Druids to Saints - Wales & its Gods

We start our journey in the beautiful medieval town of Chester, sited on the banks of the River Dee (Celtic for ‘goddess’) and under the gaze of the nearby Welsh hills. The Roman plan, amphitheatre, walls are all very visible and visitable. Two stunning museums (Grosvenor and Dewa) will provide us with the background to the rest of our trip. Here are impressive carved Roman tombstones, testimony to Roman gods and other religions, like Mithraism, practiced by the Romans. Christianity arrived in Britain in the minds and mouths of Romans. We will explore some wonderful churches ranging from the early Romanesque St. Johns to the grand cathedral of Chester. There is also the site of the Battle of Chester (c.616) where the pagan Northumbrian king Æthelfrith slaughtered the monks of Bangor-is-coed. We will pass by the well-preserved ruins of the amphitheatre and along some part of the ancient Roman town walls. These visits will be followed by free time to wander one of the most beautiful of British towns.

Hotel: Chester

We will leave Chester early and enter the Welsh hills passing by St. Winifried’s well in Holywell – a beautifully preserved Gothic shrine, healing well and place of pilgrimage. Our visit will proceed to the medieval cathedral of St Asaph, once the seat of the inventive writer and absent bishop Geoffrey of Monmouth. It is Geoffrey who fabricated and popularised King Arthur outside Wales. Another bishop, William Morgan was responsible for translating the Bible into Welsh in 1588, a work of momentous significance to Wales. There will be opportunities here to discuss medieval Saints’ lives, Arthurian literature and its growth, medieval pilgrimage, and shrines as we will be following the pilgrims’ route to Enlli (Bardsey). From here we proceed inland to visit the beautiful and secluded Cistercian abbey of Glyn-y-Groes (Valle Crucis), and explore the Christianity of the independent Welsh princes. Such Cistercian monasteries were great patrons of native Welsh culture, the professional bards in particular. There is also here the Cross of Eliseg, a Christian king of Powys, with the longest Latin inscription in Early Medieval Britain. We then proceed thorough the rugged mountains of Snowdonia visiting the Y Rug chapel and its impressive tombs and wall-paintings. Our days ends travelling through the mountains to the exotic Italianate village of Portmeirion (where The Prisoner was filmed in the 60s).

Hotel: Portmeirion

An early start today as we head for Môn (Anglesey) once famous as a centre of druidic learning. We can imagine the scenes he so vividly describes, with wild women brandishing flaming torches running in and out of the Celtic warriors defending the isle, while druids hold their hands up beseeching their gods. On Anglesey we visit the picturesque Neolithic sites of Bryn Celli Ddu and Barclodiad y Gawres and the nearby church of Llangadwaladr with its impressive 7^th century inscribed stone – testimony to the powerful Brythonic Christianity fostered among the Britons. From here we will visit the museum in Llangefni which houses some of the artefacts discovered having been deposited in the lake of Llyn Cerrig Bach in the first century CE. Such votive offerings are well known in Celtic religious practice. Afterwards we visit Din Lligwy, a unique early medieval stone settlement.

Hotel: Portmeirion

Our first visit will be to the Druid stone circle in Porthmadog, one of a great many erected during the past two centuries to accommodate the ceremonies of the Gorsedd y Beirdd, initially an institution created by the great forger Iolo Morganwg, but now a respected organisation promoting the Welsh language and culture. We progress on to the beautiful Llŷn peninsula, its stunning churches in Aberdaron and Llangwnnadl. Weather permitting, we can visit the Roman fortress of Segontium and its museum. The afternoon will be spent in visiting the imposing castle of Caernarfon, with time to later wander this Welshest of Norman towns.

Hotel: Portmeirion

We leave Portmeirion and head southwards visiting a scenic 13^th century native Welsh castle (Castell y Bere) journeying along the coast via the stunning Llangelynnin church. On the way to Cardigan, we will visit Nanhyfer Church and it’s bilingual Irish (ogham) and Latin inscription and its ‘Celtic’ cross. Also, Nanhyfer (Nevern) and its early Christian cross, and ogham inscription, testimony to the Irish presence in Wales. This will give us an opportunity to explore the Brythonic Christianisation of the Irish in the fifth-century, by saints such as Patrick.

Hotel: Cardigan

We will explore one of the jewels of Welsh architecture with its stunning screen – the medieval Cathedral of St. Davids. Having spent the morning here we will progress towards our final destination to visit the important church sites of Margam and Llanilltud Fawr (Llantwit Major), centres of great Early Medieval learning which nurtured missionaries which took ‘Celtic’ Christianity to Ireland and to Brittany.

Hotel: Cardiff

We will end our tour in the Welsh Folk Museum of St. Fagans where we have the opportunity to stroll around one of the most impressive and largest open-air folk museums in the world. There is a medieval church, moved stone-by-stone, from its original location. This has wall-paintings and a beautifully coloured screen taking us back to how many Welsh churches would have looked in the 13^th century. The morning will be a tour of a few selected buildings before we return to Cardiff to make our independent onward journeys home.