Wales: Tintern Abbey

 We wanted to do a lot of touristy things for Tim since this was his first time to Wales and England (but it won't be the last because we LOVED IT!)

One of the first touristy things that we did was to go to Tintern Abbey.  It was beautiful and very reverent being there.  My dad mentioned how walking through and around the grounds of Tintern Abbey was kind of like Temple Square in that the world could be blustery/have tons of noises outside but yet is serenely quiet inside.  It was pretty neat. 


These first couple of pictures were just the view from our motel window.  Um...can you believe that beautiful green country side?!

Here is the little tea shop and guest shop for Tintern Abbey.

And now for an overload of Tintern Abbey pictures.  

These are some of the ruins from what used to be the second picture below this-they called it like a curtain or something-we bought a book about Tintern Abbey...so I'll have to update on what these really were :-)

Straight from Wikipedia: "Tintern Abbey (Welsh: Abaty Tyndyrn) was founded by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow, on 9 May 1131. It is situated in the village of Tintern, on the Welsh bank of the River Wye in Monmouthshire, which forms the border between Monmouthshire in Wales and Gloucestershire in England."

My dad at the bottom of some stairs.

Us at the top of the stairs.  Yeah...Tintern has such a special quality about it that some of its steps were built sideways for light-hearted souls to walk on (...I hate that you can't rotate pictures in blogger-if you know how to do that, please help me!)

We thought the ravens were very Edgar Allen Poe.

Sorry for the huge picture overload-I have no eye for pictures so I just include almost everything I take pictures of.  Even though I didn't capture the greatness of Tintern Abbey it was an awesome experience to go their and we loved it.