Cultural Experiences
Literary Footsteps in
WALES By Valentina Valentini
Tenby feels like a Welsh fairytale, which makes it the perfect place for authors to spin their words into adventurous parables and heart-rendering poetry. I first fell in love with Tenby, Wales in 2016 on a trip to see a friend whose family has been there for generations. Known as a working holiday home to beloved writers and poets, Beatrix Potter, Roald Dahl, and Dylan Thomas, Tenby is enclosed by 13th-century medieval walls within which sea-washed buildings painted in pastels stand against the winds from the Bristol Channel. These days, hundreds of thousands of literary lovers and holiday-seekers from around the world flock to the idyllic sea-front town to enjoy its tranquility and historical significance. Visitors to Tenby can visit a commemorative plaque at 2 Croft Terrace, the property where children’s author Beatrix Potter stayed in 1900. While staying here, Potter
28 • Vacations ® • Spring 2019
©VALENTINA VALENTINI
BEAUTIFUL SEASIDE TOWN OF TENBY
wrote illustrated letters to the children of her former governess (who’d essentially raised her, typical in a Victorian family of status). The lily pond at the property is found in those letters, and she spoke of rabbits living in the cliffs – all details that ended up in her seminal work, The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Over the years, I’ve gone back to Tenby and each time I hike the very trails along the Pembrokeshire Coastal Paths that Potter herself would have explored as her mind mulled ideas for some of the most iconic children’s stories of all time. Copies of the letters are held at Tenby Museum and Art Gallery. Another of the great children’s storytellers, Roald Dahl, also stayed in Tenby. A plaque there commemorates The Cabin,
