Wales View Magazine 2015

WalesView 2015

WalesView 2015

W

e took our cover photo on a glorious late-summer day at Llanddwyn Island, on the southern shores of

Anglesey. It’s a magical spot, which we chose for all sorts of reasons: the beach, the mountain backdrop, the old lighthouse, the quality of the light. Nearby, there are the ruins of an ancient chapel dedicated to the Welsh patron saint of lovers, St Dwynwen.

Gorgeous as it is, Llanddwyn wasn’t the only contender. It’s always a big debate at Visit Wales: where to shoot our cover picture. We’ve all got our own favourite places, depending on which part of Wales we’re from, where we went on holiday as kids, and where we go now.

But this picture does capture beautifully what it feels like at the end of a perfect day, in your own perfect place. This magazine is full of days like this, and places in which to spend them.

visitwales.com

Royal Welsh: HRH Prince Charles shares his favourite places in Wales Bear in the Beacons: a wild weekend at the Bear Grylls Survival Academy Food of love: a gastronomic tour of West Wales What’s on 2015: it’s a big, busy year ahead Plus travel and holiday information –– visitwales.com

Have you packed for Wales?

W

Contents

e don’t just mean flip-flops, walking boots and spare

underwear (although they’d all II I IIII I

be handy). We mean a sense of adventure, an open mind, and an appetite for discovery.

I I

I I II I II I

I

II

It has certainly been a year of

54

wonders for us. Good grief, we live here, and yet we’re constantly amazed by new experiences. For

18

instance, we learnt tons about our

I

I

I

landscape (and ourselves) on a Bear

I

I

Grylls survival weekend, deep in Waterfall Country. We had a blast at festivals like Hay, Abergavenny Food I

and Green Man, which seem to get

I

I

18 Wild at heart

head-over-heels with the place. In the same spirit, we asked a couple of local boys, the naturalist Iolo Williams and broadcaster Huw Stephens, to share their own favourite spots.

6 Light fantastic

We’ve also got a very special guest Front cover image: Llanddwyn Island, Anglesey – Kiran Ridley

contributor: HRH Prince Charles, who shares a lifetime’s love of the Welsh landscape acquired over his 55 years We couldn’t fit everything in, of much we enjoyed underground

go online to visitwales.com.

We’re packed. Are you?

To the lighthouse! A coastal tour of our leading lights.

You can take the boy out of Cardiff, but there’s still no place like home for BBC Radio 1’s Huw Stephens.

26 Cross country

HRH The Prince of Wales shares his favourite places in Wales and opens up his own rural hideaway.

The naturalist Iolo Williams takes us on a guided tour of his favourite wildlife spots.

12 Proof of the pudding

28 What’s on in 2015

riding the world’s fastest zip wires, or a myriad other activities and events,

24 Bright lights

trampolining in a vast slate cavern, or dolphin-spotting in Cardigan Bay, and

Food writer Xanthe Clay has travelled the world in search of great flavours – and she found them by the plateful in West Wales.

16 Feast your eyes

The Abergavenny Food Festival is the biggest day in a year-round calendar of foodie events and farmers’ markets.

I II I I

Wild swimming in hidden coves, secret waterfalls and crystal mountain lakes.

8 The Prince’s passions

as Prince of Wales. course. If you want to hear how

A wild, wet weekend at the Bear Grylls Survival Academy is a brilliant bonding experience for a dad and his daughter.

I

I

2 A Bear in the Beacons

Keep your diary clear. There’s a big, busy year ahead.

40 Everyone’s a winner

We don’t like to brag, but we do seem to have won quite a lot of awards recently.

II

tour of West Wales, and to see her fall

II

writer Xanthe Clay on a gastronomic

II

love, so we were delighted to take food

II

I

I

I

I

8

I

I I

The greatest joy of our job is introducing visitors to things that we

I I I II

better every year.

I

I

58 40

44

48

26

16 44 Sailing on a cloud

58 Walk the walk

We sent the killer from TV’s Broadchurch and a cop from Hinterland on holiday together.

Fortunately, in real life they’re married with kids. Phew.

What’s your favourite Welsh walk?

That’s the question we asked our social media followers, and they came up with some brilliant suggestions.

48 Tour de forts

62 Essential information

We’ve got more castles per square mile than any country in the world.

Which of our 641 fortresses is your favourite?

50 Pilgrim’s progress

The Rev Lionel Fanthorpe finds inspiration in the ancient abbeys and simple rural churches of Monmouthshire.

54 Mud, sweat and gears

The Athertons are Britain’s greatest mountain-biking dynasty, who moved to Wales for our worldbeating trails. Very glad to have you.

Meet our holiday areas, and find out everything you need to know about getting here and getting around.

Visit Wales cannot guarantee the accuracy or reliability of the information in this publication and hereby disclaim any responsibility for any error, omission or misrepresentation.

To the fullest extent permitted by law all liability for loss, disappointment, negligence or other damage caused by reliance on the information contained in this guide is excluded. You are advised to check all details and information with the business concerned before confirming a reservation. All rights reserved.

Material in this publication must not be reproduced in any form without permission from the copyright owners – please contact Visit Wales. Opinions expressed in Wales View are not necessarily those of Visit Wales.

Wales View is published by Visit Wales, the Tourism and Marketing division of the Welsh Government ©2015.

Visit Wales, Welsh Government, QED Centre, Main Avenue, Treforest Industrial Estate, Treforest, Pontypridd CF37 5YR (WG22462) Print ISBN: 978-1-4734-2537-8 | Digital ISBN: 978-1-4734-2536-1

68 Wales map

Managing Editors: Iestyn George and Charles Williams

Printed by Stephens & George Ltd

It’s a map. And handily, it’s of Wales.

Designed by Escape to Design Photography Crown copyright (2014) Visit Wales Other photographic sources: James Dexter, Football Association Wales, Robert Gale, Mark Greenwood, Andrew Hazard, Paul Highnam, A Lavadinho / H. Magalhaes, John Lucas, Rafal Maciejczyk, Steve Malpass, Dan Marsh, Mel Parry Event Photography, Keith Morris, Warren Orchard, Philip Roberts Photography, Maryke Phillips, Chris Pritchard, Leigh Sherrett, Skyscapes by Escape to Design.

This publication is also available in Braille, large-format print, and/ or audio from Visit Wales. info@visitwales.com

Printed on recycled paper

visitwales.com

1

s n o c a Be A BEAR IN THE

The adventurer Bear Grylls has set up a Survival Academy in Wales, teaching outdoor skills in the stunning surroundings of the Brecon Beacons. For Charles Williams and his daughter Elizabeth it was the toughest and most intense 24 hours of their lives‌ and they loved every moment.

The adventure begins! Five family groups set off into the woods, Captions tbc far from the nearest supermarket.

12 2

visitwales.co.uk visitwales.com

M

y eight-year-old daughter has a picture of Bear Grylls on her bedroom wall, which miffs me slightly. She doesn’t have one of me. She’s seen every one of his TV programmes, in which he charges around the wilderness, biting the heads off things and crossing icy torrents in his pants.

Rather you than me, mate. But now the Bear Grylls Survival Academy has set up camp in the Brecon Beacons – specifically, one of my favourite bits, the Waterfall Country on the south-west edge of the National Park. They do a special ‘24 Hour Family Course’ for parents and children.

Well, we’ve just got to try it, haven’t we?

We arrive at Pontneddfechan Village Hall on a blustery April morning, where five adults and their offspring will spend a day and night in the wild, being taught the full monty of survival skills including, we suspect, crossing icy torrents in our pants.

Our fellow adventurers are from London and the Home Counties, with offspring ranging from ten to teens. Our instructors, meanwhile, are local lads led by Jeff, a tough ex-Royal Marine Commando who appears to have been hewn out of boulders and timber. Our ropes expert and chef, Rob, is a friendly Welsh Guardsman who (cue awed respect from the juniors) lost most of one hand to a bullet in Iraq. Then there’s John, an ex-RAF mountain rescue man, and a couple of local outdoor enthusiasts.

garlic) for our supper, and nibble at wood sorrel and hawthorn leaves. When we’ve gathered enough herbage, we set off along the river, where dippers and wagtails flit among the rocks. Instructor Owen is about to hurdle the rotten carcass of a fallen tree when he calls us to an abrupt halt. “Here’s a stroke of luck,” he says. He peels back a flap of decayed bark. It’s riddled with mealworms, a wiggling mass of beetle larvae. “Who wants to try one?” The adults look at each other tentatively. Junior hands shoot up. Hmm. They’re not as bad as they look, actually.

Barely an hour into the adventure, and we’re already turning into something else, something other than our usual urban selves.

OVER THE CHASM We’re all kitted out in Bear Grylls-branded gear: 30-litre rucksack, helmet, harness, water bottle and canteen. There’s a firesteel for the juniors and, for the adults, a pleasingly big knife. Then it’s off into the woods alongside the fast-flowing waters of the Nedd Fechan, or Neath River.

Sure enough, it’s not long before the first of many waterfalls appears. It’s so pretty, you hardly notice the rope that is slung ominously over the chasm. It’s not there by accident. One at a time, we clip on to the rope and launch ourselves into the air, gliding 30ft (9m) above the rapids. This is the first of very many obstacles that we’ll encounter during the next 24 hours.

Back down at the river, we’re taught how to filter river water into our canteens, which we’ll purify later. Then we have a lesson in foraging for edible goodies that abound in the lush valley floor. We gather ransoms (wild

Top: Always filter and purify your water. You don’t know where it’s been - or what’s been in it.

Above: Ben (ten) king of the swingers.

More rope challenges follow, until we finally climb out of the gorge and towards our camp, marked by a fluttering Bear Grylls flag. It doesn’t look like any other campsite I’ve seen. It’s a rough upland field, boggy and forlorn. There’s nothing there apart from a few gnarled trees, one of which has recently fallen over, and a few roughly sawn pine trunks.

We’re given three tarpaulins, a reel of paracord, and an hour to make somewhere dry to sleep. Go! A lot of sawing, sweating,

swearing and knot-tying later, we have three structures that faintly resemble shelters. We’ve filled in the ‘walls’ as best we can on three sides, but all three shelters are completely open on the downwind side.

We gather armfuls of dead bracken to line the floors as bedding. Luxury.

Then we’re summoned back to the lower swamp for a lesson in knot-tying and knife skills, and scour the surrounding woodland for timber to stoke the fire before supper.

visitwales.com

3

Time to make your bed. Literally.

Hot chocolate has never, ever tasted this good.

When you’re this far from the warmth of your own kitchen, with its Aga and fancy coffee machine, your perspective changes entirely. Tonight, instant coffee with powdered milk, drunk from a mess tin, is the best drink in the world. Rob’s stew, a one-pot slop of chicken legs boiled up on the fire with hacked veg and foraged greens, is a gourmet feast. The trout, wrapped in wild garlic and steamed in moss, deserves its own TV food programme.

it has stopped raining, and there’s even a welcome splash of sunlight.

After breakfast (army ration sausageand-beans – again, delicious) Jeff takes us for a lesson in setting traps and snares, before we hoist our backpacks on and head off for the last leg of our journey. A cuckoo calls from the woods as we cross the boggy field, up onto a moor, heading east. We’re not merely strolling, though: when we cross mountain roads, we do it militarystyle, ducking out of sight of cars. Then an instructor ‘breaks’ his leg and the dads have to carry him to a safe area – in another inevitable swamp – while the children miraculously succeed in making a signal fire with just a firesteel and bits of tufty reed.

UNDER THE STARS Over supper, the children chat about Bear Grylls. They’ve all seen every single programme he’s made, and know the names of his children (Huckleberry, Marmaduke and Jesse). The instructors stoke the kids’ enthusiasm with regular invocations of Bear’s blessed name: “If Bear came across this situation, this is what he’d do…” is a refrain we hear over and over.

And to be fair to the man, it works: our children, supposedly part of the sluggardly video-game generation, have spent a day in incredibly tough circumstances, and are all still bright and cheerful.

It’s 10pm and pitch-black now, so after a quick pre-bedtime lesson in how to navigate by stars, it’s time to sleep. It’s still raining, obviously. We duck into our shelters, making the children as comfortable as possible given that they’re effectively sleeping in a chilly bog with a few microns of nylon and

12 4

visitwales.co.uk visitwales.com

some rotten bracken between them and dying of exposure.

We lie in absolute darkness, listening to the sounds of the Brecon Beacons on a rainy night. Sheep bleating. Wind buffeting the trees. Rain drumming on the tarpaulin.

The smaller children in their shelter, laughing and jabbering away relentlessly.

Someone gently snoring.

I groan, sink as deep as I can into the sleeping bag, pull the hood over my head, curse Bear Grylls’ name, and yearn for morning. Next thing I know, there’s the sound of a farmer’s quad bike in the distance. Odd. I poke my head out of the sleeping bag, and it’s morning. I’ve slept after all. There’s even better news:

THE WORST – THE BEST There are just three hours to go now, and we all sense that the weekend has been building to something. As we rappel into the steep gorge of the River Mellte, there’s an ominous pile of buoyancy aids waiting for us. The good news is, we’re not going to strip to our pants to cross the river. No. We’re doing this fully clothed.

For the first time in 24 hours, I see a look on Elizabeth’s face that says, ‘Dad, I really, really don’t want to do this.’ But we’ve learnt an important military virtue: when confronted with the inevitable, there’s no point hanging around. Best just to crack on.

We wade into knee-deep icy water, edging out onto a rock shelf until it plummets into the brown, fast-flowing depths. Ready? Deep breath. Go! We throw our rucksacks in front of us and bellyflop into the water. It’s cold. Shockingly, breath-stealingly so. We kick furiously with our heavy walking boots, urging ourselves to the other side, where we emerge gasping and soaked. That was both the worst – and oddly, the best – thing we’ve done all weekend.

By the time we reach a bunkhouse, a little more than 24 hours after we’d set off, we’re exhausted but elated. And the strange thing is, we’re all really glad that it rained. Not just rained – chucked it down.

We were given the chance to try survival in the worst possible conditions, and not only did we survive, but we did it with a big grin on our faces.

It has been an amazing 24 hours. The skills we’ve learnt may save our lives one day (although I hope never to find out). But I’ve never felt closer to my daughter, or more in awe of her capabilities. From now on, every stroll in the countryside will become a richer, more intense experience.

Now who fancies a mealworm?

Necessities THE BEAR

The adventurer Bear Grylls loves the wild simplicity of life in Wales

What are your earliest memories of visiting Wales?

Going on a school climbing trip to North Wales, camping out, everything drenched through, being tired, cold and hungry, but finding this fire inside that was ignited. The harder it got, the more I came alive. It’s hard to describe, but as a kid those climbing trips became a very powerful draw for me – something about battling nature and learning how to survive it and getting smarter, stronger along the way.

How about when you returned here as a soldier?

I vividly remember going to the Brecon Beacons to train before SAS Selection started, and being overawed by the scale of the peaks and the brutality of the winter weather. I thought, ‘Man, this is going to be harder than I thought.’ I was right.

What’s your favourite place in Wales?

Definitely our little Welsh island [St Tudwal’s West, off Abersoch]. When we bought it in 2000 it was run down and covered in rats. But we slowly did it up and it’s now the most amazing place I know anywhere in the world.

Great cliffs and caves to explore, wild seas, amazing birdlife and seals, a fantastic local community, and a home that is cosy and just us, away from the madness of the rest of our year.

Tell us about the Survival Academy – why pick the Brecon Beacons?

For its beauty, but also for the rolling Welsh hills, deep craggy gorges and icy cold Welsh white water. It’s a real variety that equips participants for any situation. People learn everything from navigation to river crossings and fire-lighting. It’s about dynamic selfrescue survival skills, but also encourages key life attitudes which make that critical difference both in the wild and in life – optimism, team work, initiative, courage, resourcefulness and determination.

Can all kids be outdoor adventurers?

As a father of three young boys I know what kids hunger for. Great adventures teach them not only great life and outdoor skills, but they also boost their confidence with a sense of knowing they can look after themselves when the chips are down. And ultimately it can save their life!

You’re a global brand now.

Have all those TV meetings and fancy hotels made you soft?

Years of doing my job in swamps, deserts and mountains have taught me a definite gratitude for home, for sure. But even though a warm bed and hot bath is amazing, the best for me is being back among those I love, my kids – the hugs and the fun together. Luxuries are a nice but temporary joy. They’re not vital for happiness. That comes from inside.

beargryllssurvivalacademy.com

visitwales.com

5

The Light Fantastic

11 3

There are more than 30 lighthouses dotted around the Welsh coast, helping to keep sailors safe and also looking splendid at the same time. These are ten of our favourites.

1 South Stack

Great for… location This has perhaps the most spectacular setting of any Welsh lighthouse. Cross onto the island of Anglesey, then hop over onto Holy Island, and finally down 400 stone steps onto yet another tiny island, where there are tours to the top of the 134ft (41m) tower. The surrounding cliffs form the RSPB reserve where peregrines, choughs and countless sea birds live. visitanglesey.co.uk

2 Trwyn Du

Great for… walking We like the walk out to the headland at Penmon Point, which has lovely views towards Puffin Island, and back across the Menai Strait to Snowdonia. When it was built in the 1830s, the lighthouse featured

South Stack, Anglesey

6

visitwales.com

2

4

a pioneering lavatory which was supposed to stop seawater from surging back up the pipe. It didn’t work – which is perhaps why it has been unmanned since 1922.

5

visitanglesey.co.uk 6

3 Llanddwyn

7

Great for… romance There isn’t a more romantic spot in Wales (or maybe the world…) than Llanddwyn Island. Walk out through the Newborough Warren National Nature Reserve onto a slender, sandfringed island, past the ruins of a chapel dedicated to St Dwynwen, the Welsh patron saint of lovers. And at the tip, a pair of simple whitewashed lighthouses, with breath-taking views across to Snowdonia. visitanglesey.co.uk

10

8

4 Bardsey

Great for… tranquility The usual square tower of Bardsey lighthouse is painted in jolly red-and-white bands, and from this year its light will shine red, too – it’s less dangerous for migrating birds than the old white light.

There are nine self-catering cottages for rent on this ‘Island of 20,000 Saints’ – and if they can live without electricity or an indoor toilet, then so can you! bardsey.org visitsnowdonia.info

9

5 Strumble Head

Great for… sea watching This lighthouse sits on a small island off a rocky headland called Pencaer, or Strumble Head. This is one of Britain’s best places to spot migratory birds and passing cetaceans, and the old observation hut is popular with bird and sea watchers (the most dedicated of whom are known as ‘Strumblers’). walescoastpath.gov.uk visitpembrokeshire.com

6 Skokholm

Great for… birds Skokholm and Skomer Islands form one of the most important seabird breeding sites in the world, including thousands of puffins, Manx shearwaters and storm petrels.

Skokholm lighthouse was recently bought by the Wildlife Trust and converted into accommodation for the island’s wardens and visiting researchers. There are daytrips to Skomer, or for a proper getaway, you can stay on the islands, which lie in a glorious Marine Nature Reserve that’s populated by dolphins, porpoises and lots of grey seals. welshwildlife.org visitpembrokeshire.com

7 Caldey

Great for… day trips Here’s a great day-trip if you’re holidaying in Pembrokeshire: take the boat across from Tenby, explore the Cistercian monastery, buy some home-made chocolate from the shop, and walk across the fields to a clifftop

Skokholm, Pembrokeshire

West Usk, Mons

Bardsey, Llˆyn lighthouse which, together with its partner on distant Lundy Island, guides ships into the Bristol Channel. The monastery also organises spiritual retreats for those who want to stay and enjoy a few days of quiet reflection. caldey-island.co.uk visitpembrokeshire.com

8 Nash Point

Great for… accommodation There are actually two lighthouses here on the Glamorgan Heritage Coast’s layer-cake cliffs, both built to warn shipping away from a treacherous sand bank. The larger was manned until 1998; now it’s the only working Welsh lighthouse to have a visitor centre and to be a licensed wedding venue.

