Picturesque Wales a welcoming getaway
October 29, 2008
Tintern Abbey was founded in 1131 in the beautiful Wye Valley.
Here, amid and around the ruins of the medieval Tintern Abbey, the solace and serenity recalled so poetically by William Wordsworth is almost palpable to 21st-century visitors.
Wordsworth wrote the poem after revisiting the abbey in 1798, at a time when it was fashionable for romanticists to seek inspiration in such picturesque places as this Wye Valley in Wales.
J.M.W. Turner, a 19th-century watercolorist and landscape painter, also found it an ideal spot for his work.
It was the first stop on our 10-day journey by car through the little (and to many Americans, little-known) nation of Wales. Our trip would take us from the abbey to a town filled with bookstores to the places where Dylan Thomas lived, wrote and yes, drank.
Wales (Cymru in Welsh) is just 8,000 square miles, about the size of New Jersey, with a population of 3 million — humans, that is. It is also home to an estimated 11 million sheep.
It is part of Great Britain and shares a border with England to its east. Yet, we found it quite different than the rest of the United Kingdom, with a unique culture and language, still spoken by about one-fifth of its people. Welsh is used on all the bilingual road signs, ubiquitous evidence (to visitors, anyway) that the names of places are too long, have too many consonants and are virtually unpronounceable.
In driving (on the left, of course) from England, through South Wales to its northwest coast, we found it a marvelous place to visit — maybe Britain’s best-kept secret.
Weather permitting, that is. Soggy is generally the most accurate description of Welsh weather, with rain a possibility at any time, winter or summer.
We had flown from the New York area nonstop to Bristol, England, just the other side of the boundary with Wales. But you can also fly into London, which is a little over two hours away by car. Other airport choices are Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool in England; few flights go directly into Cardiff, the capital of Wales.
After a short visit to Bath, just 15 miles or so from Bristol, for a glimpse of the settings made famous in Jane Austen’s novels and a taste of the Roman baths, we drove across the sleek span, a one-way-toll bridge, over the River Severn to Tintern on the River Wye.
From Tintern, we traveled north to Hay-on-Wye, the town with the appropriate sobriquet, Town of Books. Hay features more than 30 secondhand bookstores, including Castle Hay Books, which sells some of its wares on the honesty system (just leave the 30 or 50 pence) as well as Murder and Mayhem, Bookends, Boz Books, Cinema Bookshop, and Outcast, tucked away behind a side street of a side street.
We had arranged a one-night stay in a bed-and-breakfast (Gwely a Brecwast in Welsh) irresistibly named Rest for the Tired, and next door to a bookstore, of course.
The bed-and-breakfast was our home of choice on this trip, made simple by the help from the numerous information centers throughout Wales (just follow the dotted i signs), which aided with directions, local restaurants and sights and, for a small charge of $3.50, arrange your accommodation reservation anywhere in the United Kingdom. Ours cost $104-$121 a night (for two), with the typically hefty breakfast of cereal, fruit, eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato and coffee or tea and toast.
There seem to be few, if any, straight roads through the hills and mountains, so we meandered south from Hay-on-Wye, through the mid-Wales Brecon Beacons National Park, a magnificent magnet for hikers and bikers, to South Wales, the more populated of the Welsh areas.
The valley here was at one time the heart of Wales’ coal mining communities, as described in Richard Llewellyn’s book (and the movie), “How Green Was My Valley.” But it’s all gone now, replaced by farming, forestry and tourism, and an occasional sign for a local mining museum.
(Many of the miners, incidentally, migrated to the United States, settling in similar coal mining areas such as eastern Pennsylvania, where there are telling place names like Bryn Mawr, Nanty Glo and Balacynwyd.)
This part of South Wales (and a little west) is Dylan Thomas country. Schools here are named for the favorite-son poet who was born in Swansea. There is a Dylan Thomas Center in a museum in Swansea, and in area bookstores, his writings are outnumbered only by the books about his life.
According to local lore, Thomas did much of his drinking at pubs in Mumbles, just to the south of Swansea. Many of the Mumbles stories detail where he drank, much like tales of where George Washington slept in the United States. Certainly, the Mermaid on Mumbles Road was a favorite of Dylan Thomas’. That old hotel burned down some time ago; it is now a fine restaurant.
Mumbles (Mwmbles in Welsh) is a splendid spot (in good weather) on Swansea Bay, enticing strolls along the promenade, stopping for ice cream or a light lunch outdoors at Verdi’s or dining at Castellemare with its magnificent view.
Not far from there is the village of Pontrhydyfen, birthplace of another favorite son of Wales, actor Richard Burton. (Burton, incidentally, played the role of First Voice in Dylan Thomas’ “play for voices,” “Under Milk Wood.”)
Of course we had to visit Laugharne, a little north and west of Mumbles, where Dylan Thomas lived with his family from 1949 until his death in New York in 1953. It is Laugharne that served as the model for the fictional Welsh seaside town of Llareggub in “Under Milk Wood.” The home, called the Boathouse, sits high on a hill overlooking the Taf (pronounced Tav) River. It is now a heritage center, a museum of his life and works. The small garage that was converted to his writing shed, where he penned “Under Milk Wood,” among other works, has been preserved.
We then found our way to Aberystwyth on the west coast, stopping in Solva, near St. David’s, site of St. David’s Cathedral and the adjoining ruins of the Bishop’s Palace.
Aberystwyth is the home of a branch of the University of Wales and of the National Library. We parked the car and hopped on to a train for a three-hour trip north. Trains are a great way to see Wales, if you can be flexible enough to adjust to railroad schedules. There are myriad choices, of routes and train types.
Ours followed the rocky coast, with its stretches of sandy beach where campers set up, past seaside village and farms with gamboling sheep and grazing cattle. We were on our way to Portmeirion, changing at Machynlleth, with stops at Penheig, Tywyn, Llwyngwril, Fairbourne, Barmouth, Talsarnau, Penrhydeudraeth and, finally, Minffordd. From there, it’s a mile walk to Portmeirion, an unusual village built, between 1925 and 1973, on a peninsula on the coast and surrounded by 70 acres of woodland gardens. (It’s also unusual in that visitors have to pay a toll to see it.)
We were back in Aberystwyth for dinner and the next day drove back the 135 miles or so to Bristol Airport in three-and-a-half hours. (The roundabouts had us, at times, going around in circles.)
Homeward bound, we recalled the farewell refrain from the Welsh we had met.
“Did you enjoy your stay here? Come back and see us again. And tell your friends too.”
And we did.
If You Go…
Wales: http://www.travelwales.org or 800-959-2537.
Tintern Abbey: Located in the Wye valley, South Wales; http://www.cadw.wales.gov.uk/default.asp?id=6&PlaceID=132 daily (closed Dec. 24-26 and Jan. 1). Winter hours (November-March): Monday-Saturday 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m., Sundays 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Adults, $6.50.
Town of Books: Hay-on-Wye, http://www.hay-on-wye.co.uk/. Home to some 30 bookshops. Lodging options include the Rest for the Tired bed-and-breakfast, http://www.restforthetired.co.uk/.
Dylan Thomas: Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, http://www.dylan-thomas-books.com/shop/. Mumbles on Swansea Bay, http://www.visitswanseabay.com/. The Dylan Thomas Boathouse at Laugharne includes house and museum, http://www.dylanthomasboathouse.com/.
Portmeirion: Village in Gwynedd on the coast surrounded by woodland gardens, http://www.portmeirion-village.com/.
Source: cnn.com
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