Things to do in Swansea (Abertawe)
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Bar Creation & Club Eden
One of the biggest gay venues in Wales, this bar and club combo stages a packed programme of club nights, drag acts, film screenings and cabaret shows.
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Bizzie Lizzie's Bistro
A warmly lit basement with country-kitchen pine furniture and green-and-white check tablecloths, decorated with bric-a-brac and old street signs, Bizzie's has a half-vegetarian, half-carnivore menu - whichever you are, go for the delicious nut roast with chilli and tomato sauce.
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Maritime Quarter
WWII bombing flattened much of central Swansea, which was rebuilt as a rather soulless retail development in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. What little remains of Georgian and Victorian Swansea stretches from Wind St and York St to Somerset Pl and Cambrian Way in the Maritime Quarter ; this is the most attractive part of the city centre.
The area around the former docks to the southeast of the city centre was originally redeveloped as a residential area in the 1980s - low-rise red- and yellow-brick apartment blocks with blue-painted steel balconies, which are beginning to look a little tired now. The South Dock and the Tawe Basin (enclosed by a smaller version of Cardiff Bay's…
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The Mumbles
The Mumbles, strung out along the shoreline at the southern end of Swansea Bay, has been Swansea's seaside retreat since 1807, when the Oystermouth Railway was opened. Built for transporting coal, the horse-drawn carriages were soon converted for paying customers, and the Mumbles train became the first passenger railway service in the world.
The name - which becomes a vowel-free zone in Welsh, Y Mwmbwls - is a legacy of French seamen who nicknamed the twin, rounded rocks at the tip of the headland Les Mamelles - 'the breasts'.
Newly fashionable in recent years, with gourmet restaurants vying for trade along the promenade, the Mumbles got a boost to its reputation when its …
reviewed
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National Waterfront Museum
Housed in a 1901 dockside warehouse with a striking glass and slate extension, the museum's 15 hands-on galleries explore Wales' industrial history and the impact of industrialisation on its people, from 1750 to the present day, making much use of interactive computer screens and audiovisual presentations. The effect can be a bit overwhelming, but there is a lot of interesting stuff here, enough to occupy several hours.
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Swansea Museum
It would be hard to find a more complete contrast to the Waterfront Museum – Dylan Thomas referred to it as 'the museum which should have been in a museum'. Founded in 1834, it remains charmingly low-tech, from the eccentric Cabinet of Curiosities to the glass cases of archaeological finds from Gower caves. Pride of place goes to the Mummy of Hor.
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Glynn Vivian Art Gallery
Housed in an elegant Italianate building, the city's main gallery displays a wide range of Welsh art (Richard Wilson, Gwen John, Ceri Richards, Shani Rhys James) alongside works by Claude Monet and Lucien Freud and a large ceramics collection.
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Park Inn
The famous Mumbles Mile - a pub crawl through the bars between Newton Rd and Bracelet Bay - is not what it once was; most of the old pubs have succumbed to pumping house music and boisterous crowds of alcopop-fuelled teens. One place worth seeking out is the Park Inn, set a block inland from the promenade and away from the crowds. It's a friendly local serving real ale, where any music you hear will be knocked out on the pub piano.
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Egypt Centre
Swansea University is in the suburb of Sketty, halfway between the city centre and the Mumbles, and possesses the UK's biggest collection of Egyptian antiquities outside the British Museum. It displays a fascinating collection of everyday ancient Egyptian artefacts, ranging from a 4000-year-old razor and cosmetics trays to a mummified crocodile.
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Mermaid Restaurant & Coffee Lounge
A bright décor of blond wood and fresh flowers complement the menu of fresh local produce, home-baked bread, good wine and real ale. The Mermaid is famous for its slow-roast salt-marsh lamb from the Gower peninsula, and a kid's menu where everything is freshly prepared - no frozen chicken nuggets here. The building was once the Mermaid Hotel, a favourite haunt of Dylan Thomas.
reviewed
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Knights Restaurant
Seafood is the speciality of the house at this intimate and elegant waterfront restaurant (chef Michael Knight is a favourite of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones). Local crab, sea bass, salmon and Dover sole make regular appearances on the menu, as does sewin (Welsh sea trout) in season. The monkfish with bacon, leeks and brandy sauce is recommended.
