Roman Ruins tour

Just off on the Roman Ruins tour

 The first stop is Caerleon which is north of Cardiff. It was a Roman Garrison from about 43AD and the Roman Amphitheatre that was build there is now a tourist attraction.I took this panorama from the centre of the amphitheatre.

It is very interesting that archaeologists are still uncovering new sites. Next to the Amphitheatre is what was a port which is now just a field.

The next stop was the Roman Baths in the same town. It is a very different exhibit than the one at Bath but very well presented. They have constructed a walkway above the Roman baths so you see then clearly.

The baths don;t contain water but there solution is very high tech. They have white sand in the original baths and two video projectors having above projecting the image of water and people swimming onto the sand. It is a very effective presentation.

They have a good collection of artifacts that people can actually pick up and examine including a gladiators helmet which is about 2kg in weight.

The next stop is Tintern Abbey. This was build in 1131 by the Cistercian  Monks until it 's dissolution in  1536.

We moved on down the road (1 minutes drive) to the Abbey Mill which was part of the abbey and produced goods for the abbey and for sale. It is now a nice tourist sight and we stopped for lunch.

The speciality of the house is Dragon Pie (Beef with very hot chili). I wasn't that hungry as the tour guide provided welsh cakes during the trip to stave off people hunger.

I had some very nice Salmon and Prawn Cakes with salad.

There is a water wheel (It is a later addition) which uses water from the river that flows down from the hills. After leaving the Mill we drove up into the hills and saw some of the dams that were created to store water but now mostly fishing for Trout.

A bridge crosses the river here and it is a nice walk across it to see the swans in the river.

Now on to Raglan castle. This is ruin mostly destroyed during the English Civil War.

We were lucky as today the local medieval society was putting on a show.

 The view from the remaining tower that can be climbed.

That was the last stop of the tour at 5:00pm and we left for Cardiff. These tours run by SeeWales Tours and are very well organised.

You don't spend all day on the bus travelling long distances. They have selected sites that are both interesting and reasonably close to each other.

The tour guide and driver Paul was excellent. He was both knowledgable and entertaining.He tried to teach some welsh to us.