There are also keepers’ cottages for holiday rental and a gem of a pub, the Plough & Harrow, is within walking distance.

Trwyn Du, Anglesey

visitthevale.com bridgendbites.com

9 Flat Holm

10 West Usk

Great for… beer

Great for… weddings

It’s just five miles (8km) from Cardiff, but over the years Flat Holm has been a saint’s retreat, a haven for pirates and smugglers, a cholera sanatorium, a gun battery, and – to stop ships bumping into it – a good place for a lighthouse. You can take a day trip from Cardiff, or stay overnight at a stylish three-bed selfcatering cottage. There’s even a tiny pub called the Gull and Leek.

This quirky little lighthouse was decommissioned back in 1922, and is now a cosy B&B and wedding venue. Over on the other side of the River Usk its smaller brother, the East Usk Lighthouse, is still operational, and now lies within the RSPB Newport Wetlands reserve.

flatholmisland.com visitthevale.com

For more information, see trinityhouse.co.uk

Llanddwyn Island, Anglesey

westusklighthouse.co.uk visitmonmouthhire.com

visitwales.com

7

THE

PRINCE’S PASSIONS

During his annual summer tour of Wales, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales stays at his Welsh home, a beautifully restored farmhouse in rural Carmarthenshire. We are honoured that HRH Prince Charles shares with us his Welsh passions, and memories of 55 years as The Prince of Wales.

8

visitwales.com

How did Your Royal Highness first discover Llwynywermod?

“Wales has still preserved its wonderful sense of community – particularly in the rural areas.”

After a long search lasting some 40 years!

Several houses and sites were explored until, finally, we came across Llwynywermod in an exceptionally beautiful part of Carmarthenshire, on the edge of the Brecon Beacons and within reasonable reach of Cardiff.

Llwynywermod was originally part of an old estate with the ruins of the old house, the remnants of an 18th-century landscaped park and various disintegrating ‘concrete and corrugated iron’ modern farm buildings and an abandoned slurry pit. All this required a lot of re-ordering and restoration. I was determined that as many local and Duchy of Cornwall natural materials as possible could be used in the rebuilding and restoration process and that the house should be a showcase for traditional Welsh craftsmanship, textiles and woodwork, so as to draw attention to the high quality small enterprises, woollen mills, quilt-makers, joiners, stonemasons and metal-workers situated in rural parts of Wales.

How does the garden at Llwynywermod compare with your famously beautiful gardens at Highgrove?

I couldn’t possibly create another Highgrove garden in Wales and so the obvious thing to do was to make a courtyard garden at Llwynywermod, with a fountain in the centre, to provide that allimportant sound of running water, clipped ilex trees to give height, structure and cover for small birds and box-bordered beds. I planted climbing plants up the walls such as Albertine roses, magnolia grandiflora, jasmine, honeysuckle and Boston ivy and let all sorts of plants seed themselves in the battered cobblestones outside the old barn which forms one side of the courtyard.

The rain in Wales, and the shelter of the courtyard, have meant that everything has

Llwynywermod was originally owned by William Williams, who was related to Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII – 15th great uncle to its present owner, Prince Charles.

grown abundantly and rewarded all the effort. Trees have been planted in the old parkland to bring it back to life and two small wildflower meadows to the front and side of the house, the latter containing an apple orchard. I can only hope I shall live long enough to see some of the trees reach a reasonable size!

How important is it for you to have a retreat in Wales?

Very important! Having been Prince of Wales for 55 years, it enables me, on various occasions, to be part of the local community around Llandovery and to have

a base for entertaining and meeting people from throughout the Principality. Wales has still preserved its wonderful sense of community – particularly in the rural areas – and Llandovery, an old sheep-drovers’ town, somehow maintains those priceless assets of its own community hospital, family GPs, a rugby club (of which I am proud to be Patron), a railway station and a strong connection with the family farming communities in the surrounding countryside.

Some may say this is old-fashioned, but to me it is timeless; the bedrock of our humanity in a profound relationship with Nature and the very heart of Wales’s cultural, social and spiritual heritage.

visitwales.com

9

The interior at Llwynywermod

Which are your other favourite Welsh gardens?

I would have to say that Powis Castle and Bodnant are two of my favourite gardens – but, sadly, I have not been able to see round so many others throughout the Principality. Powis Castle has the dramatic advantage of steep terraces descending below the castle itself, each terrace displaying the most magnificent borders and all set in stunning, ancient parkland. Bodnant is equally dramatic, but in a different way. It is a plantsman’s garden; beautifully laid out throughout a sheltered valley and containing magnificent great trees and under-planted

“Wales is blessed with a series of landscapes which are uniquely precious, many of which are the result of Man working in harmony with Nature for thousands of years.”

The name Llwynywermod means ‘Wormwood Grove’, and is thought to be connected to local herbalists the Physicians of Myddfai, who were famous for their knowledge of herbal medicine.

with choice specimens of trees, shrubs and rhododendrons from China and the Himalayas, all growing in the kind of soil and conditions all gardeners would give their eye teeth for! The views from the house, of mountainous countryside in the distance, makes Bodnant one of Wales’s national treasures.

Which are your favourite landscapes in Wales?

Llandovery

10 visitwales.com

What a difficult question! Wales is blessed with a series of landscapes which are uniquely precious, many of which are the result of Man working in

harmony with Nature for thousands of years. This, of course, is one of the reasons I so love the rolling landscape of Carmarthenshire, around Llwynywermod, or the wild, unspoilt, patchworked countryside of Radnorshire, or the ancient, mysteriously mossy, oak-filled valleys of what used to be called Cardiganshire when I was at Aberystwyth University in 1969, but is now known as Ceredigion. Of course, the most rugged and grandly picturesque has to be Snowdonia, battered and drenched by constant Atlantic storms, crowded with rocky mountain tops and a mecca for artists and energetic climbers.

What are your fondest memories of times spent here?

Memorable times spent exploring midWales during my term at Aberystwyth University and learning something about the Principality and its ancient language, folklore, myths and history.

As a watercolourist, what are your favourite places to paint in Wales?

The whole of Wales is a painter’s dream!

As you travel around the country there are paintable views around every corner, so often illuminated by the Western light with its contrasting fingers of lengthening shadows. In my case, there is never enough time to stop and paint, so I am permanently frustrated!

What part does Wales’s unique environment play in its attraction?

I would have thought the uniquely attractive and enduring landscape of Wales, with its mountains, patchworked fields and woods; its coastline, castles, villages and market towns, plays a vital role in attracting visitors – it certainly cast its spell on me a long time ago…

THE

PRINCE’S PLACES

Bodnant Garden

Llwynywermod The Welsh home of The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall sits within 192 acres near Myddfai, Llandovery in Carmarthenshire. It was bought by the Duchy of Cornwall in 2006 and renovated using the expertise of skilled Welsh craftsmen and women. The grounds are a mix of woodlands and meadows providing a variety of habitats for wildlife, and the whole estate is managed under organic principles.

Llwynywermod is used by The Prince and The Duchess when they are in Wales on their regular visits and annual summer tour. At other times, the courtyard cottages are used as occasional holiday lets. princeofwales.gov.uk/the-prince-ofwales/residences/llwynywermod

Carmarthenshire Llwynywermod is located, appropriately, in a county known as ‘the Garden of Wales’.

The Black Mountain falls away into the Towy Valley, a lush agricultural region punctuated by castles, market towns and two special places for horticulturists: the lost garden of Aberglasney, and the National Botanic Garden of Wales. discovercarmarthenshire.com

Powis Castle and Garden, near Welshpool High on a rock above its garden terraces, Powis Castle, originally built around 1200, began life as a Welsh fortress. But it was the Herbert family who embellished it over 400 years, each generation adding to the magnificent collection of paintings, sculpture, furniture and tapestries.

The world-famous garden, laid out under the influence of Italian and French styles, is one of the finest in Britain, while a superb collection of treasures from India is displayed in the Clive Museum. nationaltrust.org.uk

Bodnant Garden, near Conwy Created by five generations of one family, this 80-acre garden has spectacular views across the Conwy Valley to the mountains of Snowdonia. With expansive lawns and intimate corners, grand ponds and impressive terraces, a steep wooded valley and stream, as well as awe-inspiring plant collections, there are continually changing glorious displays of colour. nationaltrust.org.uk

visitwales.com

11

1

3

1. Elisabeth Luard, Xanthe Clay 2. Mangalitsa pigs 3. Birchgrove Farm 4. Ultracomida 5. Rob Rattray rack of lamb

2

4

12

visitwales.com

5

proof of the

The food writer Xanthe Clay has travelled the world in hot pursuit of great cuisine. But on a trip to Wales she discovers that dazzling food is on the menu a lot closer to home. @xantheclay

W

ales is the best-kept secret in food, although rumours of foodie delights in the far reaches of Ceredigion and Snowdonia have been trickling through. Word is getting out of passionate producers, chefs and farmers.

I’ve heard whispers of food, which has to be tasted to be believed, hand-made by artisans on such a small scale that you have to seek it out because it is never going to turn up on a supermarket shelf.

A few phone calls and spot of googling later, and I realise there is just too much to pack in. Foodie friends and fellow food writers fall over themselves to tell me of hidden treasures – the café that sells lobster rolls with local seaweed butter; the flour mill run by two retired postmen that’s the toast of bakers; the Michelin-star chef who has set up on a remote seashore.

After some painful narrowing down, the three-night road trip is fixed, a great loop round the delights of South and West Wales, from Carmarthenshire to the far reaches of Pembrokeshire, up the coast round Cardigan Bay to Aberystwyth, and then into the heart of Mid Wales.

We head down the M4 to spend our first night at Llwyn Helyg Country House in Llanarthne, a newly-built palace of a guest house that is to regular B&Bs what Downton Abbey is to Emmerdale. As if acres of marble flooring and a sweeping staircase aren’t enough, Llwyn Helyg’s USP is its ‘room of sound’, a massive hall designed to have the perfect acoustic for the awe-inspiring sound system – music lovers will be entranced.

The bedrooms too would put many fivestar hotels to shame, and they could never

compete with the warmth of welcome from owners Caron and Fiona, which even extends to a lift to the local restaurant, Y Polyn, for dinner.

WRIGHT STUFF Now, Y Polyn might look like a modest pubrestaurant but don’t be deceived – it’s one of those fantastic hidden-away places that those in the know rather irritatingly like to keep to themselves. “Never turn down a dinner invitation to The Polyn!” a friend tells me, but only when I mention it. Thanks for that, I think.

You won’t get white linen tablecloths or stiff service at Y Polyn – this is about great food on wooden tables and a well-kept pint as well as a solid wine list. We eat heritage tomatoes from Blaencamel Farm on the CeredigionPembrokeshire border and local salmon caught in the Towy Valley by a fisherman in a coracle “the shape of half a walnut shell”, owner Mark tells me. And to finish, a towering chocolate and cherry ice-cream sundae, as rich and fruity as Dame Edna Everage and just as good fun.

In the morning, we stroll up the lane from Llwyn Helyg to Wright’s Food Emporium, a gem of a food shop and café in a Victorian farmhouse-cum-inn – it turns out that even in the 19th century farmers had to diversify.

Under the bare beams in the low-ceilinged, slate-floored shop, Simon Wright, together with his wife, chef Maryann, sells local cheeses and charcuterie, as well as eggs, vegetables, home-made jams and chutneys. Their son Joel oversees the wine room, complete with old-school record player and an intriguing selection of wine and local beer.

The table in the panelled dining room has plates loaded with clouds of meringues, cheesecake and a deep treacle tart, crusted on the top and melting toffee within. But it’s breakfast time so we sit by the shelves of cookbooks where Fergus Henderson is cheekto-cheek with Fanny Cradock, and eat a ‘Fried Welsh Rarebit’ – like a mustardy toasted cheese sandwich, packed with leeks and with a generous smear of n’duja, a Calabrian spiced sausage spread. Then comes some delicate, thin-sliced spiced salt beef, served warm with Wright’s homemade soda bread, a nostril-clearingly hot horseradish mustard, pickles and a delectable caraway seed-spiked coleslaw.

At Wright’s we spot some very fine cured pork, beautifully marbled bacon, sausages and fennel and red wine salami, from a company called Charcutier Ltd. I’d come across the owner Illtud Ll yˆr Dunsford’s blog, a fascinating and honest look at curing meat from a man who has travelled the world in search of piggy perfection. It seems like the least we can do to take a short detour to Pontiets to meet Illtud and his partner Liesel.

More poodle than porker Illtud meets us at the modest farmhouse in a T-shirt that reads ‘Tasty Salted Pig Parts’. This is a man obsessed with pork, and with that enthusiasm for his product that seems to be a trait among Welsh producers. A farmer’s grandson, Illtud would spend weekends on the farm eating the home-grown pork, “tenderloin fried in lard by my grandmother in a pan that was never washed out”, and learning how to cure meat in the old slate trays that still stand in the farmhouse kitchen, now transformed into a meat-curing space.

Out in the yard are Illtud’s pride and joy, half a dozen Mangalitsa pigs, a curly-haired Hungarian breed snuffling around, looking more like poodles than porkers. Their meat is special too, explains Illtud: sublime, dark, richly flavoured and well marbled, like the Spanish pata negra.

We finish our mugs of tea and wave goodbye to Illtud. It’s time to make for the sea, so we head for the coast road.

Chef Will Holland, who held a Michelin star at restaurant La Bécasse in Ludlow has opened up the appropriately named Coast at Saundersfoot, while at Freshwater West

visitwales.com

13

6 there’s Café Môr, the permanent base of the Pembrokeshire Beach Food Company, which won the BBC Food and Farming Awards this year for best takeaway.

Time is racing on, so we head up the Ceredigion coast to visit my friend the celebrated food writer Elisabeth Luard.

We wave as we pass Cardigan, home of the award-winning Llwynhelyg Farm Shop where they will nip out and freshly pick salad leaves for you. With singleminded determination we drive on past the Georgian fishing village of Aberaeron.

No time today for home-made honey ice cream at The Hive, snuggled next to a fine fishmongers on the harbourside where you can watch the fishing boats delivering their catch to the door.

7

8

SIMPLE AND DIRECT We reach Elisabeth in the early evening, driving up the long bumpy lane to her pinkpainted Georgian farmhouse perched in the hills above Aberystwyth with views across the valley to the Cambrian hills. Elisabeth comes bounding out of the moss-green front door, and we are soon ensconced in the kitchen. Granddaughter Jess and her friend Juliet are cooking padrones peppers from local Spanish food shop Ultracomida, and we sip wine from Wright’s while we discuss the joy of Welsh food.

“I love its honesty,” Elisabeth tells me.

“It’s very simple, very direct, and it depends on good ingredients – and people here are very switched on to good ingredients.”

That night we eat tender, richly flavoured lamb, with peas and a vividly coloured salad of flowers, rocket and lettuce from Elisabeth’s garden, then cheeses and strawberries left to macerate in a scattering of sugar. Elisabeth was clearly delighted by the Welsh produce. “That lamb is from the Ystwyth Valley, which we drive through on the ten-minute journey to Aberystwyth.

You don’t get much more local than that.”

14

visitwales.com

9

10

Next morning, we make the journey to Aberystwyth, arriving at the farmers’ market just as the sun comes out.

Liesel was there, smiling broadly, with the Charcutier Ltd stall doing a busy trade and already nearly out of chorizo. At Tˆy Mawr Buffalo Dairy stall I try a mild, six-month matured buffalo cheese, and a punchy knock-your-socks off tenmonther. There’s a stall selling free-range duck – something supermarket shoppers struggle to lay hands on – but Elisabeth is already a couple of stands further on, at the Blaencamel Farm stall, chatting to

farmer Peter Segger. As well as those fragrant tomatoes I ate at Y Polyn, there are taut-skinned aubergines, bags bursting with squeaky-leafed spinach and kale, purple sputniks of kohlrabi, satiny globes of beetroot, perky leaves attached – all for prices that make the supermarkets look dear.

The next stall is manned by farmer Sarah Tarbutt of Harmony Herd wild boar cross pork. The pig-boars range freely next to the appropriately named ‘Swine Lake’ where, Sarah told me, when it’s hot “they lie underwater with their noses up

14 6. Baravin 7. Elisabeth’s garden produce 8. Y Polyn restaurant team 9. Turbot at The Old Vicarage 10. Fresh from Llwynhelyg Farm Shop 11. Wright’s Food Emporium 12. Dà Mhìle orange liqueur 13. Elisabeth and Xanthe 14. Gouda-style Teifi cheese

11

12

13 like snorkels”. I have to buy some heavily marbled bacon.

We take a tot of juniper-rose-scented Dà Mhìle gin, made by the same DutchWelsh team who make the award-winning Gouda-style Teifi cheese, then admire Cwca Cartre’s cake stall, Mr Nice Pie and Mama Singh’s authentic Indian cooking, before stocking up on free-range eggs (a tray of three dozen for £4.50) from Birchgrove Farm. It’s time for a quick lunch of Ultracomida’s fine Spanish fare – the Welsh might have great produce of their own but they aren’t parochial – before a tour of the

food shops including Rob Rattray’s butcher, purveyor of last night’s lamb as well as whole flitches of old fashioned bacon. I’m in food heaven, but after a quick drink in the slick harbourside restaurant-bar Baravin (yes, Aber – as the locals call it – does urban cool as well) we are on the road again.

We drive east through the hills and along the River Severn to our last stop, The Old Vicarage at Dolfor. This is another Welsh secret. Tim and Helen Withers worked with the legendary Joyce Molyneux at the Carved Angel at Dartmouth, before running their own seafood restaurant in Wiltshire. They moved to the Victorian former rectory in the heart of the sheep-farming country to be close to family, and now run it as an elegant guest house with first-rate food. You won’t find any smears of sauces here, no foams or teetering towers of vegetables. This is old-school done properly: Tim’s twice-baked soufflé was described by food writer Simon Hopkinson as the finest outside London’s two-Michelin-star Gavroche restaurant. As we tuck in to the soufflé, two trembling cloud-light domes with gilded tops, I can’t imagine anything better.

And as Elisabeth tells me, “It’s wonderful to love food. A lot of your life can be made so happy, if only for a short time, if you love food.” discovercarmarthenshire.com visitpembrokeshire.com discoverceredigion.co.uk midwalesmyway.com

A luxury B&B in the lovely Towy Valley near the National Botanic Garden of Wales. llwynhelygcountryhouse.co.uk The perfect gastropub for food pilgrims. ypolynrestaurant.co.uk Food, drink, deli, occasional guest chef slots, cult cinema nights – all done the Wright way. wrightsfood.co.uk One man’s obsession with charcuterie leads to piggy perfection. charcutierltd.wordpress.com Michelin-star chef Will Holland lands his own beachfront fish restaurant. coastsaundersfoot.co.uk SeaShore wraps and lobster rolls are on the menu on one of Pembrokeshire’s finest beaches. cafemor.co.uk Home-grown potatoes and salad crops from the farm, with seasonal fruit and veg. llwynhelygfarmshop.co.uk Famous for its honey ice cream, and there’s also the freshest fish landed daily. thehiveaberaeron.com Cult Spanish deli in Aberystwyth and Narberth. ultracomida.co.uk A herd of pasture-fed water buffalo produce a gloriously rich cheese. buffalodairy.co.uk Organic pioneers who have produced arguably Wales’s finest veg for 30 years. blaencamel.com Free-range pork, bacon and sausages from a happy herd of wild boar cross pigs. harmonyherd.co.uk Countless awards for cheese, and the distillery is set to do the same. damhile.co.uk | teificheese.co.uk Butcher-farmer Rob Rattray produces perfect meat from his own and other local farms. robrattray.co.uk Posh pizza is the trump card at this buzzing café-brasserie. baravin.co.uk No frills, no fuss, just beautifully cooked food at this idyllic rectory. theoldvicaragedolfor.co.uk

visitwales.com

15

the incrEdibles

In September, the culinary world centres on the Abergavenny Food Festival, but the taste of Wales can been enjoyed throughout the year in a banquet of food festivals and farmers’ markets.

