Yesterday we drove to Conwy, in Northern Wales.It is a fishing village on the side of a river that feeds into Liverpool Bay, where King Edward I built a grand castle (1283-1287) during his conquest of Wales. It is a grand structure, built on solid rock so enemies could not undermine it, and heavily fortified against foes from both land and water.

The great stone walls surrounded the entire city outside of the castle, and they are intact today.

Before exploring the castle, we ate at the Bank of Conwy, now a pub, where we had to sample the Wrexham lager, in honor of the oldest soccer team in Wales.

After the castle we took the self-guided walking tour, recommended by Rick Steves.

And we ran into a sign that seemed particularly apropos to us!

And finally, on our way home two very drunk young men wanted us to take their picture, and we found out what happens when you take a photo and your phone is on “pano” mode!