Wales (Merlin's Castell Dinas Bran)
 

If you take the A5 from Shrewsbury to Betws-y-coed, you head for a town called Llingollen. I would say it's about 10 kms on the outskirts of the town that you will start to see glimpses to the right of a set of ruins on top of a hill. (see picture on right)
I have deliberately kept the photo small to give you the impression, now what's that, and they were my exact words at the time, and it definitely had the  must look attitude, stamped all over it.

It may not look much after all these years but these ruins have much to offer a spiritual seeker.

So just to wet your appetite I give you this photo so that you will continue reading the story but more importantly make the journey your self to access these ruins. This is just one of many views that you will get to see from this remarkable  site. A site that gives you 360 degrees panoramic views (photo above looks east towards England)

I will assume that you are in a hire car and you will be coming into Llingollen from Shrewsbury. The  river has been on your right running parallel with the road. When you come into Llingollen you need to look for this road sign placed at a set of traffic lights on the right and side of the road. The sign reads Ruthin (A542) so far so good turn right and proceed through the town centre and across the bridge.

This is where the fun starts:

On the other side of the bridge, you will come to a set of traffic lights, basically they want you to turn left or right so forget Ruthin or any other road sign. You need to get across the intersection and find the road that leads up the hill side.

It's not marked but then a true spiritual warrior will always ask and trust their intuition or (shall we say gut instinct) or a woman will go and ask for direction (ha ha). Now the road ( I wouldn't call it a road, it's more like a bike way) and it's very narrow it's only one car wide, trust !!!  (see photo above left) just follow the narrow lane way it winds up and around but it's where it ends up that makes this one of the most sacred sites on this planet.

Look for this rambling or hiking sign (see picture to the right above) and just follow the trail, it takes 30 minutes or less hence the water bottle remember there is no kiosk or toilet or water up at the ruins.

What I'm going to do now is let the photos do the talking. For the spiritual seeker you will see others simply chilling out in their own space sitting in a nook or out on some ledge or just rambling over the old castle walls and others just sitting and having a chat about legends of Merlin and the Holy Grail.

This is Castell Dinas Bran, the home of Merlin and some say the place where they found the Holy Grail, but wait there's more it's also the quarry (see photo to the left) where they harvested the Standing Stones for Stonehenge.

How they moved them there, well that's another story.