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Beaches
From the parking area beyond Mumbles Head (continue along Mumbles Rd, past the pier), you can hike along a cliff-top path to Beaches. Hike for a mile to Langland Bay, and on for another mile to Caswell Bay; both are popular swimming and surfing beaches. You can return to the Mumbles waterfront by walking back along Caswell Rd, Langland Rd and Newton Rd.
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Chelsea Café
Golden yellow tablecloths and dark red banquettes against wood-panelled walls and a red-brick chimney breast make for a snug dining room at this popular restaurant. Check the blackboard specials for filo-pastry parcels filled with prawns, squat lobster tails, cockles and laver bread, and roast loin of lamb with a smoked bacon, date and rosemary jus.
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Joe's Ice Cream Parlour
For an ice-cream sundae or a cone, locals love Joe's – a Swansea institution founded in 1922 by Joe Cascarini, son of immigrants from Italy's Abruzzi mountains. There are also branches at Parc Tawe Shopping Centreand Mumbles.
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Plantasia
A huge glass pyramid parked between the Parc Tawe Shopping Centre and the river contains Plantasia, a botanical exhibition containing hundreds of species of exotic plants, plus attendant insects, reptiles, tropical fish, birds and tamarin monkeys. A coffee shop and range of kids' activities make it a popular rainy-day retreat.
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Mumbles Pier
At the end of its mile-long strip of pastel-painted houses, pubs and restaurants is a rocky headland abutted by a Victorian pier with a sandy beach below. Built in 1898, it houses the usual amusement arcade and a once-grand cafe, festooned with chandeliers.
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Dylan Thomas Centre
Housed in the former Guildhall, this centre contains an absorbing exhibition on the Swansea-born poet's life and work. Aside from the collection of memorabilia, what really brings his work to life is a series of recordings, including the booming baritone of Richard Burton performing Under Milk Wood and Thomas himself reading Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, the celebrated paean to his dying father.
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Oystermouth Castle
It wouldn't be Wales without a castle, hence the trendy shops and bars of Newton Rd are guarded by a majestic ruin. Once the stronghold of the Norman lords of Gower it's now the focus of summer Shakespeare performances. There's a fine view over Swansea Bay from the battlements.
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Swansea Castle
The ruins of 14th-century Swansea Castle - closed to the public - stand on the east side of Castle Sq, hemmed in by modern buildings and dwarfed by the gleaming blue skyscraper of the BT Tower. It was mostly destroyed by Cromwell in 1647, but had a brief lease of life as a prison in the 19th century.
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698
A very stylish bistro and coffee lounge with a modern European menu (pan-fried scallops on pea purée to start, followed by grilled fillet steak with creamy mash and a wild mushroom jus), the 698 is also family-friendly, with high-chairs, baby-changing facilities, and books and toys to borrow.
reviewed
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Mission Gallery
Set in a converted 19th-century seamen's chapel, it stages Swansea's most striking exhibitions of contemporary art, as well as selling glassware, ceramics, jewellery and art magazines.
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Vietnam
Rather girly red, pink and white décor here, but it's a firm favourite with the local Asian community so the kitchen must be doing something right. Authentic Vietnamese dishes such as bo bia (rice-paper rolls with peanut sauce) and thit vit quay (roast duck with rice).
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Dylan Thomas Theatre
Home to Swansea Little Theatre, an amateur dramatic group of which DT was once a member, the company stages a wide repertoire of plays, including regular performances of your man's Under Milk Wood.
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La Braseria
Having gained a reputation as a favourite hang-out of the Swansea glitterati (Catherine Douglas-Zeta-Jones is a fan), this place is enormously popular, often packed solid at weekends. It's a Spanish bodega-style place, with a global menu ranging from beef satay to local lobster.
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No Sign Bar
Once frequented by Dylan Thomas (it appears as the Wine Vaults in his story The Followers), the No Sign stands out as the only vaguely traditional bar left on Wind St. On weekends there's live music downstairs in the Vault. The window seats, looking out over the acres of goose-bumped flesh on the street outside, offer a frisson of schadenfreude.
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