WALES

ESSENTIAL FACTS

    Saxon invaders attacked Wales and this English conquest of Wales was completed in 1282 by the King Edward I. He started the tradition of giving the title "Prince of Wales" to the oldest son of the English King.
    Wales is sometimes called the land of castles. Among the best known are Caernarfon, where Prince Charles was invested as Prince of Wales in 1696, Conwy and Harlech which stand on rocky cliffs overlooking the mountains of Snowdonia National Park.
    The land is full of mystery and beauty. There are snow-capped mountains, green valleys, sea resorts, big cities and little seaside towns. Cardiff, Newport and Swansea are the biggest cities here.

FACTS FROM THE HISTORY OF WALES

    King Edward I (1272-1307) was the medieval ideal of kingship - personally imposing, a great warrior and a just ruler. He reorganised the existing law courts and made unprecedented use of Parliament to pass laws that put the kingdom in good order. Edward's greatest military achievement was the conquest of Wales.
    South Wales had long been colonised by the Normans, but the English only had an unclear overlordship over the princes of North Wales. Then Llewelyn the Great (1194-1240) consolidated North Wales into a powerful principality. The reign of Henry III had left Wales virtually independent, but in 1276 Llewelyn the Last refused to pay  homage to Edward. In 1282 Edward mounted a full-scale invasion of Wales. Llewelyn was killed and Wales was annexed (thus "the Last").
    Meanwhile, a great ring of powerful castles was built, at enormous expense, to ensure that any future rebellions could be dealt with immediately. In 1284 the king's son (later Edward II) was born at Caernarfon Castle and was proclaimed Prince of Wales, which became the title of the heir to the English throne.

CAERNARFON

    Caernarfon is a very old town on the North-West coast of Wales. The County Town of Gwynedd, it has been an administrative centre for over a hundred years. It is also home to one of the biggest castles in Britain, begun in 1283. A magnificent edifice, it is very well preserved by the Welsh people, even if it was originally built to keep them out of Cearnarfon. In the Middle Ages the town was a very important port. The English king, Edward I, recognised its commercial value and didn't want it to fall into the hands of Llewellyn or one of the other Welsh tribe leaders who roamed the local mountains with their men. So he built the castle, along with several others (Conway, Beaumaris, Criccieth, etc.) on the North-Wales coast. Also town walls were erected to keep the Welsh people out of the town (only on market days were they allowed in). Caernarfon was an English colony and the governor of the town, chosen by the king, lived in some comfort in the Eagle Tower of the castle.
    Today, though, most of the English people in Caernarfon are tourists and day-trippers, there to marvel at the castle and its 3.50 m thick walls and to go to one of the pleasant beaches nearby. The town is very much in the hands of the Welsh and one of the three Welsh National Parties (Plaid Cymru). It is estimated that only about a quarter of the Welsh people speak Welsh as a first language. In Caernarfon though, Welsh is very much in the ascendancy and sometimes it can be difficult there for someone who only speaks English. The Welsh are proud people and some of the natives are slow to forgive the English for colonising their town all those years ago!

CARDIFF

    Cardiff has been the official capital of Wales since 1955. Cardiff Castle is 1,900 years old. The Romans were the first to build on this site in AD 76 followed by the Normans in the eleventh century. The Castle was restored to its present condition in the nineteenth century. During the Middle Ages, Cardiff was a small market town. It grew very quickly into a city during the nineteenth century when the coal, steel and iron industries were developing in South Wales.
    Cardiff also has a large university. It was established one hundred years ago and has over 10,000 students attending courses during the academic year.

PEMBROKESHIRE

    The best part of Pembrokeshire is the coast. The sea, warmed by the Gulf Stream, offers good conditions for swimming, sailing and surfing. There is a 299-km long coastal path where a visitor must admire breathtaking scenery and wildlife. Walking along the coastal path you are likely to spot some gulls, puffins or seals, or encounter small herds of Welsh mountain ponies.
    Green Bridge of Wales is the most famous feature of the coastal scenery. It was formed by water and wind during the past years. There are several stone bridges around the coast but this one is the biggest of its kind.
    St. Govan's Chapel is not far from Green Bridge. It takes about ten minutes to drive there. It is tucked under huge cliffs. There is a legend about it saying that you cannot accurately count the number of steps down the cliffside to the chapel.
    St. David's is situated on the western tip of Wales. It is the smallest city in Britain. It could be compared to a village by its size but, as it has got a cathedral, it is proclaimed to be a city. Outside the city is White Sand Beach which is a hot spot for surfers.

