I took mental snapshots of the tall, shoulder-to-shoulder dwellings, the River Cherwell (for this last, heavy-laden trip I opted for a shorter route through town and not my earlier circuit along the Thames, hence I crossed the Cherwell, which branches northwest out of the Thames and through “downtown” Oxford), boats and bridges. As I crossed into the University area, I swam through an already bubbling sea of perambulators and sightseers, and committed this to memory as well, along with the many colleges’ stately towers and facades.
From the station I took a short bus ride to Didcot. My seatmate was a pleasant, middle-aged woman who indulged my travel-animated tongue, listening and asking about my trip. I can’t recall a bit of this conversation, only that we both seemed to enjoy ourselves.
Arriving in Didcot Parkway, I had a short layover in its small terminal. I took in the chummy, relaxed feel of the place as I sat on a small bench between a glassed-in ticket booth and the turnstiles to the platform. Opposite me, a jovial ticket agent sat at a folding table, smiling at arriving and departing travelers and answering questions.
When it was time for me to get back underway I boarded my train and met my latest seatmate. This young, bearded Englishman left a more detailed picture in my memory than I have of my earlier bus ride. He was quite well-traveled, having lived in or visited numerous countries, including India, Canada, New Zealand, and Singapore. His girlfriend was from Spain - another place he had lived. Singapore in particular impressed him, as he found it more open and accepting, more diverse, than most other places he had been. On one road, for instance, he remembered seeing churches, mosques, synagogues, and other religious buildings all side-by-side.
We chatted about Brexit as well, a move with which he disagrees, which he nevertheless feels must be honored since it was a democratic decision, and the progress of which he will watch with interest. Shortly before he got off of the train we talked about life and work. His story is personal and yet familiar to me: his first love is teaching, but economic pressure has steered him into a high-earning corporate data job. I wished him well as he left and I rode on toward Wales, and now as I remember and write I wish him well again. I wish us all well in seeking a wholesome balance between accepting the reality we inherit and creating the reality we hope to inhabit.
A very warm afternoon greeted me at Cardiff Central Station. I found this to be a modestly bustling city - well-suited to my mood. My hosts lived near Cardiff Bay so once again (to my delight) I was in store for a long, hot walk.
My path took me down a long, quiet side street, then into a narrow park space that curved and stretched like a melting comma. I emerged back onto relatively busy streets and navigated a couple of complicated, yet very pedestrian-friendly crosswalks. It thrilled me to find that Cardiff is another city that esteems foot traffic.
My hostess was at work when I arrived but we’d made arrangements so that I could gain entry. As I made myself comfortable I marveled for the hundredth time at the hospitality and trust extended by strangers. When she arrived home, and later her husband, they both proved to be exceedingly kind and warm, offering conversation on both deep and silly topics, food from their cupboards, and even help finding a job if I ever chose to move there! My fellow travelers - this was one of the occasions when several others were passing through as well - offered equally enjoyable company at mealtimes. Once more, the kindness I encountered melted my normally stand-offish, American heart. In a small way, I tried to pay it forward - using gluten-free pancake batter provided by my hosts, I cooked up a generous, golden stack and split them with a pair of French sisters who were also visiting.
As with many cities I visited, I regret not giving myself more time to explore. Cardiff was temperate, peaceful yet lively in a subdued way (at least in the places I wandered for the two days I was there), and beautiful. I spent some time gazing southward across beautiful Cardiff Bay, toward the International Sports Village on the west and the Port of Cardiff on the east. I stumbled onto Roald Dahl Plass (whose books had delighted and disturbed me as a child), appreciated the bright and regal Pierhead building, wandered under the soaring, organic eaves of Y Senedd, the National Assembly building, and at one point soaked up a bit of bayside nightlife atmosphere in a multi-level riverwalk area. At another point, while I explored near the heart of town, I even visited the central library.
One zone of particular visual delight to me was The Hayes - this is a broad, open pedestrian way lined with shopping and dining opportunities, found north and east of Central Station. There is much variety and color to be found in the buildings on both sides, and along the way I observed several tree-shaped sculptures cascading with potted, rainbow flowers.
The Hayes, Cardiff
“Wait,” you may say, “you didn’t visit Cardiff Castle? Bute Park? The Doctor Who Experience?” Well, no...as I had already learned, one trade-off in my seat-of-the-pants itinerary was that I occasionally dipped into my pockets of time and discovered I only had spare change - a few hours, a day - but on the bright side, I know have plenty of IOUs in those pockets that I hope to use on future trips.
The centerpiece of my time in Cardiff was, ironically, time outside of Cardiff. I hopped a train to nearby Chepstow and spent an entire morning hiking the Wye Valley Walk up to Tintern Abbey. This miniature pilgrimage fulfilled another long-standing dream - to see one of the many landmarks named by one of the many writers I admired, in this case, William Wordsworth. In retrospect, it was a very fortunate irony that I decided to hike the trail in order to reach the Abbey: although Wordsworth’s poem mentions Tintern in the title, it is actually all about the Wye River and Valley! Therefore, without even realizing it, I spent most of my time immersed in the landscape that inspired him, and which has now inspired me.
Before getting onto the trail, the small portion of Chepstow which I witnessed was itself lovely. After I walked past a large grocery and over a highway I discovered some close streets with many small shops. Most of the streets were paved but there were cobblestones in the main shopping zone. Past these, I took a right turn down one-lane Bridge Street and was treated to a storm of color. On the left-hand side, a pastel rainbow of tall homes. On my right rich, dark brick homes peeking out through white, arched windows. High above, zig-zagging across the street from third-story eaves, a festive garland from which dangled a multitude of colorful, festive cut-outs: leaves (or flames?), hearts, boats, frogs, and all sorts of other shapes whose meaning I did not know.