A

bergavenny is a real foodie town.

Locals come here for the market, which runs three days a week, every week. There are fine wine auctions at the saleroom. There are cracking pubs, including a genuine heart-of-the-community coaching inn, The Angel, which still does proper high teas (but also cocktails and wagyu steaks).

Within five miles (8km) are three of the best places to eat in Wales or anywhere else: the Walnut Tree, The Hardwick and The Foxhunter.

If Abergavenny is the epicentre of Welsh food, for the third weekend in September it becomes the centre of the entire food world. Abergavenny Food Festival was founded in 1999 by a couple of local farmers, and it has grown into arguably the best food event in Britain, with more than 220 stalls attracting up to 40,000 visitors.

Most people come simply to stroll around the stalls, taste new things, and buy something for supper or the store cupboard. But there are also masterclasses

and demonstrations, debates and lectures, where you can learn about everything from foraging to fine wine, and get insider info from some of the biggest names in food.

There’s also lots of live music and a big Saturday night shindig in the castle grounds.

It’s a must-visit in the food industry calendar, as chefs and food writers pile into town to catch up with each other, share gossip and, like the rest of us, amble around. In previous years, you might easily have found yourself alongside food eminences like Raymond Blanc, Antonio Carluccio, Anthony Bourdain, Georgio Locatelli, Yotam Ottolenghi, Pierre Koffmann, Claudia Rodin and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

In the best foodie tradition, you can taste before buying: go online to visitwales.com/proof-pudding and have a butcher’s at the short film we made with Xanthe Clay at the 2014 Festival. We had a fantastic time, and we know you will, too. abergavennyfoodfestival.com

2

3 1

Farmers’ Markets The ancient ideal of local food, bought direct from the people who grew/raised/baked/brewed it, never went away in Wales. Drive the backroads of rural Wales and you’ll often find honesty boxes at the gate, and signs saying things like ‘wyau ar werth’ (eggs for sale) or ‘tato newi’ (slangy Welsh for ‘new potatoes’).

Traditional town markets are still important, too – Swansea, Abergavenny, Mold and Machynlleth are great examples.

Somewhere between the two lies the Farmers’ Market movement, which has been a powerful force in bringing niche producers together to sell their wares. Some markets are little more than a dozen trestle tables in a village hall, held once a month.

Others, like Cardiff’s excellent weekly Riverside Market, has spread to three venues and runs its own community allotment.

Either way, whenever you visit Wales, there’ll be one near you. For the definitive list of times and places, see the Farmers’ Markets in Wales website: fmiw.co.uk.

XX

visitwales.com

4

Food Festivals

5

Help yourself from our all-you-can-eat smörgåsbord of food festivals. Usually served with a side-order of live music, and washed down with a glass of local happy juice. What’s not to like? april Broneirion Food Fair (Llandinam) broneirion.com Gorseinon-Swansea Food Festival gdt.org.uk/foodfestival may Caerphilly Food Festival caerphilly.gov.uk/foodfestival Welsh Perry & Cider Festival (Monmouthshire) welshcider.co.uk Wrexham Food Festival wrexhamfoodfest.co.uk june Hay Summer Food Festival breconbeacons.org/food-festivals Newcastle Emlyn Food Festival emlynfoodfestival.org.uk july Cardiff International Food & Drink Festival cardiff-festival.com 1. Cardigan 2. Abergavenny 3. Brecon

Cardigan Bay Seafood Festival aberaeronfishfest.com Lampeter Food Festival lampeterfoodfestival.org.uk august Big Welsh Bite (Pontypridd) rctcbc.gov.uk Cardigan River & Food Festival cardigan-food-festival.co.uk september Abergavenny Food Festival abergavennyfoodfestival.com Feastival (Bridgend) bridgendbites.com Narberth Food Festival narberthfoodfestival.com Newtown Food & Drink Festival newtown.org.uk Mold Food Festival moldfoodfestival.co.uk St Fagans Food Festival museumwales.ac.uk/stfagans 4. Abergavenny 5. Cardigan

october Anglesey Oyster & Welsh Produce Festival angleseyoysterfestival.com Brecon Beacons Food Festival (Brecon) breconbeacons.org Gwledd Conwy Feast conwyfeast.com Llangollen Food Festival llangollenfoodfestival.com Mumbles Oyster Festival mumblesoysterfestival.com Neath Food & Drink Festival neathfoodfestival.co.uk Newport Food Festival newportfoodfestival.co.uk november Hay Winter Food Festival breconbeacons.org/food-festivals december Abergavenny Christmas Food & Drink Fair abergavennyfoodfestival.com Portmeirion Food & Craft Fair portmeirion-village.com

visitwales.com

17

Stumbling across an idyllic sandy cove, or discovering a secret waterfall is the unpredictable magic that makes a good day a bit special. Wales is full of these unexpected surprises, as wild swimming expert and author Daniel Start has discovered.

Wild AT

Heart I

grew up on the River Wye near Hereford and my family spent a lot of time in Wales around the Black Mountain and in the Brecon Beacons, swimming among the wonderful streams, pools and secret waterfalls. I really caught the wild swimming bug from an early age.

Here’s just a small selection of Wales’s wild swimming locations – both along the coast and inland – that feature in my books. They all take that little bit of extra effort to get to, so they’re never crowded.

We know that swimming is one of the best forms of exercise, but even a little dip in a secret pool or a beautiful lake is good for both body and mind.

You needn’t wander too far off the beaten track to discover that wild swimming gives you a spectacular introduction to Wales’s natural history wildswimming .co.uk

Porth Oer, Ll y^ n Peninsula

12 18

visitwales.com

Coast: the hidden beaches of Wales Porth Wen, Isle of Anglesey It’s one of the most interesting but spookiest of Anglesey’s many coves. Down an unsigned, little-used path you come upon a ruined harbour and old brick works with a honeycomb of furnaces and chimneystacks to explore. Enjoy the perfect white shingle beach and rock arch as you think about the people who once lived and worked here and rejoice that nature has reclaimed this quiet place for herself. visitanglesey.co.uk

The Blue Lagoon, Abereiddi, Pembrokeshire West of Porthgain – a pretty harbour village with a restaurant, pub and galleries – there are more treats, including a swim through a giant arch at Porth Dwfn, the wide sands of Traeth Llyfn and finally Abereiddi’s famous Blue Lagoon, a disused quarry long since breached by the sea to become an inland lake. The quarry’s old wheelhouse provides three platforms for leaping into the deep blue abyss below – a famous rite of passage for local swimmers and visitors alike. visitpembrokeshire.com

Porthdinllaen, Ll^yn Peninsula A delightful car-free hamlet owned by the National Trust, just below Nefyn & District Golf Club. Near the lifeboat ramp there are two tiny sandy coves that are good for swimming. You may find yourself in the company of seals basking on nearby rocks. The T^y Coch pub is one of the most recognisable spots in the area and is a wonderful spot to relax on a sunny summer evening. visitsnowdonia.info

Mwnt beach, Ceredigion Watched over by an ancient church, this perfect sandy cove, sheltered by sandstone cliffs, is great for snorkelling. As you approach the coast through empty countryside and down miles of tiny lanes it’s difficult to imagine that this area was the scene of a major 12th-century battle. Whole skeletons are still unearthed

Porth Oer, Ll^yn Peninsula

periodically from the fields around. Mwnt, though remote, is far from secret and is popular with families, so if you’re yearning for a wilder adventure, explore a few hundred yards along the Wales Coast Path to the east. Here you’ll find great slabs of rock that shelve into perfect clear water, ideal for sea-caving and snorkelling. discoverceredigion.co.uk

Porth Oer (Whistling Sands) is one of a string of pearly coves formed as the peninsula’s north-western coastal mountain gives way to moorland. Porth Oer is perhaps the best known of these coves and the grains really do squeak underfoot, piping shrill notes when the wind blows in from the west. A small National Trust café provides sustenance and the cliff walk immediately south leads to the small island headlands of Dinas Bach and Dinas Fawr with sea caves for exploring. visitsnowdonia.info

visitwales.com visitwales.com

19 12

Bluepool Corner, Gower Peninsula This is one of the best plunge pools in Britain, scoured out of the rocks by wave-driven eddies that tumbled giant cobbles in its depths.

A friend and I had been given a tip-off about its location. We arrived on mountain bikes, threw them into the long grass and scampered down the rocky path to join a group of teenagers who were practising somersaults into the dark purple waters. I eased myself in and swam around for a while, ‘plumb lining’ to try to calculate the depth. As I couldn’t touch the bottom, I rejoined the others who showed me how to do backflips instead. visitswanseabay.com

Confucius Hole and caves, Broad Haven, Pembrokeshire This is one of the most spectacular stretches of coast in Britain with many caves and sea caverns. Look out for St Govan’s Chapel hidden in the cliffs near Bosherston. If you are feeling adventurous, there are several dramatic swims between Broad Haven and Barafundle Bay. One of the best is at Confucius Hole, a huge crater that fills up into a great blue lagoon with each tide. In calm seas you can enter via a sea cave in the sea cliffs, though this is only accessible at low tide. visitpembrokeshire.com

Harlech beach, Snowdonia The beach below Harlech’s imposing 14th-century castle has one of the few dune systems in the UK that is growing, extending further into Cardigan Bay. This

12 visitwales.com 20 visitwales.com

designated National Nature Reserve and Site of Special Scientific Interest is well worth further exploration and the large, flat beach is well served with parking, shop, toilets and camp site. Keep an eye out for dolphins playing in the bay. visitsnowdonia.info

Traeth Mawr, Monknash, Vale of Glamorgan The majestic Glamorgan Heritage Coast features cliffs composed of stacked limestone strata and flat limestone pavements stretch into the sea. Monknash makes a perfect base: from here a stream with a ruined mill leads to the vast beach of Traeth Mawr. If you’re looking for a roaring fire and an impressive selection of ales and ciders, head for the Plough and Harrow inn back in the village, built from the ruins of the adjacent monastery. bridgendbites.com / visitthevale.com

Barafundle Bay, Stackpole, Pembrokeshire A permanent fixture in lists of Britain’s best beaches, surrounded by lovely dunes and woodland. On the end of the headland you’ll find three fantastic natural arches with Gaudi-esque spires supporting them. It’s like a sunken gargoyle-covered cathedral. This is coasteering country and the intrepid might make their way along the cliffs to Stackpole Quay, checking out the massive Lorts Cave along the way. Wellearned rewards await at the National Trust café or the Stackpole Inn. visitpembrokeshire.com

Inland: wild swimming in Wales Lady Falls, Brecon Beacons The Waterfalls Woods are the most spectacular series of waterfalls in Wales, with aqua forest lidos fit for the gods. Lady Falls is variable: sometimes it can be a roaring cascade, at other times a trickle. If you’re well equipped and have time, you may be able to bushwhack your way up a further 0.6 miles (1km) through the forest above Lady Falls to find the falls of Einion Gam, named after the lover of Gwladys, daughter of 10th-century King Brychan. This is twice as tall, and its pool is cut into a sheer-sided ravine. breconbeacons.org | midwalesmyway.com

The Warren, Hay-on-Wye The home of literary festivals and secondhand bookshops, is also the site of the famous riverside ‘Warren’ – a stretch of Wye-side shingle and shallows popular with families. During the Hay Festival you’ll find it packed with people from all over the world, propped up on one elbow reading with their picnics and Pimms. midwalesmyway.com

Llyn y Fan Fach, Carmarthenshire This is one of two high tarns that sit beneath the peak of the Black Mountain.

For many centuries legend has told of a ‘Lady of the Lake’ who married a local farmer with a pre-nuptial clause that if he struck her three times, she would return to her lake. The marriage ended in tears and the Lady would rise, shimmering on the first Sunday of August at two o’clock in the afternoon. It’s a stunning location. breconbeacons.org discovercarmarthenshire.org

Rhaeadr Mawddach, Snowdonia The gold from this valley near Dolgellau made Princess Diana’s wedding ring and has been the royal choice since Roman times.

The last commercial operation closed down in 1998 but there are still many old workings along the gorge. The most prominent is Rhaeadr Mawddach, a large, deep plunge pool at a huge waterfall, set among goldmine ruins. visitsnowdonia.info

Be safe – Wild swimming is fantastic fun, but please do read up on the risks before taking the plunge. For lots of essential safety advice, go to wildswimming.co.uk and nationalwatersafety.org.uk. Don’t swim until you do!

visitwales.com

21

town& country 22

visitwales.com

The splendid countryside of Wales draws visitors from all over the world. Our capital city, Cardiff, is also a major attraction.

Discovering these places for yourself is part of the pleasure, but it can help to enlist a friendly face for some expert advice on where to go and what to see.

Huw Stephens, (left) at The Pettigrew Tea Rooms, Cardiff, while Iolo Williams (this page) is happiest in the heather

Huw Stephens has been immersed in the music scene of his native Cardiff for most of his life and has been broadcasting on BBC Radio 1 since he was 17 years old. Iolo Williams, meanwhile, is a wildlife expert and television presenter who has been exploring every nook and cranny of the Welsh countryside since roaming the hedgerows with his Taid (North Walian for grandfather) as a kid.

Both of them know their stuff. Just as well, really.

visitwales.com

23

Swˆn Festival

Shady character on Womanby Street

International rugby at the Millennium Stadium

Bright Lights, Big City with Huw Stephens Cardiff I was born about 20 minutes from the centre of Cardiff. When I was getting into music in the ’90s it coincided with a really exciting time for music in the city. You’d see bands on telly like the Manic Street Preachers, Stereophonics, Super Furry Animals and Catatonia, then you’d see them in the pub. It felt like I was living in one of the key music hotspots in the world. Things really developed from that point forwards.

As a city, there have been loads of changes over the last ten years and Cardiff’s a really friendly and sociable place to be. There are lots of little nooks and crannies to explore.

The music scene in Cardiff covers all the bases, from gentle country music to experimental electronic music. It’s a very organic environment, with lots of small venues and clubs providing great spaces for musicians to play.

Right: Kelly Jones, Stereophonics

24

visitwales.com

Milgi Café

Sw ˆ n Festival The Swˆn Festival is a lively celebration of independent music, usually in October. It features dozens of emerging bands in venues right across Cardiff. The city is an ideal place for this kind of event – and it’s a great time to visit.

2015 will be the ninth year we’ve held the event and I’ve been involved with it from the beginning, when one of the highlights was driving round town trying to get a rapper called Skinnyman a bottle of whisky at 2am. There has been some impressive music over the years and there’s plenty more to come. swnfest.com

The Millennium Stadium The fact that there is a 74,500 capacity sports stadium right in the middle of the

city emphasises just how important sport is to Cardiff.

The Millennium Stadium is an amazing place and there’s nothing quite like that buzz of an international rugby weekend.

Cardiff Blues rugby team is the regional side and they play their home matches at the ground alongside the Millennium Stadium. Cardiff City Football Club is a little further away from the centre of town, but the club is close to the heart of the people of Cardiff. millenniumstadium.com cardiffblues.com cardiffcityfc.co.uk

Cardiff’s record shops Spillers Records is the oldest record shop in the world, but it’s no museum attraction.

Spillers is really active in promoting new music and it’s a fantastic place to find out

Sherman Theatre

Cardiff City Stadium

Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay

what’s going on locally. They sell local music, they publicise live shows, they put on their own gigs and they’re always out and about supporting the music scene in Cardiff.

I also try to pop in to Catapult whenever I’m in town.

Electronic music and dance music have always had a big part to play within the Cardiff scene. It has had some big success stories and the story seems to get better every year.

Both shops are really at the heart of the independent music community in Cardiff. spillersrecords.co.uk catapult.co.uk

Clwb Ifor Bach My favourite venue in the world is Clwb Ifor Bach, just around the corner from Cardiff Castle. The direct translation is ‘Little Ivor’s Club’, about as uncool a name

as you could imagine, which perversely makes it really cool.

Anyway, Clwb or ‘the Welsh club’ as it’s known has been going for over 25 years. There’s music across three floors – it’s the great place to see bands on the rise and it has excellent club nights. I’ve seen some terrific gigs there and I’ve put on some huge nights there. clwb.net

Food and Drink Nobody can live by music alone and there are tons of awesome places to eat and drink in Cardiff. Gwdihwˆ is a nice little café bar during the day and it has gig nights on in the evening. Another place worth visiting is the Urban Taphouse on Womanby Street, down the road from Clwb Ifor Bach.

It serves craft beers from all over the world, as well their

own Tiny Rebel beer, which has won loads of awards.

My favourite place to eat in Cardiff is Restaurant Minuet, also known as Marcello’s, after the former owner. It’s a tiny place in the Castle Arcade, just opposite Cardiff Castle. It serves fantastic pasta dishes named after Marcello’s favourite opera singers. It has been a Cardiff institution since the ’80s and it’s well worth seeking out.

Milgi is cool in the heavily student-populated area of Roath. It’s a very chilled café bar and I’ve been to some great parties there.

Chapter Arts Centre is also a short journey from the city centre, but it’s well worth it.

It’s recognised as the creative hub of Cardiff, with exhibitions and installations, cinema, theatrical performances and music. It’s also great to just hang out there and grab something to eat and drink.

You can’t leave Cardiff without visiting The Pettigrew Tea Rooms, practically next door to Cardiff Castle.

As well as exotic teas like Russian Caravan and their lovely cakes they do a hearty Welsh breakfast. It’s a lovely, indulgent place. gwdihw.co.uk urbantaphouse.co.uk restaurantminuet.co.uk milgilounge.com chapter.org pettigrew-tearooms.com visitcardiff.com

visitwales.com

25

Cross Country with Iolo Williams Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire We have a handful of wildlife reserves in Wales that can compare with anywhere else in the world. And by that, I mean the Amazon rainforest, the Great Barrier Reef, or the Serengeti National Park.

Foremost among all of them for me is Skomer Island. You have to go and make every effort to stay overnight, between mid-April and the end of June or early July. That’s when it’s at its best – when you’ve got hundreds of thousands of seabirds there, including 6,500 pairs of puffins – and everybody loves puffins.

There are razorbills and guillemots, the short-eared owl, and if you stay overnight you’ve also got the Manx shearwater. If you had to pick a single species of bird for which Wales is internationally important it would be this bird. On three islands alone – Bardsey (off the Ll yˆ n Peninsula), Skomer and Skokholm (off the Pembrokeshire coast) – Wales has well over half the world’s population of this species.

Over 150,000 pairs of Manx shearwater come alive at night. There’s an amazing story of one found on Bardsey Island that was first ringed as an adult bird in 1955 and was last seen on the island in 2009. It was estimated that it had flown more than four million miles (6.4 million km) in its lifetime – that’s further than flying from the Earth to the moon eight times. welshwildlife.org visitsnowdonia.info visitpembrokeshire.com

Lake Vyrnwy, Montgomeryshire The area is famous for its reservoir and the Lake Vyrnwy hotel, but the biggest attraction for me are the moorlands around Lake Vyrnwy. This is where I grew up. There are a number of fantastic walks and it’s very quiet. You rarely see another soul.

