Surroundings

There is a lot that I have to look forward to when returning to Chicago. Seeing my family, going on vacation, presenting at Comic-Con, seeing Erika and my other friends, and so on: these intangible things are certainly something to look forward to. I am also looking forward to the comforts of the familiar. Seeing the places that I have come to know as my own: eating Papa's Pizza, driving down Nassau Ave., walking around the streets of Chicago, looking out at Lake Michigan. These familiar places will bring a flood of happy memories, and it will feel, for a time, less alien than where I live know.

But one thing, for sure, I will miss is the natural surroundings. Northern Illinois, like most of Illinois, is not particularly hilly. There is a beauty to rolling fields of corn and soy, dotted by the occasional small town, with all of it's quaint small town feel, but the beauty is not as awe inspiring as the steep cut hills the run into the ocean surrounding Aberystwyth.

The sea-side village, like most sea-side villages in Western Wales, is build between the shoulders of two hills: Constitution Hill and Pen Dinas. The town then spreads up a third hill at the back end: Pen Glais. The campus is built near the top of Pen Glais, and the town is built at the foot of the hill. This, as my pictures on Facebook will attest to, provide me with a hell of a view. From my room, I can see the ocean spread out below me, and a good chunk of the Western parts of town, which turn to twinkling stars at night. Pen Dinas stands imposingly to the South, and Constitution Hill hides behind the forest that is visible to the North.

In town, there is not a lot of greenery, as the town was built before cars were really popular, and a lot of the streets reflect that. British housing does not place a premium on a front yard, so must of the houses' front doors empty onto the sidewalk, which tends to be a paved area that stretches the short distance between the house and the street. Most of the natural life can only be found in the back gardens of people's houses. Because some of these houses are terraced, and built into the side of a hill, this provides from some really interesting, multilayered gardens, with stairs and cut terraces. When I can see into the back yards of people's houses, I am always amazed at the ingenuity and beauty of these small urban gardens.

Though the town proper lacks greenery, the surrounding landscape is nothing but. Unlike the manicured naturescapes of the city (see Grant Park or Central Park), the wilderness around Aberystwyth is just that: wilderness. The county seems to have taken an effort to ensure that there is natural beauty available to the towns people, provided by way of the Penglais Nature Park, Constitution Hill and the Coastal Path.

I can cut through the Penglais Nature Park to get into town, and if it hasn't rained, I often do. When I got here in the winter, it was a quiet place, with low dense shrubs and tall barren trees. The trees here look old, gnarled and twisted towards the sun with few low branches. Since the spring has come, I was surprised to see how many of these trees flowered. Many of the smaller trees grew enormous pink flowers that stayed on the trees for a solid month. These bloomed in late February, well before the trees started to bud, heralding the coming of Spring. Then, once the trees had sprouted leaves, and the flowering trees presented their flowers, the floor of the forest was covered in bluebells. This was not something I had ever seen before: acres of blue bells carpeting the ground between the trees, providing a lovely fragrance to the forest. According to Wikipedia (the world's knowledge), a dense covering of bluebells is an indication of an ancient forest, and that 70% of the common bluebells are found here in England. This makes my experience particularly unique. If anyone happens to be coming over to Wales for any reason, I would suggest doing so in May, as the bluebells of Penglais Nature Park are really something to see.

Constitution Hill, which can be accessed through footpaths from Penglais Nature Park, is probably the most popular natural attraction in Aberystwyth, and for good reason. Sitting at the North end of town, the hill is tall, but not overly imposing (though, if you read my early blog posts, it was quite imposing for a plainsmen like myself when I first arrived). There are two ways up: taking the footpath that zig-zags up the mountain, keeping to a moderately easy incline, or the ancient train car that is dragged up the hill via an enormous engine mounted at the top. The views from the top are unrivaled by any in Aberystwyth, including Pen Dinas. The entire city is laid out before you. There is a nice little restaurant at the top from which you can sit and look out onto the town below. The hill itself offers every type of terrain Aberystwyth has to offer, with a slate cliff face to the west, and rolling grassy fields to the North and East. The South end of the hill is covered by the thorny shrubs common to the rocky hills; these shrubs grow to about six feet tall and border the footpath down, giving it a bit of a claustrophobic feel. If one were wanted to experience the natural beauty of Western Wales, one could do worse than Constitution Hill.

The Coastal Path is just that: a path that stretches along the coast of the Cardigan Bay, or at least the part of Cardigan Bay within Ceredigion County (pronounced: care-a-DIG-ee-on). The Northernmost town is Ynyslas (pronounced, I believe: in-IS-las), and the Southernmost is Cardigan. Some sections are closed due to legal proceedings, but essentially, but essentially there is 62.1 mile path that walks along the water. This is no easy path, like the zig-zaggy path up Constitution Hill. At the beginning of the Southern arm from Aberystwyth, the path shoots straight up the side of a hill. The path is dented with footprints that double as stairs for the climbers making their way to the top.

This path, though, if the walker is up to it, will offer some of the most incredible views available. The path is dotted by hills that run straight into the ocean. This hills usually have sheer, or near-sheer slate cliff faces. On the inland side of the path, the walker is shown the rolling hills of Wales, dotted and pockmarked by farms and sheep. The fields have been divided by privet hedges, turning the hills into a green mosiac that stretches off as far as the eye can see. There are streams and rivers that run through the hills, and a few waterfalls (though, none that are really super impressive on the scale of, say, Niagara). I've taken the path North as far as Clarach Bay Holiday Village, and as far South as the Holiday Village to the South parallel to Conrah. I hope, in the next few days, to take it as far as the sandy beaches of Borth, but that's a five mile walk, and requires more planning and time than I have had.

The path is, for the most part, clearly marked. It does cut through several fields owned by local farmers. Because of this, the path is broken up by staggered benches built into a fence that allow the walker to scale the fence safely. Often times, then, these fields will be in use. On my walk South, I was surrounded by sheep and cows, literally. At one point, a small herd of cows followed me sniffing out food until I had to scale a fence to continue on my way. Because the land ownership rules in Wales are much different than in the States, this was an unusual experience, and sort of thrilling. At one point, as I was cutting through a sheep field (sheep, by the way, are far to skittish to come around intruders; cows, though, are far more curious, and will pack up around you), I spotted a farmer on an ATV in an adjacent field. Nevermore was I aware of being surrounded by someone's property than right then. He spotted me, too, but just kept to his business, used to seeing people use his Western fields for conveyance.

All in all, one thing I was not expecting when I journeyed here was the proximity to breathtaking natural beauty. I knew about the forest and Constitution Hill from the brochure, but the rest of this has been, simply, amazing.