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Published: January 13th 2009
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Our trip to Wales managed to coincide with the Coldest Weekend in Wales for a decade!
Our trip began in South Wales, an industrialized area, which is home to half the Welsh population.
Abertawe (Swansea) is where the trip began, this was a prominent town during the Industrial Revolution, not so much these days - and has been memorably described by Dylan Thomas as “ugly lovely”. I think this is a tad harsh - there are a few significant architectural eye-sores but largely Swansea isn’t too ugly. The city is similar to Wellington and Dunedin - with houses clinging to hills and a pretty harbour.
We spent some time out and about - we’d heard that the nightlife in Swansea was fantastic - not the case the weekend we were there. Giving Swansea the benefit of the doubt seen as we were there 2nd-4th January and perhaps most of the students were elsewhere - hence the lack of patrons at the pubs and bars. The Wind Street crowd is apparently legendary and on Saturday night the police closed the road, so I believe that this might be true - despite not seeing any evidence of it myself.
Leaf boat
A sculpture in Swansea - with Swansea Castle in the background. Of course - in Swansea there is a Walkabout - I was highly amused as it was full of Welsh Flags - all the London and Notthingham Walkabouts only had Aussie, Kiwi and Saffa Flags - so this was interesting…
We hired a car for the weekend - which incidentally turned out to be a bloody Mercedes. I don’t think I have ever felt so silly before in my life - I just don’t think I am the kind of person who rides around in a gigantic silver Mercedes - though I will say it was a very comfortable few days - and it was FANTASTIC to have heating - made sight seeing a lot more pleasant - getting out and freezing and then back into a nice toasty warm car.
One of our first destinations was Mumbles. This town is about 10-15mins drive from Swansea and is famous for two main things:
1) Joe’s Ice Cream
2) Catherine Zita Jones
It’s a cute little sea-side resort type town with a pier and a high street full of cafes and some touristy looking shops - also some rather cool looking boutique clothing stores.
While here we had
Our Wheels
hahahahahaha! lunch at a pub - managed to get served eventually and eat and get out before the hoardes of badly behaved children came in - which we were both very pleased about. We also visited Oystermouth Castle - which sits on the hill above the town, it was quite derelict which intrigues me - of course I am well aware that most of the castles over here are ruins now - but this is one of the first ruins I have seen, the others I’ve visited are still standing.
Further exploration included a drive around various places on the Gower Peninsula. Which is described by Lonely Planet as “wild and windswept” - I didn’t get the feeling of wild and windswept - there were lots of tiny little towns and settlements and heaps of farm land - which doesn’t scream “wild” to me - but it the Lonely Planet is correct in saying that it is a pretty place and a contrast to Swansea.
We ended up getting a bit lost and ended up in Port Eynon - which is a tiny little town - there was a pub but it wasn’t open - so we ended up doing
a U-turn and heading back to the main road, which was a shame cos it looked like a nice little place.
We found another castle - the wobbly castle - actually called Weobly Castle. Which is also a ruin - located on some farm land - the farmer has a tiny shop attached to his house where he charges for tickets (on behalf of the authorities of course) and sells souvenirs. We spent a bit of time exploring the castle before getting too cold and making our way back to the car.
We visited Pontarddulais. Trap, Llandelio and Carregg Cennan Castle and Mewys Mountain. Rather scenic places...and of course Trap was a bit of a Trap - took us a while to find the main road again when we left!
On the drive to Cardiff to catch the train we made a de-tour to Barry and Barry Island...which may be a place to visit in summer.
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