The environment has changed quite dramatically since I was a child. Back then, several gamekeepers were employed to

26

visitwales.com

manage the moor, which had positives and negatives. There used to be plenty of red grouse for shooting, as well as curlews and lapwings, but there were virtually no birds of prey because the gamekeepers would shoot, trap or poison them.

Nowadays you’ll spot birds of prey like the hen harrier and the merlin, as well as the rare black grouse.

My favourite spot in the area is the Rhiwargor waterfalls. It’s a series of falls – if they came down in one go it would be by some distance the highest waterfall in the UK. As a youngster I’d climb down off the moors and go fishing there and, in my early years of courting we used to take the girls up there for a barbecue – very fond memories… lakevyrnwy.com rspb.org.uk midwalesmyway.com

Cwm Idwal, Snowdonia Cwm Idwal is just off the A5, so it’s easily accessible – and it’s home to some very rare plants left behind after the last ice age. The rarest of all is the Snowdon Lily, found in maybe half a dozen places in Snowdonia and nowhere else in the whole of the UK. But Cwm Idwal offers more than that.

It’s a beautiful quarry lake – Llyn Idwal – surrounded by an amphitheatre of cliffs and it’s a wonderful place to escape. It’s one of those unique places that evokes the Welsh saying, ‘Lle i enaid gael llonydd’ – a place for a soul to find peace.

Historically it’s quite significant too, because it’s one of the places Charles Darwin sought out to find out more about the ice age. It helped him to formulate his theory of evolution. You could spend a month in Snowdonia and still have plenty of places left to explore.

There are so many hidden gems, but I can’t tell you about them, otherwise they wouldn’t be hidden any more, would they… eryri-npa.gov.uk visitsnowdonia.info

Aberdaron, Llyˆn Peninsula So many visitors to the area head to Criccieth and to Porthmadog, maybe as far as Abersoch, but will head no further west. By doing so they’re missing out on one of the best bits of Wales.

It’s a wonderful place to go walking, from Aberdaron, all the way round the end of the Llyˆn Peninsula, with views looking out towards Bardsey Island. I tend to go in winter, when there are far fewer people around and you get the wind whistling in from the Irish Sea. It’s just a lovely time of year to go there.

There are plenty of things to see along the way – it’s one of the best places to meet a very rare crow called the chough. You’ll often see 20 or 30 birds wheeling above you, especially in high winds. When I’m searching for a bit of solitude and clean air this is where I go. aberdaronlink.co.uk visitsnowdonia.info

Bute Park, Cardiff It might come as a surprise that one of my favourite pieces of the countryside is in the heart of the Welsh capital. You are surrounded by 300,000 people living in the area, yet along the River Taff in Bute Park you can see otters, salmon and kingfishers.

There are nesting sparrow hawks as well as your common garden birds, like blue tits and great tits. It’s the habitat of green woodpeckers, great spotted woodpeckers and tawny owls.

Cardiff is a wonderful city to visit – even more so for the fact that you can take some time out from the hustle. You can find a nice quiet corner and just watch the wildlife, or you can pick blackberries or nuts. In fact, you can do most things you’d do in the countryside, right in the heart of the capital city of Wales. bute-park.com visitcardiff.com

Aberdaron

Rhiwargor Waterfalls

Cwm Idwal, Snowdonia

Bute Park

Spot otters in the heart of the city

Skomer Island

Atlantic puffin, Skomer Island

Lake Vyrnwy

visitwales.com

27

Events Diary 2015 It’s a big, busy year ahead, what with all that Test Match cricket and World Cup rugby, festivals major and minor, parades and parties, and the kind of oddball events that we’re proud to say couldn’t possibly happen anywhere else but Wales (Llanwrtyd Wells, we’re looking at you).

Porthcawl

St David’s Day Parade

We can’t list everything here, or this magazine would weigh three tons. But you’ll find full details on the internet, and we humbly suggest visitwales.com as a good place to start. And if you can’t find an event to thrill, delight, inform or educate you – or simply make you laugh – we’ll refund your Severn Bridge toll.* * Terms and conditions apply, the main one being, we’re only joking

XX 28

visitwales.com

JANUARY 10th January World MTB Chariot Racing Championships & Saturnalia Beer Festival, Llanwrtyd Wells Saturnalia was the major midwinter Roman festival. In this version, you’re encouraged to wear Roman dress, eat Roman food, quaff fine ales and party with friends. The chariot racing is just about the silliest, funniest thing you can do on a mountain bike – or rather a pair of them, harnessed to a chariot made from an old steel drum. It’s all huge fun. green-events.co.uk

February 3rd–13th February Quiltfest, Llangollen Anything and everything to do with quilt making: exhibitions, competitions, demonstrations and workshops. The quilts reflect the individuality and diversity of their makers, and yet they are bound by common threads of a shared culture. quiltfest.org.uk

5th–10th February Abertawe Festival for Young Musicians, Swansea An annual event comprising of competitive and non-competitive classes in Piano, Strings, Woodwind and Ensemble sections. afym.org.uk 6th February Wales v England, Cardiff The Millennium Stadium hosts the opening fixture of the 2015 Six Nations rugby championship, as Wales take on England.

This year’s clash is even more piquant than usual: Wales and England are drawn in the same Rugby World Cup group later this year. millenniumstadium.com

MARCH 1st March St David’s Day Parade To celebrate our Patron Saint’s day, there’s a big parade through the centre of Cardiff, and plenty of festivals, concerts, street parties and other special events all over Wales. stdavidsday.org

Anglesey Half Marathon

Chariot racing, Llanwrtyd Wells

1st March Anglesey Half Marathon, Anglesey This popular annual race takes runners across the world famous Menai Bridge and follows the coast road to Beaumaris Castle and back. angleseyhalfmarathon.com 14th March Wales v Ireland, Cardiff The penultimate round of the Six Nations rugby championship, and what we confidently predict will be the Triple Crown decider… millenniumstadium.com 23rd–27th March Zoom International Youth Film Festival, South Wales Wales’s largest film event for young people has workshops, awards, glitzy evening screenings for all the family and short films from all over the world. zoomcymru.com

Quiltfest, Llangollen

visitwales.com

29

April

Walking in the Brecon Beacons

10th–12th April The Laugharne Weekend Like the town itself, the Laugharne Weekend is quirkily brilliant, with the oddest (in a good way) assortment of literary and musical talent ever assembled in one place, from Patti Smith to Wilko Johnson. One thing’s for sure – Dylan Thomas would have loved it. thelaugharneweekend.com 17th–19th April Dark Skies Festival, Hay-on-Wye The Brecon Beacons National Park is an International Dark Sky Reserve, and the perfect place to observe the night sky at any time of year. At this special event at Hay-on-Wye there’ll be displays, Solar Observing, a Planetarium experience, a visit to the Spaceguard Observatory (home to the National Near Earth Objects Information Centre), and night-time observations in the company of experts. darkskiesfestival.org 22nd–25th April Focus Wales, Wrexham This four-day annual festival showcases 150+ bands and standup comedians, and hosts a series of interactive sessions with music industry experts. FOCUS Wales 2015 will mark the festival’s 5th birthday, building upon 2014’s record attendance across a jam-packed weekend of events focuswales.com

25th–26th April Wonderwool Wales, Builth Wells A fantastic range of Welsh and British artisan products and an opportunity to meet the wonderful people who made them, showcasing the best in Welsh and British wool and natural fibres. wonderwoolwales.co.uk

MAY 1st–31st May Ramblers Cymru Big Welsh Walk You’re just two feet from exploring Wales on foot this May. Join Ramblers Cymru or partners on a walk and celebrate Ramblers 80th year. ramblers.org.uk/wales

1st–3rd May Machynlleth Comedy Festival Mach has grown into a major date on the comedy calendar, without losing its sense of fun and mischief. There’s a big, eclectic line-up in several quirky venues, served up with lashings of local beer and cider. No wonder performers love coming here. machcomedyfest.co.uk 1st–4th May Talgarth Walking Festival, Brecon Beacons Walkers of all ages and abilities can participate in guided walks in the unspoilt and stunning Brecon Beacons. talgarthwalkingfestival.org

Free wheeling

Cycling the Mawddach Trail (Lon Mawddach)

30

visitwales.com

There are 1,200 miles (1,931km) of cycle paths on the National Cycle Network, including 331 miles (532km) of traffic-free rides which are perfect for families. Gentle runs, like Monmouth’s Peregrine Path, the Mawddach Trail near Dolgellau, and the Millennium Coastal Path, take just an hour or so. The 250-mile (402km) Lôn Las Cymru, from Holyhead to Chepstow, may take a little longer. For all these and more, see sustrans.org.uk.

Road cycling, meanwhile, has become a national obsession. In fact, the archdruid of British cycling, Sir Dave Brailsford, says, “It’s hard to get a better area for cycling, or a more stunning part of the world. Wales has some of the most unbelievably fantastic scenery and roads. Our environment, the topography, the scenery, the lakes, the coast, the relatively calm traffic – it all makes it just brilliant for enjoyable cycling.”

Llandudno Victorian Extravaganza

Green Man Festival

Sounds Exciting Wales has consistently exported great musical talent across the world – ranging from opera stars like Bryn Terfel to creative troubadours like Gruff Rhys. In more recent years, there’s been a welcome reversal, with Wales attracting emerging musical talent to its growing list of world-class music festivals.

The Green Man Festival at the Glanusk Estate in Mid Wales and Festival No. 6 at Portmeirion are among the most picturesque settings for any music event on the planet. There’s Wakestock, the celebration of music and watersports, near Abersoch, and the electronic music festival Gottwood on Anglesey, as well as established events like Brecon Jazz, which celebrated its 30th birthday in 2014.

Nobody ever really knows how these things happen, but there has been a continued growth in the vibrant contemporary music scene in Wales, with the likes of Cate Le Bon, Georgia Ruth and H Hawkline making waves.

Chances are it has got something to do with Swˆn, the independent music festival which takes place across the city centre venues of Cardiff every year. greenman.net festivalnumber6.com wakestock.co.uk gottwood.co.uk breconjazz.org swnfest.com

2nd–4th May Llandudno Victorian Extravaganza This graceful seaside resort returns to its roots to celebrate its Victorian heritage.

An event packed full of steam engines, Victorian musical organs, vintage cars, costumes, curiosities and side shows. victorian-extravaganza.com 8th–10th May Tredegar House Folk Festival, Newport A rollicking weekend of international dance, music and song, held in this fine Charles II country mansion. Ceilidhs and clog-dancing will certainly feature, and the odd hurdygurdy cannot be ruled out. tredegarhousefestival.org.uk

17th–19th May RHS Flower Show, Cardiff Held in Bute Park against the backdrop of Cardiff Castle, the show provides an inspirational display of vibrant gardening, floral delights and expert advice. rhs.org.uk 21st–31st May Hay Festival, Hay-on-Wye Calling it a ‘book festival’ doesn’t even come close to describing what goes on at this incredible gathering of the world’s greatest writers and thinkers. There are 900+ events over the ten days, featuring politicians and poets, scientists and comedians, novelists

and astronauts, economists and ecologists, musicians and philosophers – all coming together to kick around big ideas that will change the way you think forever. The format couldn’t be simpler: you turn up in a big tent and listen to these geniuses, and ask them questions. Last year, for example, we collectively grilled the head of Google on his tax shenanigans, listened to Stephen Fry rhapsodise about Shakespeare, and watched Benedict Cumberbatch sneak up behind Dame Judy Dench (you had to be there…). There’s also great food and drink, lovely scenery – and plenty of books, of course. hayfestival.com

Hugh Dennis, Hay Festival

16th–17th May Royal Welsh Agricultural Society Spring Festival, Builth Wells The number one event for smallholding, gardening and sustainable living. rwas.co.uk/spring-festival 16th–17th May Snowdonia Slateman Triathlon, Llanberis There are two brutally brilliant triathlons this weekend: the Sprint and the Full. Or if you’re utterly rock-hard, complete both and earn the coveted title of Slateman Savage, you nutter. snowdoniaslateman.com

visitwales.com

31

Mount Snowdon, part of the Welsh Three Peaks Challenge

Cowbridge Food and Drink Festival

21st–24th May Aberystwyth Cycle Festival This celebration of cycling attracts Britain’s best bikers. Visitors can watch all the onand off-road action and also experience the beautiful and undiscovered lanes of Ceredigion on their own bikes. abercyclefest.com 24th May Welsh Open Stoneskimming Championships, Llanwrtyd Wells Stoneskimming is the ancient art of bouncing stones as far as possible across water. You can enter the fray or just enjoy the amusing stone-themed events. green-events.co.uk 24th–25th May Cowbridge Food and Drink Festival This award-winning festival sees the town at its most vibrant with a weekend of culinary excellence and all-round family entertainment. cowbridgefoodanddrink.org

All Wales Boat Show, Conwy

25th–26th May Abergavenny Steam & Vintage Rally A marvellous day out for the whole family with steam and vintage vehicles, a children’s playground, food village, rural crafts and handicrafts. abergavennysteamrally.co.uk 25th–30th May Urdd Eisteddfod, Caerphilly One of the largest cultural youth festivals in Europe, around 100,000 come to watch more than 15,000 children and young people compete in song, dance, drama and design. urdd.org/eisteddfod

JUNE, JULY & AUGUST Cardiff Festival It’s a long, hot summer of activity in the capital, with all kind of entertainment – including gigs, theatre, street entertainers, food festival, powerboating – gathered under the Festival banner. cardiff-festival.com Great Welsh Beer & Cider Festival

32

visitwales.com

4th–6th June (tbc) Great Welsh Beer & Cider Festival, Cardiff The recent surge of interest in artisan beer and cider is heart-warming, and largely thanks to the dogged efforts of CAMRA, who held back the tides of industrial fizzy lager. In 2014, they assembled the biggest collection of proper Welsh beer and cider under one roof, and are promising even more this year. Iechyd da, we say. gwbcf.org.uk 5th–7th June All Wales Boat Show, Conwy A celebratory festival of all water-based activities, from wakeboarding to luxury yachts. allwalesboatshow.com 6th June Big Welsh Trail, Coed Llandegla Forest A half marathon and and 6.3 mile (10km) route takes in some stunning and aweinspiring trails through the 650 hectares of this beautiful forest. bigwelshtrail.com

Literary links Llandudno – This elegant resort has always been proud of its links with Alice Liddell, the little girl who inspired Alice in Wonderland, and who spent her childhood holidays here. There’s already an Alice trail to follow around Llandudno, and this year they’re celebrating the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s much-loved adventure with a series of special events. visitllandudno.org.uk Llandaff, Cardiff – Roald Dahl was born in Llandaff, attended the local Cathedral School, and spent most of his boyhood in what is now a prosperous suburb of Cardiff – which he wrote about in his autobiography, Boy. The centenary of Dahl’s birth in 2016 will spark lots of celebrations in various places around the city, including the Norwegian Church in Cardiff Bay, where Dahl was baptised. visitcardiff.com Llyˆn Peninsula – The priest and poet RS Thomas often cut a forbidding figure. Yet he wrote in English, with dazzling skill, and often with tender beauty. RS served several rural parishes but is most associated with the wild farming communities of Llˆyn, where he spent the last 33 years of his life. visitsnowdonia.info Gower, Swansea – Dylan Thomas’s haunts were also the setting for Kingsley Amis’s 1986 Booker Prize-winning novel, The Old Devils. Amis taught English at Swansea University throughout the 1950s and his son and fellow novelist Martin Amis was brought up here. visitswanseabay.com Abergavenny and Hay-on-Wye – The back roads between our two great festival towns skirt the edge of the Black Mountain through utterly gorgeous countryside. This remote rural idyll has inspired lots of artistic works, including two notable novels: Owen Sheers’ Resistance and Bruce Chatwin’s On the Black Hill. visitwyevalley.com

13th–14th June Man v Horse, Llanwrtyd Wells Man has beaten horse just twice in the 34-year history of this 22-mile (35.4km) race through gorgeous countryside. The jackpot rises by £500 each year until it is won; the last winning human, in 2004, scooped £25,000. It took 25 years before a man finally beat a horse, Huw Lobb won in 2hrs and 5mins beating the fastest horse by 2 minutes. green-events.co.uk 13th–14th June Welsh Three Peaks Challenge Can you climb three of the most iconic mountains in Wales – Pen y Fan, Cadair Idris and Snowdon – in a single weekend? snowdon500.co.uk

Llandudno

Llyˆn Peninsula

Three Cliffs Bay, Gower

14th June Velothon Wales, Cardiff Around 15,000 professional and amateur cyclists will take to the hills in the biggest cycling event ever held in Wales. There are 31 mile (50km) and 75 mile (120km) routes, which begin and end in Cardiff. velothon-wales.co.uk

26th June–5th July (tbc) Unity Festival, Cardiff Unity showcases all kinds of inclusive and disability arts – theatre, dance, music, family shows, comedy. Moreover, it’s simply fantastic entertainment of the highest quality. hijinx.org.uk/unity

14th–21st June Cardiff Singer of the World This world-class competition has helped to launch the careers of some of the finest classical singers around (including, back in 1989, both Bryn Terfel and Dmitri Hvorostovsky). bbc.co.uk/cardiffsinger

27th June–5th July Pembrokeshire Fish Week This whopper of a festival has more than 250 events celebrating the county’s great seafood and beautiful coastline. Learn to fly-fish, go crab-catching, tuck into the freshest seafood, get digging in a sandcastle challenge, and much more. pembrokeshirefishweek.co.uk

visitwales.com

33

Welsh international footballer Gareth Bale

Game for anything What do the world’s most expensive footballer, Wales’s Gareth Bale, British & Irish Lions rugby captain Sam Warburton, and Olympic gold medal cyclist Geraint Thomas have in common?

They all went to Whitchurch High School in Cardiff (which also produced two other recent Olympians, sprinter Matt Elias and ice dancer Lloyd Jones).

Sport is a national obsession here, and we’re not really bothered which sport. In football, Swansea City FC have charmed the Premiership with a slick passing game, while Cardiff City are battling to get back into the top flight.

The Wales rugby team has enjoyed a hugely successful decade, supplying the bulk of the 2013 British Lions.

We’re hosting eight of the 2015 Rugby World Cup games at the Millennium Stadium, which was built to stage the 1999 tournament.

We’ve also hosted major events like the Tour of Britain cycling race, the Wales Rally GB, Ashes Test cricket, Red Bull Cliff Diving and The 2010 Ryder Cup. visitwales.com

JULY 2nd–5th July North Wales Bluegrass Festival, Conwy The UK’s longest-standing bluegrass festival brings in talent from all over the world, including its spiritual home, Appalachia. It’s a fascinating genre, with its earliest roots in British folk, filtered through AfricanAmerican, gospel and jazz influences. northwalesbluegrass.co.uk 3rd–5th July International Ceramics Festival, Aberystwyth This three-day festival has grown to become the UK’s leading ceramics event.

Have a smashing time. Actually, on second thoughts, don’t… internationalceramicsfestival.org 3rd–5th July Long Course Weekend, Tenby Pembrokeshire plays host to one of the toughest triathlons in Wales. Half the competitors don’t finish – and those that do represent the cream of triathlon talent in the UK and the world. longcourseweekend.com 4th July British Speedway Grand Prix, Cardiff The Millennium Stadium hosts its 14th consecutive FIM British Speedway Grand Prix. speedwaygp.com

34

visitwales.com

Llangollen International Eisteddfod

Wet Weekends

Surfing off the Gower Peninsula

7th–11th July Llangollen International Eisteddfod An extraordinary cultural celebration featuring 4,000 competitors from around the world in song, dance and music, and performances by the biggest singing stars.