Chepstow, Bridge Street
Partway down Bridge one may turn north toward the River (and the Tourist Information Center), and is thus rewarded by the magnificent sight of Chepstow Castle. It is a relic of Middle Ages aristocracy, having been built between the 11th and 14th century, standing today as a reminder of both grandeur and its fading.
Chepstow Castle, Chepstow
Alas, the time in my pocket would not afford me the chance to explore this fine Castle - yet another IOU. In the tourist center, a fellow whose friendliness was equal to the energy of his bright, red hair explained to me where I could find the trailhead. Then, before I could leave, in a gesture for which I am still grateful, he gently recommend that I might enjoy having a map of the trail (despite my surely fine hiking and path-finding skills). “Even the best of us can get turned around in the woods,” he suggested.
Well, he was right, for despite my self-confidence I managed to get turned around twice almost as soon as I said goodbye - and as yet I was just climbing a hill along paved city streets! I had to rely on a stranger one more time before my congress with nature could begin: the trailhead lies behind a primary school, on the grounds of which are posted very emphatic, “no unauthorized visitors,” signs. I wandered for about fifteen minutes before surrendering and approaching a man who looked to be a teacher. All I had to say was, “excuse me,” and he responded, “you’re looking for the trail, aren’t you? Are you going to Tintern?” Yes, and yes, and he quickly sorted me out. Okay, now I was really underway and the map would quickly prove to be of value as the trail was pretty rough and, in some parts, clearly not frequently-traveled.
In all honesty, I must say that the map did and did not help. It was difficult to assess the scale, for one thing. The map folded open to provide a lot of orientative narration, and while this was very interesting it did not provide a good sense of the time or distance between various landmarks. I often wondered if I had missed a turn, or gone too far. However, this spoiled my mood only one time (a twenty-minute detour onto another trail through aggressive overgrowth). By and large, the hike was exactly what I needed: quiet, contemplation, time to converse with nature and myself.
Most of the time I moved through the forest’s embrace, high above the river. At rare and powerful moments the trees opened their arms and I enjoyed views that wiped my mind clean of thoughts and painted my consciousness over with wordess beauty: once, a panorama of patchwork farmland, the plots as small to my eyes as sheets of colored paper, rimmed by slow, muddy waters, accented by the bleating of invisible sheep, sounding as clear as if they were hiding behind the tree beside me and not across this yawning vista. Another time, I hiked behind a wire fence along pasture that seemed to stretch into golden eternity.
Wye River, seen from Wye Valley Walk
As noon approached, I emerged from the woods for a while and plodded under the open sky. At this point I was about at the peak of my hike and must now come back down to where I would eventually meet Tintern Abbey. Thus I descended across a series of arching fields, giving a wide berth to a cluster of cows, passing through tight, wooden gates before finally reentering the shade. During this stretch I felt a strong sense that I was moving through Middle Earth or some other fantasy landscape.
At last I emerged in Tintern, in an appropriate state of peace and contemplation (I had met only three people in the whole walk, for which I was grateful - I apparently still had some mental and emotional recharging to do, even after my relaxing time in Crete). The road into town was barely wide enough for two man to stand side-by-side. A rumpled, green hill rose on my left, a fieldstone wall almost as tall as me curved away on my right. A stone house with two chimneys blended flush with that wall about twenty yards ahead of me. I strode down - as the wall grew shorter a parallel, snaggle-toothed wall rose on my left and the road began to curve in this direction instead. Perhaps a hundred yards on and a sharp left turn brought me into full view of my final destination: Tintern Abbey.
Coming off of the Wye Valley Walk in Tintern
First view of Tintern Abbey
Grand and gray, somehow modest in its greatness. Emerald hills heaped around it, beyond it, across the unseen Wye River, the trees brilliant in contrast to the dark stone. Long after its original inhabitants died or departed, the stones (and their caretakers) will to remain and consort with the living earth around them.
What must life have been like for the men who lived here, austere, disciplined? Did the peace and beauty of the world around them inhabit them, or by inhabiting it with their rituals and compulsions - just as we, today, each have our rituals and compulsions, albeit with varying levels of commonness or grandness - did those men slowly become blind to their surroundings? Alternately, did their practices hone their senses and deepen their love and appreciation for life? I am torn by the ambiguity in my own life and those I observe - the promises and demands of any human system (religious or secular). I wonder when our tools and ceremonies bring us into closer harmony with the world and ourselves and when they build tall, deafening walls between us, within us.
I wandered for an hour among these remarkable, well-preserved ruins, trying to reach out from within myself to touch the experience and the meaning therein. Ironically, I myself became a bit blind and distracted to the moment. A large group of schoolchildren was also in attendance for some sort of field trip or assignment. They were, well, children - noisy, laughing, gossiping, looking at phones. At the time I interpreted this as interference but looking back, I perceive that their presence was part of the experience. I chose to exercise my habitual discomfort with sharing space, my anxiety in the face of unexpected variables, to build a sort of fort of frustration around myself. This did not ruin the experience, but it did not help it. I did not embrace my presence there as fully as I could have.
Can any of us be sure that we encounter what is “really” before us or do we all, always, react to whatever is before us to shape an impression of what we wish was there, what we believe or want to believe is there?
The questions were probably there then, whether or not I was consciously thinking them. They will still be there tonight when I go to sleep, next year, wherever I happen to be. What matters right now is that Cardiff was wonderful. The Wye River Valley was beautiful. Tintern Abbey was glorious. All of the people and animals and things and experiences pulse, warm and alive, in my heart. Perhaps I will be able to visit them again someday.
Tintern Abbey
Tintern Abbey
Tintern Abbey
Tintern Abbey
Tintern Abbey
Tintern Abbey
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