May 16th -Official Post

   Hi to all of our followers out there! Today we visited 3 historical sites. We had a private coach pick us up at our wonderful home the Southcliff Hotel. (It is by far my favorite accommodation this entire trip. I would say we are very spoiled in getting to stay here.) We traveled to the beautiful city of Pembrokeshire, which is the smallest city in Great Britain and checked out St. Davids Bishop's Palace and St. Davids Cathedral which Jenny gave us a tour of.
   I'll start with the Bishop's Palace. It was built in about 20 years by Bishop Henry de Gower. The palace was carved with very intricate designs of both faces and creatures. There were over 200 sculptures that once decorated the palace.You can tell that one of the main purposes of this building was to impress its visitors. The great hall porch has two statues at its entrance one of King Edward III and one of Queen Philippa. Along one wall there are big beautiful arches that line the top, these arches were called arcaded parapets. On one end of the great hall there is a big round window, that was carved from sandstone that came from Bath. Under the building lies the under crofts where the servants would have worked. The building is beautiful and there were several staircase that we climbed which gave us a great view of the entire place. (Sorry I haven't had much luck loading pictures onto the blog the computers are a bit temperamental.)
   Next we headed back up the way to St. Davids Cathedral, where Jenny gave us a presentation. The cathedral was very unique its floor slops from one end to the other with a 13 foot difference. The walls also bow out and the roof has been replaced with a wooden roof to prevent the entire building from collapsing on itself. There have been many added memorials over the years and several restorations. The building has been a place of worship for over a thousand years, so you can imagine all of the wear and tear on it. The two things that I liked the best about this cathedral were the round stained glass window on in the side isle of the nave that had been moved up when the walls were made taller, and the six bays that were all carved differently in the nave. They were beautiful!
   Lastly we returned to Tenby and visited the Tudor Merchant's House. The house has been restored to look like a middle class house that a successful Tudor merchant would have lived in with his family. The family would have lived on the first and second floor. On the first floor the merchant would have sold his goods from the from the side of the house that was closest to the street or market. The back and second floor would have been the kitchen, garden, dinning room, and bedroom chamber.
   The rest of the night we had to ourselves and we all split up for dinner and hung out at the pubs and at the beach, which I might say was absolutely beautiful. See you all soon!