A Fringe event has also sprung up, taking place in the town a week later. international-eisteddfod.co.uk

Wales loves its watersports. How much?

Well, there’s a white water rafting course a stone’s throw from the National Assembly building in Cardiff Bay. You’re spoilt for choice of great kayaking and canoeing trips along the rivers and lakes of Wales; or go in search of the perfect wave on the Gower Peninsula’s surfing beaches.

There’s also lots of fun to be had on a coasteering adventure in Pembrokeshire, the birthplace of the sport. Whether it’s scuba diving, windsurfing, kite surfing or stand-up paddle-boarding, the choices are plentiful. There’s 870 miles (1,400km) of coastline to explore, after all.

An exciting addition opens in 2015: Surf Snowdonia is the world’s first publically accessible Wavegarden – a 984ft (300m) long artificial surf lagoon being built in the foothills of our tallest mountain range. visitwales.com/activities

British Speedway Grand Prix, Cardiff

8th–12th July Investec Test Match, Cardiff Cardiff’s SWALEC Stadium hosts the opening Ashes test match against Australia, as it did in 2009 when England’s last pair James Anderson and Monty Panesar clung on for a famous draw. ecb.co.uk Wakestock, Abersoch

10th–12th July Wakestock, Abersoch Europe’s largest wakeboard music festival with free-to-watch wakeboarding by day and music by night. wakestock.co.uk 10th–12th July Vintage Festival 2015, Pembrey An amazing array of vintage vehicles and their owners, dressed to impress in 1940s and 50s style, with live music, makeovers, and vintage fun fair at this unique coastand-countrysidepark. facebook.com/vintagefunfestival

visitwales.com

35

20th–23rd July Royal Welsh Show, Builth Wells This huge agricultural show isn’t just about cows and combine harvesters. With live music, stunt displays, crafts stalls, great food and a host of other attractions, you don’t have to be a farmer (or Welsh) to love it. rwas.co.uk

Brecon Jazz

24th–26th July Big Cheese Festival, Caerphilly A celebration of the history, heritage and culture of Caerphilly with an extravaganza of street entertainers, living history encampments, music, dance, falconry, fire eating and much more, all set around Caerphilly Castle, one of the largest in Europe. visitcaerphilly.com/events/

AUGUST August Cardiff Bay Beach Roald Dahl Plass turns into a giant beach for the summer, with paddling pool, live music, traditional seaside rides and plenty of family activities. cardiffbaybeach.co.uk 1st–8th August National Eisteddfod of Wales, Welshpool (Meifod) Wales’s biggest arts festival is also its oldest, tracing its roots back to the year 1176. It’s an eclectic mix of old and new, traditional and modern, and a celebration of Wales’s culture and language. You don’t have to speak (or be) Welsh to enjoy the spectacle of an old language having very contemporary fun. eisteddfod.org.uk 7th–9th August Brecon Jazz To give you an idea of the calibre of acts at this top jazz festival, Burt Bacharach and Gregory Porter were the stars last year. Who will it be this year? breconjazz.org 11th–12th August Anglesey County Show, Holyhead The largest two-day agricultural show in Wales has more than 350 trade stands, entertainment marquee and country pursuits. angleseyshow.org.uk

36

visitwales.com

National Museum, Cardiff

National Treasures The seven National Museums of Wales are brilliant places to explore our history and culture – and they’re all free to visit.

The National Museum, Cardiff, houses literally millions of historic artefacts, and also has one of Europe’s greatest collections of European impressionist art.

On the outskirts of Cardiff is the open-air St Fagans National History Museum, where dozens of buildings have been moved brick-by-brick to the grounds of the magnificent St Fagans Castle.

At Big Pit National Coal Museum in Blaenavon, visitors can descend 295ft (90m) below ground

to sample the tough working conditions of a coal miner. By contrast, the Teifi Valley is a picturesque rural setting for the National Wool Museum, a restored mill which produced Welsh shawls, blankets and bedcovers famed across the world.

The story of the Roman occupation of Wales is vividly told at the National Roman Legion Museum in Caerleon, while the National Slate Museum in Snowdonia explores the quarrying heritage of North Wales. The newest addition, the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea, celebrates the story of industry and innovation in Wales. museumwales.ac.uk

Ironman Wales, Tenby

Ironman Wales, Tenby

Royal Welsh Agricultural Show, Builth Wells

15th August (tbc) Pride Cymru, Cardiff The city-centre Parade kicks off a day of live music that ends with an unmissable After Party. It’s the biggest and best LGBT bash in the calendar. pridecymru.co.uk 15th August Race the Train, Tywyn The narrow-gauge Talyllyn steam train is the pace-maker at this fabulous multiterrain race. There are several options, from the Toddlers Trot (a lap of the field) to the full 14-miler (22.5km), which the train can usually manage in about 1hr 48min. racethetrain.com 20th–23rd August Green Man Festival, Crickhowell Green Man was founded in 2003 as a one-day campfire folk event, and still stands out proudly in the left-field. It’s bigger – around 20,000 capacity these days – but still inhabits its own glorious alternative universe. The setting is gorgeous, and there’s the sheer diversity of entertainment: ten areas, 1,500 performers, 24-hour events, comedy, poetry, literature, wildlife

National Eisteddfod of Wales

Festival No. 6, Portmeirion

walks – and some of the best music around, from cutting-edge contemporary stars to venerable legends. greenman.net 28th–30th August Wales Senior Open, Celtic Manor Resort A host of international golfers on the European Seniors Tour take on the Twenty Ten Ryder Cup course in this golfing challenge. celtic-manor.com europeantour.com 29th August World Bog Snorkelling Championship, Llanwrtyd Wells Now in its 30th year, daring competitors battle it out in a 196-feet (60-metre) trench cut into a peat bog for the coveted title of World Champion Bog Snorkeller. green-events.co.uk

September & October Rugby World Cup, Cardiff The Millennium Stadium plays host to eight fixtures in this year’s Rugby World Cup, including two quarter finals. rugbyworldcup.com

3rd–6th September Festival No. 6, Portmeirion Truly a festival unlike any other, No. 6 is an intimate, bespoke weekend of music, arts and culture, set in and around the most stunning festival site you will ever see. Pet Shop Boys, Manic Street Preachers, Beck and My Bloody Valentine were memorable headliners in recent years. festivalnumber6.com 13th September Ironman Wales, Pembrokeshire A 2.4-mile (3.8km) swim, a 112-mile (180km) cycle, followed by a marathon, with only 17 hours to complete it all. Just an average Sunday really… ironmanwales.com 19th–20th September Abergavenny Food Festival One of the biggest events in the UK foodie calendar, with local produce and international delicacies, celebrity chefs, master classes, tastings and street stalls all on the menu. See page 16 for more information, and visitwales.com/proofpudding for a film we made there in 2014. abergavennyfoodfestival.com

visitwales.com

37

Elvis Festival, Porthcawl

Anglesey Oyster Festival

19th–21st September Guided Birding Weekend, Skomer Skomer Island is one of the most precious places for wildlife we have, with internationally-important colonies of birds, surrounded by the crystal waters of a marine reserve. This three-night stay puts visitors in the heart of this ecological paradise. welshwildlife.org 25th–27th September Elvis Festival, Porthcawl Elvis lives, thanks to the thousands of fans and the tribute artists who attend this annual gathering of blue suede shoes, Vegas jumpsuits, and whopping sideburns. elvies.co.uk

38

visitwales.com

Wales Rally GB

OCTOBER Gwledd Conwy Feast, Conwy This weekend festival is one of the biggest celebrations of the music, art and food of Wales. The quayside, the castle and medieval streets burst with flavours, sounds and sights. gwleddconwyfeast.co.uk 7th–11th October Iris Prize Festival, Cardiff Cardiff’s international gay and lesbian short film prize welcomes the best new filmmaking talent to the capital. irisprize.org

10th–11th October Anglesey Oyster & Welsh Produce Festival, Trearddur Bay It started as an informal event where locals would gather to eat oysters and get merry, but now shows off all kinds of excellent local produce. angleseyoysterfestival.com

NOVEMBER 13th–16th November Wales Rally GB, Conwy The British leg of the FIA Championship has been based in Wales since 2000. With the start and finish in Conwy the drivers undertake the legendary tough first stages of Wales, with cars and drivers accessible to spectators at Deeside Service Park. walesrallygb.com

13th November–3rd January Cardiff Winter Wonderland & Swansea Waterfront Wonderland Ice-skating and rides, mulled wine and roasted chestnuts... feel-good festivities in Cardiff and Swansea’s Christmas villages. cardiffswinterwonderland.com swanseachristmas.com

Cardiff Winter Wonderland

DECEMBER Santa Steam Specials Father Christmas is the VIP passenger on weekend rides on Wales’s narrow-gauge Great Little Trains in December. greatlittletrainsofwales.co.uk 6th–7th December Blackwood Christmas Market The town centre comes to life with stalls along the high street, funfair rides and traditional entertainment. With real reindeer visiting – and Santa will certainly be putting in an appearance! visitcaerphilly.com 7th December Wrexham Christmas Market One of the most eagerly awaited events in the town’s calendar, attracting thousands of shoppers each year, with music and entertainment throughout the day. wrexham.com 13th–14th December Caerphilly Medieval Christmas Fayre A mix of farmers’ stalls, continental market stalls and genuine food and craft producers, with musical entertainment, children’s workshops, street theatre and Santa’s grotto. Look out too for the annual River of Light Parade in the town centre. visitcaerphilly.com 31st December Nos Galan Road Races, Mountain Ash This annual race commemorates the 18th-century Welsh runner Guto Nyth Brân (who was supposedly so quick, he could blow out his candle and be in bed before it was dark). There are races for all abilities, street entertainment, a funfair and fabulous firework display. nosgalan.co.uk All information is correct as we go to press, but plans can change, so do check the websites for up-to-date information – and see visitwales.com for many more events throughout the year.

Santa Steam Special

Nos Galan Road Races

Five things you didn’t know about Welsh • Welsh is descended from Common Brittonic, a Celtic language that was once spoken across most of Britain. By the 6th century it had separated into Welsh, Cornish, Cumbric and – in northern France – Breton.

• Today around 562,000 people speak Welsh – that’s around a fifth of the population.

• There is no letter K in the modern Welsh alphabet, but it was widely used until the 16th century. When the New Testament was first published in Welsh, the printers didn’t have enough Ks, so they replaced them all with Cs.

• In 1865 a Welsh colony was established in the Chubut Province of Argentina. Today around 50,000 Argentinians claim Welsh descent, and the language is still spoken there by several thousand people.

•T he two Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977, each contain a golden record with images and sounds from Earth recorded on them, to be discovered by extra-terrestrial life. The recordings include a greeting in Welsh. Voyager 1 is now in interstellar space, more than 19,000,000,000km from Aberystwyth.

See page 67 for more on the Welsh language or visitwales.com

visitwales.com

39

everyone’s

T^y Coch Inn, Snowdonia 3rd best beach bar in the world 1 First the bad news: cars are banned from Porthdinllaen unless you’re staying in the village. But the walk to the pub, either along the beach or the clifftop through our most spectacularly-situated golf course, Nefyn & District, is stunning. Drop down into the tiny fishing village, maybe have a quick swim, and stroll up to the bar with the sand still between your toes. No wonder Cheapflights.com voted it one of the top beach bars in the world. tycoch.co.uk visitsnowdonia.info

Wales Coast Path Best travel region in the world 2 Lonely Planet recently named the Wales Coast Path the best travel region in the world, by way of tribute to the 870-mile (1,400km) route, which makes Wales the world's only country with a continuous path around its entire coast. Here’s what they said: “What a wonderful thing: to walk the entire length of a country’s coastline, to trace its every nook, cranny, cliff-face, indent and estuary. How better to truly appreciate the shape – and soul – of a nation?” Well said. walescoastpath.gov.uk

Monmouth, Monmouthshire Best place to live in Wales 3 In 2014 the Sunday Times voted Monmouth in the top three places to live in the UK, which came as no surprise to its inhabitants. It’s a proper old market town, with lots of interesting shops, restaurants, pubs, museums, a theatre, music festival, and a rich history: it was the birthplace of Henry V, and its 13th-century gated

40

visitwales.com

And the award goes to… us! We don’t want to appear immodest, but we really have won quite a lot of awards recently.

So please allow for a small fanfare as we open the golden envelope to reveal just a few of them. bridge is the last of its kind in Britain. The best views are from Kymin, a Georgian gentlemen’s dining room, now in the care of the National Trust.

walled town has garnered over the years.

Is it better than our other award-winning beaches, such as Barafundle, Three Cliffs or Llanddwyn? You decide.

visitmonmouthshire.com

visitpembrokeshire.com

Aberystwyth Farmers’ Market, Ceredigion

Rhossili, Swansea Bay

Best in the UK

7 But wait! Here’s the beach ranked the best in the UK, third best in Europe, and among the top ten in the world by a recent TripAdvisor survey. It’s certainly a glorious spot, with three miles of pristine sands, towering cliffs, an ancient shipwreck, and amazing walks out onto the Worm’s Head promontory.

4 Held on the first and third Saturday of every month, this gem of a market attracts the best local producers. It’s not huge – there are rarely more than 30 stalls – but it’s the sheer quality and quirkiness of the produce that won it the top prize in the BBC Radio 4 Food and Farming Awards 2014. aberystwythfarmersmarket.co.uk discoverceredigion.co.uk

Best beach in the UK

visitswanseabay.com

Isle of Anglesey

Royal Porthcawl Golf Club, Bridgend

Top Ten UK islands to visit

Golf Club of the Year

5 TripAdvisor users seem to like Wales rather a lot. Our beaches regularly top their polls, and now a whole island has made their top ten. They love the prehistoric stones, the beaches, the castles, the landscape – pretty much everything, in fact.

8 This classic seaside links is often cited as Wales's best and scores highly in world rankings. It was voted Club of the Year in the 2013 Club Mirror Awards, who were mightily impressed with Royal Porthcawl's venerable history, but also how friendly and forward-looking the club is. Bernhard Langer won the Senior Open Championship here in 2014 (the tournament returns in 2017) and the course will host the British Amateur Championship in 2016. See if you can match Tiger Woods' albatross two, which he scored on the 17th as a young amateur playing in the Walker Cup. royalporthcawl.com bridgendbites.com

visitanglesey.co.uk

Tenby, Pembrokeshire Best beach in Europe 6 The online travel organisation, European Best Destinations, has named Tenby’s Harbour Beach as the most beautiful in Europe, adding to all the other awards that this impossibly pretty

1 2

3

4

5

visitwales.com

41

10 11

9

6

8 7

42

visitwales.com

Celtic Manor Resort, Newport Best UK Hotel 9 Celtic Manor Resort always seems to win Top Conference Hotel at the various industry awards. But this terrific resort hotel complex is also a really good place for a luxury family break, or a golfing weekend – the Twenty Ten Ryder Cup course is one of three fabulous championship courses here. celtic-manor.com / visitmonmouthshire.com

Penarth Pier, Vale of Glamorgan Pier of the Year 10 A £4m makeover has turned the pier’s art deco Pavilion into a gallery, cinema, café and observatory, which helped it win the National Piers Society’s top award in 2014. It’s also a lovely place to stroll, fish, and catch a paddle steamer. The world’s most expensive footballer, Cardiff boy Gareth Bale, recently filmed a TV advert on the pier – locals are still debating the fashion merits of the hairband he was wearing. penarthpavilion.co.uk / visitthevale.com

Brecon Beacons National Park International Dark Sky Reserve 11 There are just eight of these magical reserves in the world, and on a clear night in the Brecon Beacons you can see the Milky Way, all the major constellations, bright nebulas and meteor showers. They run regular stargazing events throughout the year, and on 17–19 April 2015 there’s a special Dark Skies Festival, based at the world-famous book town, Hay-on-Wye. breconbeacons.org / darkskiesfestival.org / midwalesmyway.com

visitwales.com

43

Sailing on a cloud Matthew Gravelle played the killer in ITV’s hit thriller Broadchurch, while Mali Harries is the cop in the gritty drama Hinterland. Now the couple are starring in a true-life family adventure with their two children. Ready, and… action!

F

or a small country, Wales is actually – well, quite big – as we’re discovering on our epic journey from our home in Cardiff to a family weekend in North East Wales. We’ve both travelled around Wales quite a bit for work, and recently Mali has been spending a lot of time on the west coast filming the dark cop drama Hinterland, or Y Gwyll, as it’s known in Welsh.

But this top corner remains an enigma to us, and we’re looking forward to getting to know it a little better. We’ve got lots of adventures planned – canal boating, archery, fishing, heroic amounts of eating and drinking, etc – on top of the adventure of the journey itself.

The drive takes four hours, which is weird, when we could drive to London in half that. But what a drive! The road rises up through the Brecon Beacons National Park, skirting along the English border before striking west into hills that soon turn into mountains. The roads twist and turn through villages hewn from granite and slate. Just to remind you where you are, big red dragon flags flutter from some of the houses.

Historically, Bala was a centre of Welsh political and religious fervour. In 1800, 15-year-old Mary Jones walked 25 miles (40km) to Bala from her farm, barefoot, to buy a copy of the Welsh Bible, thereby becoming the pin-up girl for Welsh Protestantism.

After a comfortable night at a welcoming village inn near Bala, we are on the road early, winding our way up into the Clwydian Range. Tomi is desperate to try fishing, so we’re heading for Llandegla Fishery, where a very patient young coach called Jamie teaches us the dark arts of angling. Tomi is at the age when his attention span can flit a dozen ways in a single second, and yet under Jamie’s guidance, Tomi is totally engrossed in learning how to bait his hook with sweetcorn, how to cast properly, how not to get his hook caught in reeds and how to watch the float for signs that a fish is lurking below.

Fishing is a very calming activity, we learn. We spend a very zen two hours, catch absolutely nothing – maybe the trout are bored of sweetcorn – but weirdly, it really doesn’t matter. It’s a lovely place to spend a couple of hours, and besides, there’s plenty of home-smoked rainbow trout for sale in the café.

“Every good holiday should have an element of the unexpected, making things up on the hoof.”

CRUISE CONTROL It’s time for us to move on to Llangollen, a handsome market town that’s thronging with visitors to the Fringe Festival, an offshoot of the famous

44

visitwales.com

1

1. Pontcysyllte Aqueduct 2. Llyn Tegid 3. Tomi, Matthew, Mali and Ela 4. View west across Vale of Clwyd from Bwlch Pen Barras, Clwydian Range

2

3

4

visitwales.com

45

International Eisteddfod. We’re heading for the Llangollen Canal, built as part of a network of waterways to connect the coalfields and limestone quarries of Denbighshire to the Midlands. Its most notable feature is Thomas Telford’s Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, the highest and longest in Britain, 984 feet (300m) in length and soaring 98 feet (30m) above the River Dee. We arrive at Trefor Basin to collect our boat, a traditional barge called Brenig, which appears to be painted in British Racing Green (odd, since the speed limit is 4mph (6.4kph)). The children scramble on and explore, while I get an hour of instruction from the nice man from Anglo Welsh on how to skipper the thing.

By the time we push off from our mooring, I know the theory, but actually steering this immense beast – it’s got an old-fashioned tiller, rather than a wheel – takes some getting used to.

Crossing the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is the easy bit. Telford thoughtfully built it in an arrow-straight line, and the cast iron walls are only just wide enough to pass through, so steering isn’t an issue. Instead I can take in the exhilarating views as we float serenely in mid-air.

