What is this strange place called Monmouth!?!

Well now, I thought, A Marvellous Monmouth blog it shall be, but it must be honest or you bloggers will smell a rat!  The way to start it, I decided, would be to give an intro of what Monmouth is.  A few facts about Monmouth ( or its Welsh pseudo-name Trefynwy).  Splendid.  And let's start with a photo taken from the Trellech road out of town.

View of Monmouth (Roo copyright  2013)

 

You can see everything going on from up here.  Monmouth is a country town in Monmouthshire, Wales.  It is surrounded by fields of yellow, red and lush green at this time of year.  It lives where the River Monnow meet the River Wye.  And this itself attracts tons of tourists to the town ready to explore the waters in kayaks and such-like!  And believe me, there is no better place in the universe to be than standing on Monnow Bridge feeding the ducks, and then eating the best chips on the planet from Monnow Bridge Fish Bar.  Simply delicious!  But more about that in next week's blog! 
  Back to Monmouth, there is a lot of history I can explore here.  The town was the site of a small Roman fort, Blestium.  And the Norman's built a castle here after 1067, which really set-up Monmouth as a town.  One of the town's claims to fame is Henry V was born in the castle in 1387. 

Henry V Statue, Shire Hall, Monmouth (Roo Copyright 2013)





















Admiral Nelson visited the town in 1802 - they even built a naval temple in his honour on the nearby Kymin Hill.  Then there's Monmouth's connection to the Roll's family (of Rolls Royce fame).  In fact it was the statue of Charles Rolls I used to start off this blog last time!  The one below is a little different!

Charles Rolls Statue, Outside Shire Hall, Monmouth

(Roo Copyright 2013)

 

But there's more than this to Monmouth, much, much more, until our next encounters dear bloggers, when I think it'll be time for me to ghet down to the big explore... Roo