after an early breakfast (7:30) we are picked up by tony’s taxi at 8:40 and are taken back to haverfordwest station. rather unexpected but welcome nevertheless there’s a newspaper stand open just inside the station, so i take the opportunity and get today’s observer for the rather long trip to north wales: funnily enough, to go by train from south west wales to north west wales we have to go all the way back to crewe in england, change trains there again and go back into wales — a rather roundabout way of travelling but there are absolutely no buses from st david to aberystwyth where we might be able to take a train to porthmadog (if there were a through service to begin with). public transport in wales has a great future ahead of it: there’s lots and lots of potential for improvement…

the 9:40 train to crewe does arrive on time in haverfordwest — with us on the train is the group of germans (the fischköpfe) that we met earlier this week on the strumble shuttle, they apparently are going back via manchester airport.

all seems to be going rather well, when that great british weekend railway pastime strikes again: engineering works between hereford and crewe! bummer!

the conductor kindly tells us that we are going to be over an hour late into crewe (and thus into bangor), and he kindly recommends taking a different connection to save us the hassle of the bus transfer in between (but we’ll still be over an hour late). so, at llanelli, we disembark, figure out that we need to cross over to platform 1, listen to the travel guide of the fischköpfe group trying to explain via the info phone to some arriva train wales person¹ that he is in “laneli” and would like to know the platform for the train to crewe², consequently redirect the german fischköpfe who were on their way to fall off the platform end that there is a pedestrian bridge right at the station, and make our way to platform 1 ourselves and wait for 45min for the 11:29 train…

…which eventually arrives and causes a mild deja-moo: it’s that old 1980s british rail feeling again: same old train, same old seats, same old carpet³. we stow away our luggage and start our trip through wales towards crewe. the train is very, very thorough: whenever there is a possibility for a stop, it does stop! at llandrindod we even pause for about 40min — the train’s diesel powered engine running through all the time, diesel must still be very cheap for arriva trains wales.

after what feels like two days of travel on a 1980s british rail train (where is a tardis if you need it?) we do get to crewe. at upper crust it’s a sandwich and a large tea for both of us, then we trod to the 17:02 train to bangor — which turns out to be a nice modern one; welcome back to the 21st century

the train does leave on time, but after about 20min we stop at some forlorn station and don’t leave again for another 30min due to some “service failure ahead of us”. it’s about 19:10 when we finally do arrive in bangor — mind you, the scenery all along the north wales coast is absolutely fantastic: on one side the irish sea, on the other side the welsh mountains slowly rising higher and higher!

luckily for us our taxi (arranged by our very friendly b&b landlady carol torr) is still waiting at the station front and we are finally on our last leg of today’s journey. the ride from bangor is quite nice and takes us slowly into the mountains of snowdonia.

at about 19:40 we are in llanberis at our b&b, marteg b&b. carol torr, our b&b landlady, welcomes us and makes us feel right at home. our room is a very spacious double with a nice large bathroom — the bed room overlooking llanberis’s lake. nice! additional nice feature: proper duvet on the bed! no “DIY duvet kit!” as mrs d so aptly puts it again.

as it’s getting past 20:00 and british pubs outside cosmopolitan london⁴ have that annoying tendency of stopping serving food almost the moment they started doing so we start our quest for dinner…

…it quickly transpires that llanberis is not really a haven of culinary delights:

• right opposite the driveway to our b&b is a kebab, burger, pasta, pizza take-away (hmm, no),
• further north on llanberis high street we find a fish and chips shop (hmm, no),
• then there is a chinese take-away (no customers, looking a bit un-patronised, again, no),
• then pete’s bistro which seems to be out of service (those upside-down chairs on the tables are a bit of a give-away),
• diagonally across from that it’s pete’s eats (sic!) which seems to be the place where all the climbers refuel on carbohydrates and anything that supplies energy (interestingly enough they don’t have any pasta dishes on their menu, weird; also not very enticing, so no)
• then two doors further along is spices of llanberis an indian tandoori restaurant which does look quite nice inside, so keep that one on the stack
• south of our b&b is the heights hotel looking quite a bit dilapidated and not really hope-inspiring (so: no)
• then we have the peak restaurant which looks ok-ish and is even “open from 7pm”
• then the pardan hotel (closed, not really looking very inspiring), the gwynned hotel (clearly has seen better days and will never see us inside), and the self-serve outdoor seating area at the snowdon railway (closed, but does do burgers)

basically, that leaves us — as we are not keen on take-away (neither is our b&b landlady, understandably so) — with just two options: either the spices of llanberis or the peak restaurant. not feeling very spicy this evening we settle on the peak restaurant.

the menu of the peak does look quite interesting and we do get a table for two. two other couples (two american walkers and an elderly couple) and a group of three are our fellow restaurant patrons. the beer is by the bottle and the welsh one i take (ramnesia) is actually quite nice. mrs d’s wine seems to be ok (at least she is not complaining). starters are ok-ish, the main course is less so: mrs d’s salmon clearly is not fresh and a bit on the dry side; my steak is anything but well-seasoned, it really lacks salt — in fact, cook must have plain forgotten to salt it. when we get the bill we notice that while “VAT is included, service is not” — which i don’t really like as my intention when coming for a meal to a restaurant is to get a package of (hopefully) well-tasting food and a well-working service both of which i hope i’ll enjoy, i don’t really want to have to worry about how much to pay the waitress for serving us:

• is it by the amount of time she actually spent on us?
• is it by the amount of time we spent in the restaurant?
• should we pay her more if we had lots to eat and she had lots to carry?
• do we spend more on a waitress that is experienced and less on one that is just learning?
• does all this cover at least the minimum wage?

if i really wanted to worry about all this, i might as well run the restaurant myself.

all in all: a loooong train journey with arriva trains wales, a very nice and friendly b&b, a not so impressive restaurant.

tomorrow: snowdon!