I was enjoying the ride so much I didn’t really think about how it was coming to an end. There are two barges coming in the opposite direction and I seem to have forgotten everything I learnt about steering. I bump into a poor unsuspecting barge owner, causing him to throw his supper into his lap. Oops. Sorry.

Back at our mooring, we feast on Llandegla smoked trout, with broad beans

and new potatoes from my dad’s garden.

After supper we do old-fashioned family stuff – play cards, draw pictures. As night falls, the children settle into their cabin and enjoy the best night’s sleep of the trip. It’s a really cosy and comfortable place to sleep, like a stretched caravan, except better insulated, with its own wood-burner.

A new day dawns and this driving lark seems much easier today. It gives us the opportunity to relax and spot nooks and corners that you don’t see from any road.

“It’s like sailing on a cloud,” observes Ela. If the canal boat was the biggest adventure of our holiday, today is the biggest mystery: we haven’t a clue where we’ll be sleeping tonight. But that’s fine – every holiday should have an element of the unexpected, making things up on the hoof.

So we head for Denbigh – and as it turns out, Denbigh is great. It’s a fine walled town built on a hill so there are great vantage points wherever you are.

It has got its own ancient castle and medieval streets to explore. And as luck would have it, the Castle House boutique B&B happens to have a family suite free, which is perfect for us. The lovely Angie and Charlie, who own this beautiful property, are warm and easy company, and full of information about the history of their beautiful Georgian home, which was made over in the Victorian era by a wealthy Somerset socialite.

The part we are staying in, it transpires, is set under the ruins of a cathedral that was built in 1578 by Elizabeth I’s favourite courtier, the Earl of Leicester – at least, until he fell out of favour (and money) so the cathedral was never finished.

6

46

visitwales.com

7

5

BOWS AND ARROWS We stroll down to the town walls, where the children fire imaginary arrows at invisible attackers. The Welsh were always renowned for their archery skills. In fact, Henry V’s best bowmen were Welsh, the famous Men of Gwent who routed the French at Agincourt. Perhaps it’s still in our DNA? Only one way to find out.

We’ve booked a family archery session with Llangollen Outdoors, whose butts (that’s a technical term for an archery pitch, by the way) are seated at Coed y Glyn, a working

Llangollen Canal To see Matthew and Mali in action on the Llangollen Canal, go to visitwales.com/cloud-sailing

5. Matthew and Mali 6. River Dee, Llangollen 7. Lake Vyrnwy 8. Tyddyn Llan, Llandrillo

sheep farm on the banks of the River Dee, where our instructor Lianne awaits.

None of us have ever tried archery before, and it turns out to be excellent fun. Lianne shows us how to stop arrows being inadvertently (or intentionally) stuck anywhere they shouldn’t be (eg, sheep, other people). She’s an excellent teacher, and – gratifyingly – we all get steadily better with every arrow. By the end of our session, we’re all popping the balloons that Lianne has stuck to the target, which adds a satisfying bang to the pleasure of actually

hitting the target. If ever we start fighting the French again, we certainly feel better equipped to deal with it.

It’s the last night of our holiday, so we’re splashing out on a night at one of Wales’s best restaurants-with-rooms, Tyddyn Llan in Llandrillo. It’s an elegant Georgian country house, run by Sue and Bryan Webb, who’ve won a Michelin star for their food. It’s everything you’d expect: a sumptuous sixcourse taster menu using lots of fresh local ingredients, while the children love their wild bass followed by Eton mess.

northeastwales.co.uk The official tourism website of this lovely corner of Wales

anglowelsh.co.uk Matthew and Mali hired their classic narrowboat from Anglo Welsh, who hire out boats for day trips and multi-night cruises from Trefor Basin

visitbala.org Llyn Tegid, or Bala Lake, is Snowdonia’s main inland watersports hotspot llandeglafishery.com Friendly fishery in the Clwydian Hills, suitable for experts and novices alike castlehousebandb.co.uk Five-star B&B in an idyllic hilltop spot in the walled town of Denbigh

The children are also dazzled by the grounds, with an ornamental pond, croquet lawn and lots of nooks in which to conceal yourself. If Michelin awarded stars for how good places are for playing hide-and-seek, Tyddyn Llan would score top marks.

It’s time to head back home, but not before one last adventure, thanks to our sat-nav, which takes us on a route round unbelievably windy roads, deep into the hills. We go through the Tanat Valley, a narrow cleft that separates the Berwyn Mountains from the Montgomery Hills, until we arrive at Lake Vyrnwy – beautiful, dramatic, Alpine looking. We know the way home from here.

“Ydy’n ni bron ’na ’to?”

Not long, Tomi, I promise. Not long.

llangollenoutdoors.co.uk Archery is one of many activities on offer, others include rafting, kayaking, gorge walking and climbing tyddynllan.co.uk Michelin-star food is the big draw at this elegant manor house in delightful grounds.

8

visitwales.com

47

A Tour de Forts We’ve got more castles per square mile than any country in the world, a whopping 641 of them at the last count. Picking a favourite is as about as easy as breaking into Harlech Castle – which once withstood a seven-year siege, the longest in British history. But we think these nine are… well, exceptional.

Carreg Cennen Castle, near Llandeilo

Manorbier Castle

48

visitwales.com

Castell Dinas Bran

Cardiff Castle

Pennard Castle, Gower

Carew Castle, Pembrokeshire

Great for… interior decor There are three castles for the price of one in the heart of Cardiff: inside the Roman fort is a Norman keep, which overlooks a neoGothic mansion that was lavishly refurbished by the 3rd Marquis of Bute. He was, in the 1860s, the richest man in the world, which is evident in the ridiculous opulence of the décor (and there’s more of the same a few miles away at his other castle, Castell Coch).

Great for… myths It’s not so much the scant, sandy ruins of Pennard Castle that appeal, but its stunning location by a wooded valley that leads to Three Cliffs Bay. The story goes that the castle’s lord was holding a wedding party, when he was annoyed by a group of noisy fairies holding their own party nearby. The lord ordered his men to chase the fairies away with their swords; in revenge, the fairies swamped the castle with sand.

Great for… access Set in a stunning location, overlooking a 23-acre millpond with a working tidal mill, Carew displays the development from a Norman fortification to an Elizabethan country house. They have a wheelchair available on-site, by which there’s easy access to the castle, gardens, mill, shops and a delightful mile-long (1.6km) amble around the millpond.

cardiffcastle.com visitcardiff.com cadw.wales.gov.uk

visitswanseabay.com

Caernarfon Castle, Snowdonia

Castell Dinas Bran, Denbighshire Great for… views Built on the site of an Iron Age fort, there isn’t actually much left of this 13th-century castle, which was already a ruin by the 16th century, when it was a nesting place for golden eagles. Even they have flown now, but it’s still worth the trek up the hill for the stunning 360-degree panorama of the Vale of Llangollen. northeastwales.co.uk

Caerphilly Castle

Great for… history All castles have romantic histories, but Caernarfon’s unique design, featuring polygonal towers with banded colours of stone, is deliberately designed to evoke the romance and power of the Roman Empire. More recently, it’s also where HRH Prince Charles was invested Prince of Wales in 1969. cadw.wales.gov.uk visitsnowdonia.info

Cardiff Castle

Carreg Cennen Castle, near Llandeilo

Manorbier Castle, Pembrokeshire

Great for… older children You walk through a rare-breeds farmyard before scrambling up the limestone crag to this castle, where a couple of special thrills await: the dizzying precipice behind the castle, and a secret passageway which leads to a cave and natural spring, far beneath the castle.

Great for… swimming The 12-century scholar Gerald of Wales described this as “the pleasantest spot in Wales”, although since he was born here, he may just be biased. Still, it is a lovely place: a medieval des-res overlooking a sandy, dune-backed beach that’s a favourite with swimmers and surfers.

carregcennencastle.com discovercarmarthenshire.com

manorbiercastle.co.uk visitpembrokeshire.com

pembrokeshirecoast.org.uk visitpembrokeshire.com

Chirk Castle, near Wrexham Great for… gardens Built on an outcrop above the meeting point of the rivers Dee and Ceiriog, Chirk Castle’s award-winning gardens contain clipped yews, herbaceous borders, shrub and rock gardens. The castle itself is sumptuous and fascinating, the last Welsh fortress from the reign of Edward I that’s still lived in today. nationaltrust.org.uk northeastwales.co.uk

Caernarfon Castle

Caerphilly Castle, Caerphilly Great for… younger children This big cheese is the biggest castle in Wales, and comes with all the features that kids expect: mighty towers, an enormous moat, drawbridge, and siege engines that actually work. It also has a shop and baby changing facilities (not original features, but very handy for parents). cadw.wales.gov.uk thevalleys.co.uk

visitwales.com

49

The Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe at Tintern Abbey

St Issui’s Church

St Issui’s Church interior

XX

visitwales.com

Tintern Abbey

St Martin’s Church

a pilgrim’s progress Wales has an intriguing religious heritage, from humble, mountain-top chapels to historic abbeys and cathedrals.

Each one has a story to tell. We joined writer and historian, The Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe, on a day of discovery in the far corners of Monmouthshire.

O

ur journey starts with a fairly simple idea. If you want to find out about the heritage and history of a country, then you’d do well to explore its oldest interiors. There are places of worship in Wales that date back a thousand years and more and the majority of these churches, chapels and cathedrals continue to be in daily use. These ancient places are wonderful capsules of history – where you can see the sights, hear the sounds and breathe in the same air as people have done for centuries.

This is exactly how it feels to be standing in the small hillside church of St Issui, Partishow, above the remote Nant Mair Valley in the Black Mountains.

It’s a place that would appear to have been an active place of worship since the Celtic Christian Issui settled here in the 6th or 7th century. The church was built around 500 years later and has remained a place of worship that feels completely tucked away from the rest of the world – one of those very rare places where you get a sense of being completely suspended in time.

THESE HOLY MOUNTAINS The unusual sight of a chap wandering among the gravestones, wearing a dog collar and a Harley Davidson leather jacket brings you back to the 21st century. The Reverend in question is Lionel Fanthorpe.

He is the author of hundreds of books, from prayers to science fiction, talking stones to mysterious murders. He has presented TV programmes for almost as long as television itself has existed and is a prize-winning poet. He is also a member of Equity and Mensa.

He’s clearly in his element in what he describes as “these holy mountains.”

“One of God’s greatest gifts,” he points out, “is our sense of curiosity, our desire to find out, to unravel mysteries that have been there for hundreds of years. And when you come to an old church like this one at St Issui, then you begin to look for the mysteries it may hold. There are the enigmatic medieval paintings on the walls, the intricate wood carving of the 16th-century rood screen, the ancient churchyard cross… There’s a strong feeling of intrigue and mystery and that’s something that fascinates me.”

It’s just a short drive of around eight miles (12.8km) to Cwmyoy in the Vale of Ewyas in the Black Mountains, named after the small Welsh kingdom of Ewyas, established after the retreat of the Romans from Wales in the 5th century.

Cwmyoy is situated near Offa’s Dyke which marks the border between Wales and England. The area is well known for the Grade 1 listed ruins of Llanthony Priory, established early in the 12th century. Nearby, the remarkable St Martin’s Church dates back to the 13th century and is best known for still being structurally intact.

It’s claimed that St Martin’s is the most crooked church in Britain, with the church tower listing over six feet (1.8m) which is apparently more than the leaning tower of Pisa. There’s a bit of creative licence in the claim that the crooked nature of the church structure is a result of a terrible earthquake, which occurred at the precise moment Jesus Christ was being nailed to the cross on Calvary. Nonetheless, St Martin’s still has to be seen to be believed.

“The other interesting element to the church is a cross dating back to the 13th century,” adds Lionel. “Apparently it used to mark the pilgrims’ route up to Brecon and onwards to St David’s in Pembrokeshire.

“The cross was housed for safekeeping in the church, but disappeared in 1967. It was tracked down by a local woman to an antique shop in London and was retrieved.

It’s now permanently fixed to the floor of the church.”

We close the door to St Martin’s as gently as we can, just in case it’s the fateful click that causes the entire building to collapse to its foundations. As we breathe a sigh of relief, Lionel whispers mischievously: “You’re going to like this next place.”

WHAT THE BUTLER SWORE The journey itself is certainly more than we could have bargained for, even though it’s just a short distance across the valley and north towards Gospel Pass, named after the route taken by 12th-century fundraisers for the Crusades.

We find ourselves trundling slowly in the wake of a tractor with an enormous trailer stacked with hay bales. As the overhanging trees scraping the bales creates a snowstorm of hay, an oncoming bike rider lurches past us, missing the car by inches.

The cyclist is none other than Eddie Butler, much-loved BBC sports commentator and a man renowned for his rich use of the English language. In this case the communication directed at us is distinctly Anglo-Saxon and certainly not fit for broadcast.

It’s appropriate that there’s almost a sense of farce to proceedings as we pull up

visitwales.com

51

at St Mary’s Church in the hamlet of Capely-ffin near Abergavenny. There it is, this tiny place of worship, just 26 feet (8m) long and 13 feet (4m) wide, with its wonky turret, as if a beehive has just landed on the roof.

Inside, there is a pulpit, a church organ and even a gallery. It’s a truly remarkable little building, built in the 18th century, on the grounds of a 15th-century church fallen to ruin. St Mary’s has been immortalised by the 19th-century clergyman and diarist Francis Kilvert (who compared its curiouslooking exterior with the expression of an owl), as well as 20th-century artist and poet David Jones.

Jones was part of a community of artists who were led to Capel-y-ffin in the 1920s by Eric Gill, creator of the Gill Sans and Perpetua typefaces. Gill is said to have cut two of the headstones in the churchyard. Gill, Jones and the gang lived for four years along the road at Llanthony Tertia, another location with an eccentric history worth exploring.

“Homely isn’t it,” smiles Lionel. “I’ve sometimes been asked to come and speak at a house church and this reminds me of that certain feeling you get from stepping into someone’s home, that is quite different from a traditional church.”

We leave the remote foothills of the Black Mountains and repair to the Skirrid Inn in the village of Llanfihangel Crucorney. As with these things, it’s impossible to know whether the Skirrid is the oldest pub in Wales, but there can’t be many other drinking establishments with a more colourful history.

If you think that a pint of cider in a haunted pub is a hard act to follow then you’ve never visited Tintern Abbey. It’s just a 30-mile (48km) drive from our first port Llanthony Priory

52

visitwales.com

“You don’t have to be of religious faith to get something wonderful from visiting these churches.” of call to our final destination in the Wye Valley but the modesty of Partrishow is in direct contrast to the grandeur of Tintern.

It has been immortalised by an unlikely trio of poets – William Wordsworth, Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Allen Ginsberg – and has been painted by eminent landscape artist JMW Turner.

Tintern’s origins hark back to the 12th century, when it became home to the first community of Cistercian monks in Wales.

That community thrived for the best part of four centuries – its reported annual income in 1535 was £192, making it the wealthiest abbey in Wales. A year later, however, the abbey was surrendered in the first Act of Supression, following a breakdown in relations between the Church in Rome and King Henry VIII. Having fallen into ruin, Tintern had an unlikely comeback in the 18th century as one of the first tourist attractions in Wales.

The Wye Valley became very popular with visitors in search of ‘the picturesque’, a new concept created by the Reverend William Gilpin, a one-man Trip Advisor of his time.

Mention of Tintern in his book Observations on the River Wye, drew people from far and wide to visit its splendid ruins.

But for Lionel, it’s the community created in and around this magnificent place of worship that gives Tintern its magic all Tintern Abbey

these centuries later. “People seem to come here to contemplate,” he says, “to wonder, in the traditional sense of the word.”

Well, as we’re in this place of contemplation, it seems appropriate to do just that. In one day we’ve learned a lot.

We’ve asked a lot of questions, not all of which have been answered. We’ve visited the birthplace of Christianity in Wales (arguably) and seen some sights to baffle the keenest building regulations experts. Above all, it feels like we’ve really got to know this beautiful and mysterious part of Wales.

“Although I believe that each of these separate places has a spiritual donation to make to the visitor,” says Lionel, “you don’t have to be a Christian worshipper, or of any religious faith for that matter, to get something wonderful from visiting these churches.

“These are places where acts of goodness took place – where people practised their faith and learned about acts of good nature.

They vowed to be loyal, forgiving and kind, not just to God, but to each other.

“The remarkable thing is that this didn’t happen at these locations for a few years, or decades, but for centuries. In my mind it’s inconceivable that these special, ancient environments, can be anything other than a little magical.”

It’s not the easiest concept to grasp, admittedly, but the Reverend makes a valid point. We’re talking about tiny patches of ground with great big stories to tell. These are places that have drawn visitors for many years – and will continue to do so for many more.

Join Lionel on his tour of these intriguing sites at visitwales.com/pilgrim-progress

faithtofaith Useful guides to set you on your way to exploring historic places of worship in Wales

North Wales The Sacred Doorways Network A collection of five trails connecting churches and chapels in rural Conwy. visitllandudno.org.uk/ heritage/sacred-trails Wrexham Open Churches Network Explore the architecture and history of 16 churches in the gentle countryside of the North Wales borders. openchurchnetwork.co.uk The Celtic Circle, Isle of Anglesey A 25-mile (40km) heritage trail on the west coast of the Isle of Anglesey taking in ten of the island’s most historic and beautiful churches. celtic-circle.co.uk The North Wales Pilgrims’ Way A 130-mile (209km) walking trail from Basingwerk Abbey, Flintshire to Bardsey Island, connecting many sacred sites that were visited by pilgrims. pilgrims-way-north-wales.org

Mid Wales Peaceful Places North Ceredigion’s sacred landscapes are brought to life on a trail featuring 14 churches and chapels, telling the story of each in the context of its surrounding landscape and community. peaceful-places.com Living Stones Heritage Trail Three trails featuring 15 churches and chapels in North Montgomeryshire. living-stones.info

The Ann Griffiths Walk A seven-mile (11km) walk around the places associated with Ann Griffiths – a prolific 18th-century hymn writer, who was inspired to compose by the drama and beauty of the local landscape. ldwa.org.uk/ldp/members/ show_path.php?path_ name=Ann+Griffiths+Walk Monks Trod Monks Trod, or Monks Way as it is also known is thought of as the path that Cistercian Monks took between the abbeys of Strata Florida in Ceredigion and Abbey Cwm Hir, 35 miles (56km) away. cistercian-way.newport.ac.uk/ place.asp?PlaceID=173 Gwastedyn Church Trail A circular 36-mile (57km) trail over an established Pilgrimage route. rhayader.co.uk Ceredigion Faith Trails Historic church sites range from the early churches of St David at Henfynyw and Llanddewi Brefi to the historic chapels of Daniel Rowland at Llangeitho and Thomas Phillips at Neuadd Lwyd. ceredigionfaithtrail.com/en/ index.php

Pan Wales The Cistercian Way A pan-Wales walking trail linking the main Cistercian Abbeys of Wales. Created to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the Cistercian Order. cistercian-way.newport.ac.uk

Llandaff Cathedral

South West Wales Saints and Stones A collection of five pilgrimage trails across Pembrokeshire linking sites with relevance to the Christian faith. saintsandstones.co.uk/ pilgrimages.php?section=sea Gower Church Trail A leaflet produced by the Church in Wales giving details of the places of worship in the first designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Britain. It includes a short walking tour around St Madoc’s Church in Llanmadoc. the-gower.com/ placesofworship/church/ inthestepsofthesaints

St Govans Chapel

Neath Abbey

South Wales Newport Chartist Walk A trail around Newport detailing important sites for the history of Chartism in the area. It includes some religious sites such as St Woolo’s Cathedral and St Mary’s. newport.gov.uk

St Trillo’s Chapel

Poets, Priests and Pubs A selection of ten fascinating walks celebrating the lives and work of some of the finest Welsh poets. poetspriestsandpubs.org Visit Cardiff Churches and Visit the Vale Churches Comprehensive details of Churches across Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan. visitcardiffchurches.com visitvalechurches.com

St Woolos Cathedral Llangelynnin Old Church

Gears mud,sweat and

rachel atherton

Meet the Athertons. Rachel, Gee and Dan are a sibling trio of professional bikers with a host of world titles to their names. They compete at events around the world, but nothing beats biking around their home patch along the North Wales borders.

