Wales and Liverpool, England October 7, 2026

We took a 3.5 hour ferry trip from Ireland to Wales this morning. To get to the ferry on time, we had to get up at 4:45 am. Ouch! We were able to get a nap on the ferry. 

Semis coming off the ferry

You don't hear much about Wales, so I'm looking forward to our visit. I already learned that Tom Jones is from here.

Our first stop in Wales was Caernarfon to see another 800 year old castle. We stop at the biggest ones, but there are small castle ruins all over Great Britain.  

This castle is special because this is where King Charles was declared Prince of Wales in 1969 on the glass enclosed balcony. 

Glass enclosed balcony 

Our last stop of the day was Liverpool, home of the Beatles. They all grew up here and got their musical start in local venues. We had a tour of the city. 

There are several churches throughout the city.

The former headquarters of the White Star Line, owners of the Titanic

This was a fun looking tour bus.

We stopped at Penny Lane. All the places in the song are on this street, and are places Paul McCarthy would pass on his way to school.

There is a nice statue of The Beatles on the waterfront.  It's amazing how they only were together for 7.5 years, but wrote so many hit songs. Then they all went on to successful individual careers.  Paul is still very active in philanthropic activities in Liverpool. 

They performed at The Cavern Club in Liverpool over 300 times. It's a club underground. Many famous people have performed there including Queen, Rolling Stones, Adele and many others. There is a wall outside with a brick for every artist that has performed there.

Someone was playing on the stage. The place was packed.

Memorabilia in the club

Wall with artist bricks and statue of John Lennon

Street where Cavern Club is located 

Part of the latest Batman movie was filmed here, and he jumped off this building 

Our route for today.