanberis early (around 8:00) and reach Conwy by 14:00 because we had tickets to tour the Conwy Castle at 15:00. The passport and wallet were now priority 1, so we set aside the original plan and focused on them.

Just as I was putting on my helmet, my phone rang. It was an officer in Llandudno. He had my wallet. Yeah! It had been turned in the day before, and his colleague in Llanberis had called him about it last night. The Llandudno office would be open until 18:00 that evening, and I should come on over and get it.

Llandudno was five miles past Conwy, our stop for the night. No problem. I wasn't going to celebrate too heartily until that wallet was back in my hands, but things were certainly looking up.

It was actually a pretty and interesting ride from Llanberis to Conwy, and on around the harbor to Llandudno. We ran into a bit of an issue when the bike route we were on turned into a sandy beach about three miles from the police station. We pushed on through for a quarter mile or so, and were just going to head up a path we hoped would lead to a road when a runner caught up with us and said the coastal path had shifted in the last year or so, and no longer went all the way around the harbor. We would have to backtrack about a mile to the railway platform, and take the main highway over the peninsula.

Despite that, we arrived at the police station just before 15:00, and I pushed the buzzer on the door, and a real officer came to the window, and my actual wallet came out of a drawer. The officer also passed me a Post-it with the name and number of the kind woman who had turned it in, so I could call and thank her.

It was only a little after 15:30 when we checked in to our lovely, quiet, spacious room. We discussed going on over to the castle a few blocks away and seeing if we could get in, but Ken decided he'd rather just relax and have a nice shower and dinner. It being his birthday, that's what we did.

The dinner was lovely. Afterward, we walked around Conwy a bit, and strolled along the top of the castle walls. It was a pretty city.

Back in the room, I called the nice lady Carol to thank her for returning my wallet. She was delighted to hear that it had indeed made it back to me. She and her friend Margaret had taken a bus up to the pass for lunch. After chatting with us on the bench outside the cafe, and waving good-bye to us as we headed down the pass, they finished their meal and decided to take a little walk. That was when they discovered my wallet on the bench. They remembered that we were going to stay in Llanberis that night. Their bus home to Llandudno would go right through Llanberis, so they decided to just get off the bus in Llanberis, leave the wallet at the police station there, and catch the next bus on to Llandudno.

Of course, they discovered the same thing we did: the station in Llanberis was closed and no one answered the phone. They knew the station in Llandudno was open, so after a coffee at their favorite cafe in Llanberis, they caught the next bus to Llandudno, got off at the police station, and went in. The officer there told them the police no longer deal with lost items. Carol told him this was not a child's bucket and beach hat, it was important, and he had to take it and talk to his network and make sure it got back to me. Reluctantly, he took it, and she could only hope it would actually get back to me.

I thanked her for being persistent and thoughtful. As we hung up, she said she was going to ring Margaret right away and tell her the good news. What incredibly sweet women!

Yes, as soon as I got my wallet back, I put my name, my email address, my UK phone number, and Ken's UK phone number inside it, in a prominent location. That is something I always do, but I kept forgetting on this trip. It would have saved a LOT of headache. And yes, Ken has permission to ask me whether I have my wallet as many times a day as he wants. (We are actually now even on the passport score: there was this trip to France he made on an expired passport many years ago...)

On to the next adventure!

Wallet and passport safe in hand!

The coastal path around the harbor from Conwy to Llandudno started out okay but morphed into a sandy beach about a mile past the Llandudno train station.

The path was pretty but not ridable.

The Castle Hotel has been serving travelers since the 1700s. Its ornate neo-Jacobian facade was added in the 1890s. In planning our trip, we discovered that one of the specialties of the hotel restaurant is Moules Mariniare (local mussels in white wine sauce), which is one of Ken's favorites--so we booked a table for his birthday dinner.

After dinner, we strolled around the harbor just outside the city walls.

Conwy Castle is right on the harbor, and its walls extend around the city. It is considered the most well-preserved medieval castle in Wales. We were sorry to have missed our tour.

Just below the castle is the smallest house in Wales. Here's a rare tourist shot with both Ken and me in the frame.

Through this castle archway lie green hills and fields.

We found fairy bubbles in the Conwy fountain! Back story: In 2004, Meghan and I traveled to England for a three-week celebration of her graduation from the U of M. One of our first stops was Bath. In a walk around the city, we came across a fountain full of bubbles. A woman passing by pointed it out and said something about kids and fairies. We loved the idea that someone would fill a fountain with fairy bubbles for children. Later, we found out that Fairy is the most common form of dish detergent (equivalent to Dawn), and that filling a fountain with Fairy soap was a common, and annoying, teenage prank. So, kids haven't changed much since 2004.

We couldn't see inside the castle before dinner, but we were able to walk around the city atop the castle walls after dinner.