Excursion to Hay-on-Wye

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Excursion to Hay-on-Wye

On 12^th May, we got up slightly early to catch the 10:05 bus for Hay-on-Wye. The bus was running through lovely countryside and picturesque villages.



We got off on the Castle Street near Hay Castle. Hay-on-Wye is officially a town in Wales − there were bilingual signs at many places in the town. We picked up and bought the information leaflets, e.g. the map of the bookshops, the map of historical spots, at the tourist information centre.



As it was sunny and pleasant, I suggested we would do walking in the morning. We started the Wye Valley Walk/Bailey Walk (the old railway line route) around Bridge Street. There were two or three footpaths along the river and they allowed walkers to see lovely views of the river. As we had heard, Hay-on-Wye is surrounded by beautiful countryside. We would see the lush mountains, hills and ridges beyond. Quite a few people were walking with dogs. Many wildflowers, e.g. lilacs, daisies, jasmines, bluebells were thriving, offering aromatic scents, and created colourful landscapes and carpets among the greens and on the rather wet ground. We could hear many birds singing as well.



Next, we returned to the town, and began strolling through ‘Town of the Books’. There are thirty second hand/antiquarian bookshops in a rather small sized Welsh town. We managed to pop in quite a few of them including Richard Booth’s Bookshop, Addyman Bookshop, and Hay Cinema Books. There were quite a few books copies of which I have seen in everyday life, however, it was interesting to see how each shop’s staff had valued and displayed. I saw art books displayed in the decorative alcoves at some of the bookshops. Some of the big bookshops put the bookshelves laden with stocks of second-rate quality books, e.g. reader’s digest condensed series, outside of their premises and let the customers insert £1 for per book. (Those bookshelves are one of the features in Hay-on-Wye.) We also found some very good music shops. Mark enjoyed looking through the CDs and records. I was looking for The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning. I hadn’t been able to find the copy at many shops for a long time, but managed to find the one at Hay-on-Wye Booksellers, the last shop we popped in. At that shop, I found a big glass cabinet laden with binding books, first editions, and signed copies priced £950 (a set of 10 binding books), £350, £450. I asked the young lady in the till if the staff were certain that they could sell at these prices. She said, ‘Some of my colleagues price those books. It is amazing, isn’t it? There are millions of books in our warehouses and we change the stock regularly. One surprising thing is the books which I used to throw for tatty and aging looking and obscure titles have got the value and we have to value as they are.’ I said to her, ‘I am doing the similar jobs at Oxfam shops and I wish you all the best for the sales!’



We really enjoyed the ‘Town of the Books’ and would love to come back there again.

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