Caernarfon, Take Two

It was time to bid farewell to our lovely country house (and Buster) on this, the last day of our tour.

Our guide assured us that today's waterfront stroll and visit to the fortress at Caernarfon was superior to the wildflowers and butterflies that were featured in our itinerary.

I'd seen the outside of the castle when I'd visited in 2017, never imagining that I'd return one day to explore within its walls.

In addition to wandering through the historical displays, of course I needed to climb to the top of the tallest turret, in the Eagle Tower.

The spiraling stairs were a squeeze when you'd inevitably cross paths with someone heading in the opposite direction.

The top afforded an eagle's-eye view of the environs in all directions—

—the town bordered, in part, by centuries-old walls and the adjacent waterway.

We enjoyed one more lunch together before leaving Wales, ending our adventure at the train station in Chester where we had begun.

Postscript: As we wrapped up our trip, I developed a sore throat that turned out to be my first experience with Covid. Isolated at home, I focused on learning more about IT bands. With low expectations, I worked through the steps in one particular video from Tone and Tighten. “You might find a spot,” he said, “where it's particularly painful, like there might be a little bit more of a knot in there. What I want you to do is spend some time on that ... until it kind of releases.”

Step three, foam rolling my quad ... Ow! Ow! A knot? It felt more like rolling off the edge of a cliff. Twenty seconds? Thirty? I visualized my IT band having been ”stuck“ on the far side of that knot, until I flattened it.

That's all it took to eliminate the knee pain that had plagued me relentlessly for a week.