Beaumaris is my favorite castle.* It's a sweet little castle (by castle standards) on the isle of Anglesey in Wales.
Getting there can be a bit tricky, as you may recall from my story of the Worst Airplane Trip Ever, but believe me, it's worth the effort.
Not too big, not too small, I imagine that it could be a lovely place to live, if you had about eleventy-bajillion dollars to restore it. As you can see, it could use a few windows, maybe some floors, and a roof.
And can you imagine waking up to this view of the Welsh mountains every day?
Beaumaris is also one of the most perfect examples of the concentric castle. (For anyone out there who's not a castle aficionado, that means there's one ringed wall inside of another one.)
Originally, the sea came right up to the castle, creating a water barrier around the entire outer ring. Here's a picture of the gatehouse, or portcullis gate... the portcullis is also known as the little grate thingy that comes down to keep the bad guys out.
My friend Julie Bero is also a fan of Beaumaris and created this sketch of the offset interior doors. Beaumaris was designed so that if invaders penetrated the gate house, they wouldn't have a straight shot at the next entryway. The sketch hangs on my living room wall to remind me of this lovely place.
But although I have fantasies of living in a castle and Beaumaris in particular, what I really want is to be Castle. If you haven't yet seen it, Castle is a new television show featuring a mystery writer who gets to hang out with police in New York to do research for his books. (It stars Nathan Fillion as Rick Castle.) He even gets a bullet proof vest with WRITER on it in lieu of POLICE. And Castle is uber rich, so he gets to do whatever the hell he wants. No money worries for Castle. I want to be the blogger version of Castle. I'd have nothing to do all day long, but go around checking things out to see if I'd like to write about them. And I want me some BLOGGER body armor... now that would be the epitome of cool!
*Giving credit where credit is due... since all of my photos of Beaumaris are in slide format up in the scary attic, I took the liberty of sharing these beauties with you from Jeffry L. Thomas. (They're surprisingly very similar to the photos I took.) All the Beaumaris photos are copyright 2009 by Jeffrey L Thomas.
To learn more about Welsh castles and see more of Thomas's photos, you can go to http://www.castlewales.com