    South Wales is an area of great contrasts. There are sandy beaches and holiday resorts only a few kilometres away from industrial towns, coal mines and steelworks. More than half the total population of South Wales live in this area. You can also find the three biggest towns in Wales here: Swansea, Cardiff and Newport.
    North of Cardiff, there are coalmining valleys. Here coal was mined deep under the ground and used to power the factories of the industrial revolution. The coal of South Wales is very different to the coal found in Northern Bohemia. Welsh coal is black and very hard. Digging it by hand in a mine deep under the ground must have been a terrible job.
    At Blaenavon, in South Wales, you can visit a coal mining museum. Visitors are taken 100 metres below the ground and are shown around the old mine by retired miners.
    At the head of the valleys (north), you can find the Brecon Beacons National Park. This is an area of wild moorland, hills and valleys where very few people live, yet it is less than 60 km from the coal mines and the factories surrounding the big cities on the coast.

    March 1st, St David‘s Day is very important for the Welsh people. (Our Davids celebrate their namedays on another day, on December 30. March 1st is actually the day of St David‘s death.)
    The Welsh emblem is a vegetable, a leek or a flower, a daffodil. The Welsh commemorate St David by wearing daffodils in the buttonholes of their coats or jackets. (Similarly on March 17 the Irish wear a shamrock, the national emblem of Ireland. If you happen not to know, the English emblem is a red rose and the Scottish emblem is a wild plant, a thistle.)
    The influence of Saint David is still firmly felt all over Wales, but what sort of man was St David? Did he actually exist or was he only a legend? Was he even Welsh? Naked women tried to seduce him and some of his followers nearly poisoned him. He spent much of his time standing neck-deep in ice-cold water, and then refused to drink anything but water for the rest of his life. These are just a few stories that characterize him.
    Dewi Sant, as he is called in Welsh, is the country's patron saint. There are very few hard facts. Nearly every aspect of his life and works is disputed by historians. Some argue that, like King Arthur, he didn't exist. Some experts, however, insist that not only was there an Arthur, who was the king of the Welsh-speaking Britons, but that Dewi Sant was related to him. What is even worse, some others dare suggest that Dewi wasn't even Welsh. His latest biographer, Nona Rees, says: "He spoke Welsh and he definitely existed; he is an historical figure like Christ."
    Dewi was born - perhaps - in 520 AD of a noble Welsh-speaking family in the area where the small town of St David’s in Dyfed now stands. He studied the scriptures and the classics, travelled around much of South Wales and the West of England, and then established a strict monastic order in St David’s. That is the historical core of the legends which were later woven around him.
    What is known about St David for sure is that Dewi helped to establish St David’s as a centre for the spiritual renaissance throughout the Celtic territories of Ireland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. From here, in the 'Age of Saints', Welsh and Irish missionary monks' spread the Christian gospel, while much of the rest of Britain and the Continent were overwhelmed by pagan barbarians.
    Dewi probably chose the wild terrain of the St David‘s Peninsula because it complemented his own very simple rural existence. He seemed to associate city life with sin. He must have disapproved strongly of some church leaders of his day who aped the decadent style of the late Roman emperors. He did not like the elaborate robes and too decorative clothes. He wore skins and went barefoot and expected his followers to do the same. The monks owned nothing individually. It was a sin to say 'my' book. All Dewi carried was a simple staff as a sign of authority and the bell to ward off evil spirits. As for food Dewi and his followers consumed only bread, vegetables and water. He insisted on hard physical labour. Dewi himself, yoke on his shoulders, could pull a plough as well as any ox.
    He preached celibacy and told his men to ignore women. Some of his monks, however, did rebel against the strict rules and tried, unsuccessfully, to poison him on one occasion. But a visiting saint warned Dewi.
    Dewi is also said to have created the curative waters at Bath. And there are tales of his turning water into wine, healing sickness and raising the dead. Part of the legend is that he visited Rome. He already spoke Welsh, Irish and Latin, but on the way to Rome he was suddenly blessed with the ability to speak all the languages and dialects of the tribes he met on the long journey.
    The traditional view is that he became the only purely Welsh saint to be canonised by the Pope.
    Whatever the true facts of his life, he became a key religious symbol to the Welsh, both in their political and religious aspirations. In the 18th century, March 1 - the day he died - became a national festival, when all patriotic Welshmen celebrate their nationality by wearing a leek or a daffodil.
    Over 60 churches are dedicated to him. Throughout the Middle Ages, St David‘s was a place of pilgrimage. Two visits to St David‘s were considered equal to one pilgrimage to Rome.
    Visitors to modern St David‘s have a chance to appreciate the deep spirituality of the cathedral dedicated to the saint. Situated in the far south-west of Wales, tiny St David‘s is the smallest city in Britain. The city's crowning glory is the cathedral. Although it has been destroyed and then rebuilt many times, it is undoubtedly one of the finest Romanesque churches in Britain. St David‘s Peninsula is a place of wonderful natural beauties and it is great to take long walks and to breathe in the unique atmosphere of the saints, magicians, and Celtic chiefs.