Wales

I spent the better part of a week in Wales, and it wasn’t nearly enough time. I rented a holiday cottage within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, where I spent 4 nights relaxing away from the hectic pace of the cities that I had been visiting. I needed the quiet.

Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy visiting big cities, but after about 5 days or so I am ready to leave them and relax in the quietest place that I can find, which, this time around, was a coastal cottage with sea views. It was a splurge, but I don’t regret it.

I mean, just look at the view from the main living area. Granted, this is the looking out the side window, so it doesn’t show the ocean, but the ocean was all of a two minute walk from the front door.

Speaking of walks, the coastal path is one of the most pleasant paths I have ever walked. Even though it looks intimidating, with sheer cliffs falling away to the sea, and the path winding up and down and around, it is surprisingly easy to navigate, even if you have a bum ankle like me.

These photos were just the snapshots that I took with my phone. I had my “real” camera with me, too, and I shot a positively obscene amount of photos while I was walking along the coast. I will be making a special post just for them once I finish editing.

As much as I enjoyed the time that I spent relaxing in the cottage, that wasn’t all that I did in Wales. Melin Tregwynt is a woolen mill only about a ten minute walk from the place I rented. It’s a working mill that you can tour, which is fascinating. You can observe the weaving process from start to finish and look at the original waterwheel from when the mill was first built in the 17th century. There is a gift shop and a cafe there, and I was very happy about the latter, as the closest market is in Fishguard, about twenty minutes away by car.

Fishguard, by the way, is a wonderful little town. I spent some time there one day, stopping in at a yarn & craft shop, which had a cafe inside where I stopped for a cup of coffee and piece of lemon-blackberry cake. It has some nice little restaurants and charity shops in addition to the regular shops. And, of course, it is right on the water.

Overall, I cannot say enough nice things about Wales. I very much want to go back there some time and really explore it in-depth.