Nant Gwrtheyrn
Now this place is brilliant…
It’s this village on the Llyn Peninsula, surrounded by mountains. No one there, no internet, no phones, no cars, complete silence, and you’re there for a week to learn welsh! How cool does that sound?
I was a little scared of the whole idea, but lets face it, it’s a week off!
It’s an intensive course, and completely worth it.
Before I Arrived
I heard things about Nant Gwrtheyn. All good of course, until I decided to go! People started telling me about how spooky this place is. Something about the Nant ghosts that have haunted the place for some hundred years or so.
I don’t believe in ghosts, but something still scared me. Mainly it was the belief that I’m going to a village that has zero inhabitants, noises or pubs. And those facts of nothingness kept building up to scary thoughts; I would arrive there on Sunday night, there will be no one else there but me! The nearest village is a 40-minute walk away. Literally up a cliff!
My two housemates, Mary and Cathie, drove me to Nant on Sunday. Having a very busy working schedule, I was feeling unnerved that I’m away from the office for an entire week. But as soon as we started getting near the place, we knew what the big fuss was about. The scenery was absolutely stunning, just like we’re used to here in Wales anyway. Although, nothing I’ve ever seen before.
After driving at 3mph down the cliff like roads, we got to the village, it looked quiet, very quiet. But luckily all those dreams of a spooky night on my own in an entire village aren’t true, as there are other people there.
Mary and Cathie drove back to Bangor, I found my little cottage and put my stuff there and decided to go for a walk. Who wouldn’t in a place like this?!
I met a couple of people that evening, Helen and Sue. Helen was from England, she wanted to learn Welsh because of an interest in Wales and the culture, she comes to visit every now and then. Sue lived in Wales, her kids speak Welsh, but she only knew the basics, so she decided to learn a bit more as it would help her professionally too.
So after a little chatting and walking around the place, I decided it’s best to get some sleep, mainly because I was shattered after last night’s mental party.
Classes
On Monday morning we were all gathered in the chapel, where we got introduced to each other – about 18 students – and got to meet the staff of Nant Gwrtheyrn. One of whom I met though a friend on a night out in Caernarfon. Ifan, was training to be a full time teacher in Nant Gwrtheyrn. It was cool to see him again. I remembered our conversation about the place from 7 months prior to signing up to go there on a course.
We were split into two groups of 9. Each went with a different teacher. One group went with Eleri, and my group went with David, who was the head tutor in Nant.
Part of the initial tasks was deciding whether we’d like to learn the Northern or the Southern dialect of the Welsh language. I was after the Northern dialect as I lived there, but it wouldn’t do any harm to know the differences between the two right from the start. You can see some of those differences in the interesting facts section of this site (which I’ll have up and running soon!)
Food in Nant Gwrtheyrn
I love food and eating, so this section has to go before the other stuff.
The food was magical. When I left for Nant I went to the shop and got some bread, cheese and salami, just in case I get hungry on Sunday night, and it was sort of enough for another day. But what I didn’t know is the amount they feed you in Nant.
I didn’t even touch the stuff I bought. I didn’t even get hungry!
I got up and went to Caffi Meinir, and they had this table filled with all ingredients for a perfect fry up, some jams and marmalades, cereals, fruits, and fresh warm bread! And the coffee they made was gorgeous too. It was from a Welsh coffee company, can’t remember their name, let me know if you do.
Anyway, then classes started, and before we knew it, there was a tea and cakes break at 11:30. Some went outside to have a cigarette, so I went out to meet them and there was Bryn Terfel having a chat with some people. I was a little surprised as I’ve never seen him in front of me before, but he’s huge! I don’t mean fat… He’s a tall guy, and I’m quite tall too, but I don’t normally see people as tall or taller than me. Anyway, someone took a photo of us, so I’m still looking for them so I can put that up on the blog.
So, food…
We went back to the class, and then was lunch as 1. My stomach hasn’t even settled yet from the last bit of munch we had. There were about 8 different types of sandwiches, some salads, cocktail snacks, and some other things I didn’t know, so I can’t remember them.
We all went back to the class at 2, and before we knew it, there was another tea/coffee break at 4.
After we went back to classes, which finished at 5:30, we were supposed to go to have dinner at 6:30. I went for a walk and nearly missed it, but when I did get there, I saw what was next…
The food was just mental! We had a welsh lamb hotpot with dumplings, soups, salads, bread and different juices. All were local produce, and the lamb… now that was a different story! It was so tender you could eat it through a straw! Well... sorry that sounds disgusting. But you know what I mean, it was amazing.
So all the meals were more or less the same every day, but I think the dinner was when the cooks had their fun. Every day there was a different welsh dish, and it was so good that I ate so much I couldn’t breathe.
By the last day, I went back to Bangor and I took the bread, cheese and salami back with me, which was still unopened.
Activities
Every night in Nant there was a different activity. These activities took place in the chapel (which has been converted to a big heritage centre) about half an hour after dinner, so naturally I still couldn’t move yet! But I tried.
The first night we had welsh folk dancing. I’m not really into these things, and I thought it would be quite boring. But I was surprised with the amount of effort I had to do, I was quite tired afterwards.
We had a teacher, who I think did that sort of thing professionally. And only 7 of the 18 people from the classes showed up, along with our teacher David. Which is understandable after that mental meal we had. But it was a lot of fun, and I'm not sure how to say this... But I would do it again!
Some of the other activities were singing in Welsh. I didn’t understand any of it at first, but we were given the history and the meaning of the songs, which was rally cool to know, especially the Little Saucepan song, Sosban Fach.
Part of the Welsh singing activities, a man called Edward Morris Jones came to play guitar and sing with us, he was a famous children’s song writer and a lot of my Welsh friends remembered him from when they were little. When I told them they went all emotional!
Keep in touch with this site, there’s going to be more about Nant Gwrtheyrn and other stories of learning about Wales and the language in classes and out and about, such as:
- Spare Time
- Social stuff
- Interesting Facts