I

f you wanted proof that mountain biking is part of the fabric of Wales, then all you have to do is speak to youngest sibling Rachel Atherton, the most successful British mountain biker in the history of the sport.

Elder brothers Dan and Gee, meanwhile, join forces with Rachel to guide you through some of the best experiences you can have on (or off) a mountain bike in Wales.

“We moved up to Llanrhaeadr about ten years ago. We wanted to choose somewhere that offered the best mountain biking and this area is my mum’s spiritual home. She’s very earthy and really in touch with her hippy side, free and outdoorsy. My dad’s equally enthusiastic about the outdoors life, but also has a determined, competitive edge and believes you can achieve anything you want to in life if you have the passion and the desire.

“A lot of our success in mountain biking comes from our upbringing. We grew up outdoors and in tune with nature. It gave us such an appreciation of what’s real and what’s important. We’ve got a couple of bike tracks that we built here when we moved ten years ago, planting tiny little fir trees and conifers and now the trees are huge and it’s wonderful to grow up with it.

“The Berwyn Mountains are awesome whether you’re on a bike or on foot.

The area around Llangollen is beautiful. We’ve got some tracks around Betws-y-Coed too and that’s amazing because you can finish your ride and just jump straight in the river.

“This area is so special to us. When we moved here there wasn’t really a mountain biking scene. Now within an hour of this place there are four or five

Blazing a trail in the Berwyn Mountains

54

visitwales.com

Rachel Atherton on champion form

I feel privileged to be able to travel all over the world to compete in my sport. I compete in the Alps and the mountains of Canada. I’m happy on the road, it’s great to travel around with Gee, my brother, and the support team who work with us. But it’s great to come home to our little corner of Wales, with the knowledge that the place you live in is just as amazing as any place you’ve been.

It’s so beautiful, so peaceful. rachel

visitwales.com

55

1

2

3

well-established tracks. My older brother, Dan, has played a big part building the tracks in the area. He’s just moved to Machynlleth in the Dyfi Valley because of the potential there for great riding, We reckon he’s run out of space to dig out any more trails at home, so he’s had to go further afield.

“Riding in the Dyfi area makes me feel like I am completely connected with the land. One minute you’re smashing down a gnarly, eye-watering downhill, rocks flying off your tyres and your heart pounding, literally bubbling with the excitement. The next you’re hurtling onto a path bathed in sunlight, with foxgloves fighting for space, bees lazily floating around, a stream trickling below mossy banks, the smell of pine and red kites circling high above.

The contrast is startling. I can’t help but be grateful for the opportunity to experience our home country as it always has been – and having an incredible time doing it! This is why I love mountain biking in Wales.

“People often ask whether it’s possible to ride just for kicks and for a few years I think we got wrapped up with the training side of things. Now we’re back to basics – we ride because we love it. It’s such a cool place. We might be preparing for the next world cup event, but the people we go out with will be friends from around the area who are out for pure pleasure, to get the most enjoyment they can out of the day. It does rub off on you, thinking maybe this doesn’t class as a training day because we’re having too much fun.

“Away from the bikes, we bought a little boat quite recently so every opportunity we get we head over to Aberdovey, or Ynyslas. We’ve always been in the mountains and it’s great to explore the coastline, it’s like you’re on a permanent holiday when you’re there. Dan summed it up perfectly. He’d been out training all morning doing a massive ride and he took the boat to Aberdovey and he said: “I really can’t believe that this is my life.”

“He’s right. This is just day-to-day. What’s even better is that you don’t have to travel far to get anywhere. You can be up in the mountains one minute and right on the beach 20 min later.”

Biking without barriers

4

Wales has plenty of fully-accessible downhill runs, ranging from a coaching track at Afan Bike Park, to intermediate tracks at BikePark Wales and, for the more extreme rider, Black-graded runs at Cwmcarn and Antur Stiniog. To help make mountain biking accessible to all, the Welsh Government supports Project ENDURO, which is creating a new four-wheeled mountain bike for use by disabled people. By 2015 we hope to have their bikes available to buy or hire in several venues - see Project ENDURO’s Facebook page for the latest news.

1. Antur Stiniog, Blaenau Ffestiniog 2. It’s never too late to enjoy the ride 3. White Levels Route, Afan Forest Park 4. Coed-y-Brenin, Snowdonia 5. BikePark Wales, South Wales Valleys.

56

visitwales.com

THE ATHERTONS’ guide to mountain biking in Wales

…a warm welcome: Coed Llandegla, North Wales Borders It’s not the most technical set of trails in the world but the downhills are really fun and flowy and it has something for everyone – you could easily take kids on their blue track. We always get a great welcome and it’s not far from home so it gets a definite thumbs-up from me.

Gee Llandegla is brilliant, everyone from the café and bike shop staff to the riders themselves are super-friendly and always happy to chat. When I ride the loops there it puts a huge smile on my face because everyone is always shouting hello to me as I overtake them on the downhills, or as they overtake me on the uphills!

Rachel coedllandegla.com

… a tough ride: Afan Forest Park, South Wales Afan Forest Park has got some mega trails with fantastic views out over the coast. But they are long and you’ve got to be prepared to climb – going to leave this one to Dan! Gee I raced (and won) an Enduro race there so I have fond memories in one respect – though most of them are muddy, damn cold and exhausted memories. There’s a lot of climbing! Think how good you’ll feel afterwards though – some great riding to be had!

Dan afanforestpark.co.uk

…a secret hideaway: The ClimachX trail, Dyfi Valley, North Wales Borders

5

…the perfect introduction: BikePark Wales, South Wales Valleys This is absolutely the best place to start your riding life. The facilities are great – a lovely café, bike shop, bike hire and kids pump track. There are crosscountry routes and downhill uplifts, plus there’s a great variety of tracks, from super-easy to tricky rock gardens. Nothing is too hard or too steep.

Rachel The team at BPW are putting in a load of work to keep improving. The welcome is friendly and it’s not intimidating at all. We even took Gill, our team PA up there, and she’s only ridden to the shops before!

Gee

This really is the hidden gem of Wales, with no café or centre at the bottom. It is easily overlooked, but once you’re on the bike you will be amazed with the mixture of natural rocky trails and man-made sections, finishing with one of the longest descents in the UK. You’ll be smiling all the way round.

Dan The Dyfi Valley is breathtaking and it boasts Wales’s finest attributes: never ending woodland, rivers, moss, old slate quarries, startling bed-rock outcrops and even sea views over to Ynyslas and Aberdovey.

Rachel dyfimountainbiking.org.uk

bikeparkwales.com

…cheap thrills:

…all round facilities:

Antur Stiniog, Snowdonia

Coed-y-Brenin, Snowdonia

Stiniog is awesome, I love training there for World Cups or riding with a bunch of mates. It’s so well built that the ‘cheap thrills’ are easy to get because all you gotta do is let your brakes off! The tracks are flat-out fast and have some really good hard technical rocky sections. Depending on how brave you feel on the day, there’s a solid choice of tracks, from blue, red, all the way to double black.

The thrills are certainly easy to find!

Rachel

Dan Brown, our team director, loves Coed-y-Brenin – mainly because he can beat me there I think! The uphills are definitely too long for me! They’re doing a fantastic job of making mountain biking accessible to loads more people, which is something we’re really passionate about. They’ve got this new trail called the MinorTaur which is great for first timers, kids, and adaptive bikes. There’s loads of fun stuff on it too like table tops and real nice flowy berms that anyone could enjoy.

We ran an Atherton Experience Day at Antur Stiniog in 2014 and it was an amazing day. The sun shone and I did some coaching sessions up at the top. It was cool to see people just building confidence, rolling down things at first then slowly picking up the pace. The uplift service is one of the best there is so you’ll be able to cram in loads of rides during your day.

Dan anturstiniog.com

Gee I’m always surprised when I ride at Coed-y-Brenin how good the trails are – and how many amazing, downhill sections there are that pop up off the main loop! The river is awesome for a mid-ride dip and if you are keen you can ride the back roads to Dolgellau for a pub lunch!

Rachel mbwales.com

…a relaxed atmosphere: Revolution Bike Park, North Wales Borders We lived in Llangynog for a few years, so it’s a kind of homecoming. You always end up running into a few friendly faces. It’s where big brother Dan built his infamous and epic ‘quarry line’, the star of the film we made with Red Bull in 2013. It’s not open to the public to ride but watch the film, and then go and ride the trails.

They’re challenging for sure but majorly fun – and the guys who run it love digging almost as much as Dan so there’s always something new in the pipeline.

Gee Revolution is amazing. It’s challenging on pretty much all of the routes so you’re always likely to find top riders training up there. They’ve got a good system going and they’re constantly pushing forwards and changing things but they also let me carve out the massive quarry line for the Red Bull film and dig the world’s tallest dirt quarter for Bas Keep and his BMX. They’re always there at the cutting edge of all things riding.

Dan revolutionbikepark.co.uk

visitwales.com

57

walkthewalkt@lkthetalk What’s your favourite walk in Wales? That’s the question we asked the 500,000 Visit Wales followers on Facebook and Twitter, and they posted a whole lifetime’s worth of epic mountain treks, coastal strolls and rural rambles. Here are just a few of our favourites.

Adam and Eve rocks, Tryfan

12 visitwales.co.uk 58 visitwales.com

2

“Stackpole Quay to Bosherston, via Barafundle in Pembrokeshire.”

Wendy Lewis

hours

This ravishing stretch of coastline has cliffs, sandy beaches, wooded valleys, tiny coves and the best lily ponds ever. The walk begins at Stackpole Quay, a tiny harbour used by local fishermen and kayakers. Cross the cliffs to Barafundle, often cited as the prettiest beach in Britain, and onward to the Bosherston Lakes, a haven for otters, water birds, dragonflies and lilies. Lots of our Facebook fans mentioned this walk, including one who notes, “Be careful though as it’s possible to wander into the nearby St Govan’s Inn and be waylaid by a delightful ale.” You have been warned.

5 miles (8km) round-trip from Stackpole

nationaltrust.org.uk visitpembrokeshire.com

3.5 hours

“The Elan Valley trail near Rhayader.”

Ann Lloyd The Elan Valley reservoirs were built by the Victorians to supply water to the English Midlands, and they lie among 72 square miles (115 square km) of the most spectacular and peaceful landscapes in Wales. The nine-mile (14km) Elan Valley Trail was created to allow better access for walkers, cyclists, horse-riders and the less able, following an old railway line deep into this unspoilt oasis.

9 miles (14km)

elanvalley.org.uk midwalesmyway.com

“The walk around Dinas Island, near Fishguard, is fantastic.”

Sheila Hutson We do like circular walks, and the hike round Dinas Island is one of the very best. Start at Pwllgwaelod (where there’s a good pub, which’ll come in handy later) and climb the clifftop path to the highest point on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. Drop down to the ruined church at Cwm yr Eglwys, then back through the woods to your starting point. Did we mention there’s a pub there?

3 miles (4.8km)

visitpembrokeshire.com

2

hours

visitwales.com

59

5.5

“Cadair Idris on a sunny day is just unbeatable. Stop for a bite to eat at the lake. The views from the top are unmissable.”

Mark Pettit

hours

Snowdon may be higher, but our straw poll revealed Cadair Idris as the most loved mountain walk in Snowdonia. Our favourite route is the Minffordd Path, which rises steeply through the woods, before crossing the moraine to Llyn Cau – which as Mark says, is the perfect place for a picnic and paddle on a sunny day. Then there’s another steep ascent to the ridge that eventually leads to the summit, where the views are incredible.

6 miles (9.6km) round trip from Minffordd eryri-npa.gov.uk / visitsnowdonia.info

“The hike up Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons.”

Linda Scanlon The highest point in southern Britain, the summit of Pen y Fan has soaring views across the Brecon Beacons National Park. You can do the whole thing in a couple of hours from the car park at Storey Arms, or there’s a longer ridge walk, taking in all the subsidiary peaks, from the Neuadd reservoirs – which is also the point from which SAS soldiers do their famous ‘Fan Dance’ march. The views at night are spectacular, too: this is also an International Dark Sky Reserve.

2.5

4 miles (6.4km) round-trip from Storey Arms breconbeacons.org / midwalesmyway.com

hours

“Tryfan – with a jump across Adam and Eve!” Sian Lowri Dunne

2.5 hours

60

visitwales.com

Tryfan lies like a sleeping stegosaurus on the side of the A5 between Betws-y-Coed and Bethesda, daring you to scramble up its spiny flanks. This is reputedly the only mountain in Wales which is impossible to climb without using your hands. We like it because it’s short, sharp, and utterly stunning when you finally scramble to the top. Adam and Eve are two telephone box-sized slabs that mark the summit. To earn the freedom of Tryfan you’re supposed to jump from one to the other (strictly optional, in our book – it’s properly scary). You can, however, earn bonus points for pronouncing it ‘truh’van’, like we do.

3 miles (4.8km)

eryri-npa.gov.uk / visitsnowdonia.info

Have you got a favourite w@lk?

Tweet us @visitwales, or go to visitwales.com/walking for more stupendous strolls

North Wales A blast along the beach on a windy day in Talacre – blows away all the cobwebs and leaves my senses singing and my cheeks stinging!

Sue Stone northeastwales.co.uk The coastal path from Lligwy Bay around to Moelfre in Anglesey. A bit of crab fishing off the rocks just by the lifeboat house. Late lunch at the Kinmel Arms before the walk back. Perfect.

Sarah Griffith visitanglesey.co.uk Down to the Tˆy Coch Inn on the beach at Porthdinllaen.

Des Young visitsnowdonia.info Definitely the Miners’ Track up Snowdon!

Suzanne Jackson visitsnowdonia.info Over the Glyders in Snowdonia to have lunch by Castell y Gwynt, watching the train going up Snowdon in the distance.

Barry Anthony Starr visitsnowdonia.info

Mid Wales The old Precipice Walk near Dolgellau, with fantastic views over the Barmouth estuary. Heaven on earth!

Anne Redmond visitsnowdonia.info It has got to be the Roman road in Trecastle, which leads into seemingly endless hills and a great view of the Brecon Beacons.

Nathaniel Christopher Watts breconbeacons.org midwalesmyway.com

The precipitous ridge of the Black Mountain above Llyn y Fan Fach.

Ian Stanley breconbeacons.org discovercarmarthenshire.com The scramble up to Twm Siôn Cati’s cave in the RSPB Gwenffrwd-Dinas reserve.

Niamh Hedges rspb.org.uk/wales/ discovercarmarthenshire.com Aberporth to Tresaith, and lunch in The Ship.

Amanda Owen discoverceredigion.co.uk

Patricia Case From Dinas Dinlle to Fort Belan, near Caernarfon. There are lots of lovely little flowers in the sand dunes. visitsnowdonia.info

Along the cliffs from Aberystwyth to Clarach.

Ruth Harrison discoverceredigion.co.uk

South West Wales Bishopston to Pwll Du, via Brandy Cove, on Gower. You’ll need boots, water, and a dog.

Matt Jones visitswanseabay.com

Rachel Forester The Four Falls trail in the Brecon Beacons takes in some of the most beautiful waterfalls I’ve ever seen. breconbeacons.org / midwalesmyway.com

Rhossili. It’s fantastic there along the tops of cliffs, watching the hang gliders.

Deana Whitehouse visitswanseabay.com Whitesands Bay to St David’s Head. Lots of places to stop off and enjoy the view, take a swim and catch your breath. The end point is a great place to watch the world turn.

David J Houlston visitpembrokeshire.com The coast path near Llanelli. The estuary has lots of wading birds.

Anne White discovercarmarthenshire.com

Stephen Cooke The Sugar Loaf Mountain, the most iconic of the seven hills around Abergavenny. visitmonmouthshire.com

South Wales The walk from Whitestone to Whitebrook passes through one of the loveliest parts of the Wye Valley – and there’s a fab restaurant to end up in.

Chris Wakefield visitmonmouthshire.com

Laura Jones The coast path from

The Cardiff Bay barrage across to Penarth (and optional water taxi back).

Joyce Fletcher visitcardiff.com

Llantwit Major, past the lighthouses to Monknash, with a shandy at the Plough & Harrow. glamorganheritagecoast.com / visitthevale.com

visitwales.com

61

Meet our holiday areas

1 2

3 4

Wales is divided into 13 distinct areas, each with its own individual character. Allow us to introduce you.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

5

The Isle of Anglesey Llandudno & Colwyn Bay

6

North East Wales Snowdonia Mountains & Coast/Eryri Mynyddoedd a Môr Mid Wales My Way Ceredigion – Cardigan Bay & the Cambrian Mountains

7

Pembrokeshire – Britain’s only Coastal National Park Carmarthenshire – Carmarthen Bay

8

9

10

13

10 Swansea Bay – Swansea, Mumbles & Gower 10 The Valleys – Heart & Soul of Wales

11

11 Cardiff – Capital of Wales

12

12 The Glamorgan Heritage Coast & Countryside 13 Wye Valley & Vale of Usk

1 The Isle of Anglesey Anglesey offers unparalleled beauty, amazing adventures, serious solitude and a warm welcome. Easily accessible, this unique island, with its coastline, varied beaches and historic towns make it a superb base for all the family. Those who have visited need not be told. They just return… +44 (0)1248 713177 tourism@anglesey.gov.uk visitanglesey.co.uk facebook.com/visitanglesey 2 Llandudno & Colwyn Bay Vibrant Llandudno, the Victorian seaside gem with a history that goes back to the Bronze Age. World Heritage Conwy with its rich maritime past. Waterfront adventure in Colwyn Bay at The National Zoo of Wales.

Year-round breaks, filled with family fun, good food, great walking, world-class theatre and a full calendar of exciting events. All within easy reach of Snowdonia. +44 (0)1492 577577 llandudnotic@conwy.gov.uk visitllandudno.org.uk facebook.com/visitllandudno twitter.com/visitllandudno

62

visitwales.com

3 North East Wales Less than 20 minutes from Chester, we’re just a short journey from the North West and the West Midlands. From the bustling shops and cultural events of Wrexham to the culinary delights of the Mold Food and Drink Festival to the world-famous Llangollen International Eisteddfod. The area includes Rhyl, one of the best recognised British seaside resorts and the Clwydian Range & Dee Valley, Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. We even have an 11-mile (17km) long World Heritage Site – the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal and you can walk the ancient Offa’s Dyke path running through Chirk out to the coast at Prestatyn. +44 (0)1978 292015 tourism@wrexham.gov.uk +44 (0)1745 355068 rhyltic@denbighshire.gov.uk northeastwales.co.uk 4 Snowdonia Mountains & Coast The outdoor adventure playground of North Wales that includes the Snowdonia National Park, Llˆyn Peninsula and Cambrian Coastline.

