Trip to Wales, U.K. (July 2016)

Wales is located in southwest Great Britain and one of four states that form the U.K. I have posted a blog on the U.K and please click here to learn more about the U.K. Wales is known for its rugged coastlines, mountainous national parks. It has a close tie to England.

It has a population of 3.1 million living on a small land of 20,761 sq. km, smaller than Rwanda, Africa. Prince Charles is the ruling Prince of Wales.

The red dragon in the flag of Wales dates back to the Roman times. The Welsh has since been continuously using it as a symbol for any war. This red dragon is now the alter ego of Wales.

99% of Wales population speak English, but only 19% speak their own language of Welsh. The English that the Welsh speaks is somewhat different from English English due to the mix with Welsh and Celtic influence. I could not find any similarity between English and Welsh as shown in the poster below..

Caerphilly Castle (Gastell Caerffili), Wales - We visited the largest castle in Wales and the second largest castle in Great Britain, only after the Windsor Castle. This castle is a medieval fortification in Caerphilly in South Wales. It was built in the 13th century and is known to be "the most elaborate water defences in all Britain" according to a historian Allen Brown. It occupies aaround 30 acres. It is famous for having introduced concentric castle defenses to Britain and became a model for all future British castles.

Cardiff, Wales - Cardiff is the capital city of Wales with a population of 350 thousand people. But its metropolitan area has a population of 1.1 million, accounting for more than one third of the state's population. Cardiff is the tenth largest city in the U.K. Cardiff is not only the commercial cneeter of Wales but also the cultural and sports center, thus attracting almost 20 million tourists a year.

Too bad that we arrived a bit too late in Cardiff to explore the city. Here are a couple of photos from Google. - Jeffrey