Back from vacation.
You probably noticed I am back. No more England nor Wales, no more driving on the left side which is the right side there (will this joke ever get old? Not with me!). And no more ancient castles.
Ancient castles.
Say what you want but ancient castles are special. Huge blocks of stone, hundreds of years old, built with primitive means and still standing. (More or less in many cases, due to neglect.)
How long would the average modern house stay upright?
The castle here is called Dolwyddelan. It’s located in Wales and I can only guess how one properly pronounces it since Welsh is a language that consists mainly of consonants. Any vowel found there is usually a mistake. The door at the top of the stairs had a lock on it but the lock didn’t keep the door locked. For me of course the best reason to go inside and have a look!
Llewellyn I.
This castle was built by order of prince Llewellyn I. When it was a home to people it looked a lot better than it does now, and bigger too. Still I wouldn’t want to live in their circumstances. Hygiene, cold, smells, to name a few things that weren’t too big a deal back then.
And since I was the only there at that time (a few people I met in the parking lot told me they had seen a lock and decided the door was locked) I took the liberty of roaming the inside of the castle in the nude. If you have the opportunity you should grab it. How many people can say they wandered around an ancient castle in the buff? I can.
How interesting
you had a very unique experience : ) and i would guess, a rare experience (outside of medieval themed tv shows lol)
As for the pronunciation…. : )
Cymru is difficult even for those of us who live or are from a wee bit west acrost the sea but this is one of the easier places to pronounce : ) the “Dol” in Dolwyddelan is said relatively quickly, like say you wanted to say “The Cat” you wouldn’t say “Theeeee Cat” it would be “The”, in sort of the same tempo you’d say “Th” (short syllable) the E is sort of an afterthought between Wydd and Lan (almost like Lun, but definiately not like Lün).
Lots of Cymru is opposite to other languages like say icelandic, for lets say the famous volcano of Eyjafjallajökull, where except for the Ey (aye) everything else is phonetically-even, (yaff, yalla, yorh, klut)
The next part, the “wyddelan” there is a slight roll at the end almost indicative of saying “land” instead of “Lan” and the first letter D is slightly harder than the second D which breaks up the syllable “Wydd- derlan”
just doing a sort of tempo-based enunciation, it would be like: Der, DeeDohdoo, or think perhaps a quaver with a triplet after it if musical notation is your thingy 😀
It was a fantastic moment there, indeed. I spent about half an hour there, if not more, and no one showed up. Now, the castle is quite a climb to get to, but it was so worth it. I even went up as far as I could and wandered around there for a bit.
The Welsh language is amazing. I’ve been to Betws-y-coed, which is pronounced betsy-coid. I love hearing the language, although I don’t understand three words of it.
All I know is Cyrmu am byth. Wales forever . 🙂
> All I know is Cyrmu am byth. Wales forever .
add this to your lexicon: Éirinn go Brách : )
Of course I had to look this up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ncmuhNEUxg
Duly noted. 🙂