Welsh Page

Croeso i Gymru!

"Croeso i Gymru" - Welsh for "Welcome to Wales"

Here you'll be able to enjoy a quick introduction to 'Wales - The Land Of Song'. Wales is one of the countries which makes up the Kingdom of Great Britain, along with Scotland, Northern Ireland and England.

I got this rather nice map from a web-site called Data-Wales. See my Welsh links below to visit this very interesting web site... I (Michael) come from Newport, an industrial town in the South of Wales in the county of Gwent.

Wales is a very beautiful country, from it's majestic mountains to it's old castles, packed with history and adventure. It's language, Welsh, is said to be the oldest in Europe, and is of Celtic origin. The British Isles were originally invaded by the Celtic peoples from central Europe, who later became to be known as 'Britons'. Later on when further peoples invaded Britain, starting with the Romans, the Celtic people moved west into Wales and Ireland, and north into Scotland.

You can see and hear the Welsh National Anthem here.

A great deal of Wales consists of rolling hills, giving way occasionally to rising peaks, sitting serenely in the clouds. The tallest mountain is Snowdon, which rises to 3,560 feet (1,085 metres) above sea level, and is the second highest peak in Great Britain.

One of the major mountain ranges is known as the Brecon Beacons. Here you can see the highest point, Pen y Fan, which is 2,907 feet (886 metres) high. The Brecon Beacons are situated in the Brecon Beacons National Park, which carefully protects it's beauty, wildlife and heritage. Millions of people come from all around the world to enjoy it's spectacular scenery and to experience a unique glimpse of Welsh life and culture.

It is a landscape which evolved over thousands of years - mountains and valleys carved by the ice age, ancient monuments left by our stone age ancestors, iron age hillforts, Roman roads, ancestral trading routes and ancient churches - all help to tell it's history.

Here is an example of the sort of beauty that you can expect to find in the Brecon Beacons National Park. It's a very wonderful experience to walk in this countryside, smelling the fresh smells, breathing the pure clean air. Mountain walking is a very relaxing and healthy hobby. I have walked the Brecon Beacons many times, on sunny days and rainy days - on the tops of the hills it is almost always a windy day!

Some of the towns which you could discover in this area are Abergavenny, Brecon, Builth Wells, Crickhowell, Hay-on-Wye, Llandovery and Ystradgynlais. Nice sounding names, and even more beautiful sights to enchant you when you explore their secrets...

To finish up on mountains, which are admittedly one of the major attractions of Wales, here is a view of Mount Snowdon taken from Llyn Padarn. Llyn is the Welsh word for Lake, by the way.

Another of the major attractions of Wales is her castles. The list is rather long, major ones including Caernarfon, shown here, Cardiff, Chepstow, Raglan, Caerphilly and Harlech, to name but a few. Castell is the Welsh word for castle - see, you're beginning to learn Welsh already!

Caernarfon Castle is where the Investiture of Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, took place in 1969. It is situated in the North of Wales, just over the sea from the Island of Anglesey.

Well, we hope you enjoyed your quick tour of Wales.
If you want to know more about Wales, her sights and people,
then we think you'll find the following links interesting...

Welsh Links

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