A wide choice of quality accommodation, attractions and activities – castles, narrowgauge railways, golf, cycling, walking, awardwinning beaches, country parks, Wales Coast

Path, World Heritage Site, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Heritage Coast. +44 (0)1341 281485 tourism@gwynedd.gov.uk visitsnowdonia.info facebook.com/visitingsnowdonia twitter.com/visit_snowdonia visitsnowdonia.wordpress.com 5 Mid Wales My Way Featuring Brecon Beacons National Park, Dyfi Biosphere, Cambrian Mountains, Lake Vyrnwy & the Berwyns and Offa’s Country. Magnificent walks – two national trails, waterfalls and many other breathtaking walks besides. Muddy Wheels – cycling on- and off-road. A great track record – four years with the Tour of Britain, home to Dyfi Enduro and Beacons Beast. Family traffic-fee routes to extreme mountain biking await. Year-round events – from Hay Literary to Machynlleth Comedy, from Green Man to the Royal Welsh and Winter Shows, celebrating our agricultural heritage. Stay in magnificent mansions to wacky wigwams. All topped off with mouth-watering cuisine, local whiskies and marvellous wines. That’s Mid Wales My Way! +44 (0)1874 622485 tourism@powys.gov.uk midwalesmyway.com

C eredigion – Cardigan Bay & the Cambrian Mountains Discover the villages and harbours that inspired Dylan Thomas and the expansive landscapes, myths and legends depicted in the gripping TV thriller Hinterland / Y Gwyll.

Delve into Wales’s history at Cardigan Castle. Walk gentle or challenging sections of Ceredigion’s coast path from promenade strolls at Aberystwyth to hill fort climbs at Llangrannog. Spot bottlenose dolphins and enjoy family fun at award-winning beaches.

6

+44 (0)1970 612125 brochure@ceredigion.gov.uk discoverceredigion.co.uk facebook.com/discoverceredigion twitter: @visitceredigion Pembrokeshire – Britain’s only Coastal National Park Rated by National Geographic magazine experts as the second best coastline in the world. With 186 miles (299km) of magnificent and varied coastline and more than 50 beaches, there’s plenty of space for everyone. Choose between lively Tenby and Saundersfoot or peaceful St David’s and Newport. Perfect for outdoor activities or just relaxing.

7

To find out more about Pembrokeshire visitpembrokeshire.com

wansea Bay – Swansea, S Mumbles & Gower Discover Dylan Thomas in Wales’s Waterfront City, birthplace of our poetic hero and playwright. Spend some time in the UK’s first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Gower Peninsula. Unwind on award-winning beaches and explore unspoilt countryside.

Bring your board, bike and boots and enjoy watersports, cycling and walking.

9

+44 (0)1792 468321 tourism@swansea.gov.uk visitswanseabay.com he Valleys – Heart & Soul T of Wales World-class mountain biking and other activities on, over and under landscapes that are never short on drama. Proud communities bursting to tell you their stories about Wales’s largest castle, a World Heritage Site, craft beers and ciders and an intriguing cast of heroes from the mythological past to the contemporary music scene. You haven’t visited Wales until you’ve been to the Valleys – the Heart and Soul of Wales.

10

+44 (0)29 2088 0011 contactus@thevalleys.co.uk thevalleys.co.uk

8 Carmarthenshire – Carmarthen Bay Carmarthenshire stretches from Carmarthen Bay in the south to western Beacons and the Cambrian Mountains in the north, wondrous gardens, awe-inspiring castles and Wales’s longest beach, market towns brimming with local produce and chic shopping.

11 Cardiff, Capital of Wales The capital of Wales has unique attractions, top-class entertainment, a wide range of accommodation to suit all needs and quality shopping with a difference. Cardiff Castle, the Millennium Stadium, National Museum Cardiff, the Wales Millennium Centre and famous Doctor Who Experience combined with Cardiff Bay offer indoor and outdoor entertainment for everyone all year round.

+44 (0)1267 231557 marketing@carmarthenshire.gov.uk discovercarmarthenshire.com

+44 (0)29 2087 3573 visitor@cardiff.gov.uk visitcardiff.com

The Glamorgan Heritage Coast & Countryside The dramatic Heritage Coast and popular resorts of Barry Island and Porthcawl are fringed by lovely Vale and Bridgend countryside and green hills. Discover the special character of an area steeped in history – and it’s close to Cardiff, Wales’ cosmopolitan capital.

12

+44 (0)1446 704867 / +44 (0)1656 815338 tourism@valeofglamorgan.gov.uk tourism@bridgend.gov.uk visitthevale.com bridgendbites.com 13 Wye Valley and Vale of Usk Fantastic scenery and high-quality food and drink from the Brecon Beacons National Park to the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Explore castles, Roman towns and beautiful gardens; then take in award-winning vineyards, bustling market towns and great local pubs. With the renowned Newport and Abergavenny Food Festivals, celebrated restaurants and artisan producers, discover why we’re the Food Capital of Wales. +44 (0)1291 623772 tourism@monmouthshire.gov.uk visitmonmouthshire.com

Find out more by visiting visitwales.com/brochures Download as many brochures as you like, select up to three for free postal delivery or call +44 (0)333 006 3001.

The Black Mountains, Brecon Beacons

visitwales.com

63

Getting to Wales GLASGOW

Wales is easy to get to. It’s a big plus point.

We’re just a few hours by road and rail from most of the UK’s main centres. And if you’re visiting us from Ireland, you have the choice of direct ferries to both North and South Wales or direct flights to Cardiff Airport.

EDINBURGH

LIVERPOOL

Fishguard Pembroke

By road Mileage and journey times by car

64

Birmingham – Aberystwyth 123 miles, 2hrs 44mins

Newcastle-upon-Tyne – Llandudno 221 miles, 4hrs 20mins

Canterbury – Cardiff 214 miles, 3hrs 51mins

Nottingham – Swansea 204 miles, 3hrs 41mins

Coventry – Barmouth 138 miles, 2hrs 56mins

Peterborough – Aberystwyth 207 miles, 4hrs 22mins

Exeter – Swansea 144 miles, 2hrs 35mins

Reading – Carmarthen 172 miles, 3hrs 02mins

Leeds – Llandudno 126 miles, 2hrs 31mins

York – Welshpool 152 miles, 3hrs 02mins

London – Cardiff 151 miles, 2hrs 53mins

Edinburgh – Cardiff 393 miles, 7hrs 03mins

London – Tenby 238 miles, 4hrs 29mins

Glasgow – Aberystwyth 331 miles, 6hrs 04mins

Manchester – Caernarfon 105 miles, 2hrs 19mins

theaa.com

National Express provides a nationwide network of express coach services linking major towns and cities in Wales as well as the UK’s principal destinations. nationalexpress.com

Megabus provides low cost intercity travel in the UK, with buses running from a number of major UK cities to Newport, Cwmbran, Cardiff, Swansea, Carmarthen and Pembroke Dock. Prices from £1 plus 50p booking fee (one way). uk.megabus.com

visitwales.com

By sea Irish Ferries Dublin Port to Holyhead Journey time: 1hr 49mins (Fast ferry) Journey time: 3hrs 15mins (Cruise ferry) Rosslare to Pembroke Journey time: 4hrs irishferries.com Stena Line Dublin Port to Holyhead Journey time: 2hrs 20mins (Fastcraft) Journey time: 3hrs 15mins (Superferry) Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead Journey time: 2hrs 20mins (Fastcraft) Rosslare to Fishguard Journey time: 3hrs 30mins (Superferry) stenaline.ie

By rail In the UK, fast and frequent rail services run between London Paddington and Cardiff, taking only two hours. There is a half-hourly departure to Cardiff Central, with an hourly continuation to Swansea and onward connections to West Wales.

Direct trains to North Wales depart from London Euston. There’s also a rail service between London Marylebone, Shrewsbury and Wrexham. Hourly services run from Manchester to the North Wales coast.

For general rail enquiries: nationalrail.co.uk/thetrainline.com

By air Cardiff Airport cardiff-airport.com A number of airlines offer direct flights to Cardiff from other parts of the UK and Ireland – check out their websites for details: Aer Lingus Serving: Dublin aerlingus.com

KLM Serving: Dublin klm.com

Citywing Serving: Anglesey citywing.com

CityJet Serving: Belfast, Edinburgh and Jersey cityjet.com

Eastern Airways Serving: Newcastle and Aberdeen easternairways.com

The airport is situated in Rhoose, 12 miles (20 km) south-west of Cardiff. Buses, trains and taxis link the airport to the city centre.

The Cardiff Airport Express bus service offers a direct link to the city centre. Taxis cost approximately £26; a booking office is located outside the arrivals hall. A rail link connects the airport station to Cardiff Central and Bridgend. Trains run every hour from Monday to Saturday and every two hours on Sundays. A complimentary shuttle bus service is available between the terminal building and the station for passengers with a valid train ticket. Car hire is also available.

Getting around Wales By road Wales’s most scenic drives count amongst the best in Britain. Some favourite routes with fantastic views include the A466 along the Wye Valley, the B4574 from Rhayader to the Vale of Rheidol, the A4069 across the Black Mountain range, the A4086, A498 and A4085 around Snowdon and Marine Drive around Great Orme, Llandudno.

When you’re out and about in our National Parks, use the convenient park and ride bus services designed to cut down on traffic: Brecon Beacons National Park – travelbreconbeacons.info/beacons-bus Pembrokeshire Coast National Park – pembrokeshire.gov.uk Snowdonia National Park – gwynedd.gov.uk

By rail Rail services run through the regions of Wales – usually on highly scenic routes such as the Cambrian Coast, Conwy Valley and Heart of Wales lines. nationalrail.co.uk arrivatrainswales.co.uk scenicwales.co.uk heart-of-wales.co.uk For pure pleasure why not take a ride on some of our 14 narrow gauge and

steam railways? Many are members of the Great Little Trains of Wales greatlittletrainsofwales.co.uk Discounted rail and bus travel The Explore Wales Pass offers unlimited travel on all mainline rail services in Wales plus most scheduled bus services.

Holders will also benefit from free or discounted travel on some of the narrow gauge Great Little Trains of Wales and discounted entry to many of Wales’s tourist attractions. The Explore Wales Pass (£94) allows four days’ train and eight days’ bus travel. The Explore South Wales Pass and the Explore North and Mid Wales Pass (£64 each) allow four days’ train and eight days’ bus travel within each regional area. There are also a number of Rover and Ranger tickets available, which all offer unlimited rail travel for one day on specific areas of the Arriva Trains Wales network. They can be purchased from the station booking office or on board the train. arrivatrainswales.co.uk/ explorewalespass

Additional information For up-to-date and reliable public transport information – traveline-cymru.info For a handy route planner – theaa.com or rac.co.uk Information on UK road regulations – gov.uk/browse/driving /highway-code

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch St Mary’s Church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St Tysilio of the red cave

visitwales.com

65

Further information Free brochures Find out more about Wales by choosing some of the FREE guides available.

Check them out, and order or download them from visitwales.com/brochures

Adventure: visitwales.com/activities

Fishing: visitwales.com/fishing

Golf: golfasitshouldbe.com

Mountain biking: mbwales.com or visitwales.com/mountain-biking

Our other websites There are a number of really useful Visit Wales websites to get information on the different types of activities you can try on your holiday in Wales. Whether you want to hurtle down a mountain with your rear brakes burned out, throw yourself off rugged wave-lashed cliffs, fish for grayling on the River Wye, or play one of our championship golf courses – we have a website for you. So what are you waiting for?

For up-to-date information on short breaks and proper holidays in Wales, go to the official website: visitwales.com

66

visitwales.com

Walking: visitwales.com/walking

Whilst every effort has been made to ensure accuracy in this publication, Visit Wales can accept no liability for any errors, inaccuracies or omissions or for any matter in anyway arising out of the publication of the information. All websites listed are checked at the time of going to press.

However, Visit Wales cannot be held accountable for any change in the content of these websites. visitwales.com

FAQs How do I know I’m booking good quality accommodation?

When choosing your holiday accommodation, look for the Cymru/ Wales quality mark of Wales’s official, nationwide quality assessment scheme. Visit Wales and the AA are the only checking agents in Wales, checking out over 5,000 properties. Both assess holiday accommodation to the same criteria and award one to five stars, based on the facilities and overall quality of the experience. Also look out for that extraspecial property that has been awarded Visit Wales’s Gold Award, given for exceptional standards of hospitality, comfort and food in serviced accommodation.

For more information on accommodation in Wales, the Cymru/ Wales Quality Assessment scheme, general grading information and star ratings go to: visitwales.com/holidayaccommodation Where can I find holiday information for people with special needs?

Tourism for All is a free specialist information service promoting accessible tourism. It offers free guidance on travel planning, transport, accommodation and booking. tourismforall.org.uk I’d like to learn some Welsh before my visit – where do I start?

Take a look at the following websites to pick up some basics: bbc.co.uk/learnwelsh / s4c.co.uk/dysgwyr/ If you’d like to learn Welsh in Wales, the Nant Gwrtheyrn Welsh Language & Heritage Centre specialises in residential courses for adults learning Welsh. nantgwrtheyrn.org Where can I get local tourist information?

One of the simplest and quickest ways of getting local information is by calling in to one of our Tourist Information Centres.

The staff are highly trained, have an excellent knowledge of the area and will be delighted to help you with booking your accommodation, finding places to eat, things to do, routes to take, national and local events and obtaining maps, guides and books. Normally, offices are open between 10.00 and 17.00. For a list of Tourist Information Centres see: visitwales.com/contact/touristinformationcentres

Travel agents and tour operators in the UK and Ireland To make it really easy to book your holiday or short break in Wales you could use a tour operator. There are a number of companies who offer Wales-based holidays. They often have specialist knowledge of particular products and will be happy to help you find the right holiday to suit your needs. There are also Wales-based operators who can plan your Wales itinerary with specialist and bespoke tours to meet your exact requirements.

For companies go to: visitwales.com/touroperators

Selling Wales to your clients If you work in the leisure travel trade or business tourism sectors, we have a dedicated website to help you sell Wales to your clients and enhance existing tours to Wales or help introduce Wales into UK programmes for the first time.

There’s everything from great places to visit, how to get here, inspiring itinerary ideas, operator and venue searches and the latest product news where you can sign up to receive regular product updates. traveltrade.visitwales.com

A sense of place Place names tell a story in Wales. You’ll see the same words appear time and again on our road signs, and they’ll always tell you something of the local history or landscape. Two in particular appear very often: Llan indicates a church or parish, usually followed by

the name of the saint to whom it’s dedicated, as in Llandudno: the church of St Tudno. Aber means the mouth or confluence of a river, as in Aberaeron: the mouth of the river Aeron.

Here’s a list of common names to look out for on your travels:

Aber................... mouth/confluence of river Afon.................. river Betws................ chapel Blaen................. source of a stream Bryn................... hill Bwlch................ a mountain pass Caer................... fort, fortified camp Capel................. chapel Cas, castell...... castle Coed................. forest Cwm.................. valley Din..................... hill fort Dinas................. city Dyffryn............. valley Eglwys............... church Ffordd.............. road Ffynnon........... spring

Glyn................... deep valley Gwaun.............. moorland Hafod................ summer Hendre............. winter farmstead Llan.................... church, sacred enclosure Llyn.................... lake Môr.................... sea Mynydd........... mountain Nant.................. brook Newydd........... new Plas..................... hall, mansion Pont................... bridge Rhaeadr........... waterfall Traeth............... beach Tˆy....................... house Ynys................... island

Mother tongue When the Romans arrived in Britain, every person in what is now England and Wales spoke the same language: Welsh (or at least, British, the Celtic language from which modern Welsh is descended). Successive invasions from mainland Europe drove the British language to the western edges of Britain, where it evolved into Welsh, Cornish and the now-extinct Cumbric. The language also hopped across to north-west France, where the Breton language is still partly

intelligible to Welsh speakers. Nowadays Welsh is spoken by around a fifth of the population, especially in the north and west of Wales, where it is many people’s everyday working language. You’ll also hear quite a bit of Welsh in major towns and cities like Cardiff, where the government and all major public bodies are fully bilingual. So if you want to know what our ancient British ancestors sounded like, just find your nearest Welsh speaker and say shwmae!

visitwales.com

67

II

I

I

I

I I

I

I

I

II

I

I

I

I I II I II I

I I

I

II

II I IIII I

I

I

Have you packed for Wales?

W

Contents

e don’t just mean flip-flops, walking boots and spare

underwear (although they’d all II I IIII I

be handy). We mean a sense of adventure, an open mind, and an appetite for discovery.

I I

I I II I II I

I

II

It has certainly been a year of

54

wonders for us. Good grief, we live here, and yet we’re constantly amazed by new experiences. For

18

instance, we learnt tons about our

I

I

I

landscape (and ourselves) on a Bear

I

I

Grylls survival weekend, deep in Waterfall Country. We had a blast at festivals like Hay, Abergavenny Food I

and Green Man, which seem to get

I

I

18 Wild at heart

head-over-heels with the place. In the same spirit, we asked a couple of local boys, the naturalist Iolo Williams and broadcaster Huw Stephens, to share their own favourite spots.

6 Light fantastic

We’ve also got a very special guest Front cover image: Llanddwyn Island, Anglesey – Kiran Ridley

contributor: HRH Prince Charles, who shares a lifetime’s love of the Welsh landscape acquired over his 55 years We couldn’t fit everything in, of much we enjoyed underground

go online to visitwales.com.

We’re packed. Are you?

To the lighthouse! A coastal tour of our leading lights.

You can take the boy out of Cardiff, but there’s still no place like home for BBC Radio 1’s Huw Stephens.

26 Cross country

HRH The Prince of Wales shares his favourite places in Wales and opens up his own rural hideaway.

The naturalist Iolo Williams takes us on a guided tour of his favourite wildlife spots.

12 Proof of the pudding

28 What’s on in 2015

riding the world’s fastest zip wires, or a myriad other activities and events,

24 Bright lights

trampolining in a vast slate cavern, or dolphin-spotting in Cardigan Bay, and

Food writer Xanthe Clay has travelled the world in search of great flavours – and she found them by the plateful in West Wales.

16 Feast your eyes

The Abergavenny Food Festival is the biggest day in a year-round calendar of foodie events and farmers’ markets.

I II I I

Wild swimming in hidden coves, secret waterfalls and crystal mountain lakes.

8 The Prince’s passions

as Prince of Wales. course. If you want to hear how

A wild, wet weekend at the Bear Grylls Survival Academy is a brilliant bonding experience for a dad and his daughter.

I

I

2 A Bear in the Beacons

Keep your diary clear. There’s a big, busy year ahead.

40 Everyone’s a winner

We don’t like to brag, but we do seem to have won quite a lot of awards recently.

II

tour of West Wales, and to see her fall

II

writer Xanthe Clay on a gastronomic

II

love, so we were delighted to take food

II

I

I

I

I

8

I

I I

The greatest joy of our job is introducing visitors to things that we

I I I II

better every year.

I

I

WalesView 2015

WalesView 2015

W

e took our cover photo on a glorious late-summer day at Llanddwyn Island, on the southern shores of

Anglesey. It’s a magical spot, which we chose for all sorts of reasons: the beach, the mountain backdrop, the old lighthouse, the quality of the light. Nearby, there are the ruins of an ancient chapel dedicated to the Welsh patron saint of lovers, St Dwynwen.

Gorgeous as it is, Llanddwyn wasn’t the only contender. It’s always a big debate at Visit Wales: where to shoot our cover picture. We’ve all got our own favourite places, depending on which part of Wales we’re from, where we went on holiday as kids, and where we go now.

But this picture does capture beautifully what it feels like at the end of a perfect day, in your own perfect place. This magazine is full of days like this, and places in which to spend them.

visitwales.com

Royal Welsh: HRH Prince Charles shares his favourite places in Wales Bear in the Beacons: a wild weekend at the Bear Grylls Survival Academy Food of love: a gastronomic tour of West Wales What’s on 2015: it’s a big, busy year ahead Plus travel and holiday information –– visitwales.com