Things to do in South Wales
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Laston House
William Paxton built his saltwater baths above the harbour in what is now Laston House. The Greek writing on the pediment translates as the optimistic, 'The sea will wash away all the evils of man'.
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Mike Mayberry Kayaking
Offers instruction courses (one/two days £87/147) and guided kayaking tours for more experienced paddlers.
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Misbah Tandoori
One of the best curry houses not only in Wales, but in the whole of Britain, the Misbah is an authentic Bangladeshi family restaurant with a large and loyal following.
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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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D Fecci & Sons
For the best fish and chips in town, head to D Fecci & Sons , in business since 1935.
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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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St David's Cathedral
Hidden in a hollow and behind high walls, St David's Cathedral is intentionally unassuming. The valley site was chosen in the vain hope that the church would be overlooked by Viking raiders, but it was ransacked at least seven times. Yet once you pass through the gatehouse that separates it from the town and its stone walls come into view, it's as imposing as any of its contemporaries.
Built on the site of a 6th-century chapel, the building dates mainly from the 12th to the 14th centuries. Extensive works were carried out in the 19th century by Sir George Gilbert Scott (architect of the Albert Memorial and St Pancras in London) to stabilise the building. The distinctive we…
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Tenby & Caldey Island
Charming Tenby is the epicentre of Pembrokeshire coast holiday culture. The image of its sheltered harbour and lifeboat slipway, overlooked by pastel Georgian townhouses, is a Pembrokeshire badge. Tenby's top trip is the 20-minute boat ride to Caldey Island, the home of a community of Cistercian monks, as well as grey seals and Wales' largest cormorant colony.
Located on a rocky promontory surrounded at low tide by golden sands, Tenby's old town features attractive architecture, steep streets and curious nooks, plus a 500m section of town wall. The place is popular with well-heeled weekend tourists and sore-heeled coast path walkers.
The castle on the promontory above the…
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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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Skomer, Skokholm & Grassholm Islands
Lying off Wales' best beaches in St Brides Bay, the islands are a marine nature reserve populated by immense sea-bird colonies, grey seals and dolphins. Skomer is home to over 500,000 breeding sea birds and about 150 grey seal pups are born here annually. Skokholm is the habitat for 35,000 Manx shearwaters and puffins and Grassholm has 33,000 gannet pairs.
Skomer is the largest and easiest island to reach. Its breeding bird colonies include puffins, guillemots, razorbills, fulmars, cormorants, shags, and the burrow-breeding Manx shearwater. Together Skomer and Skokholm have the largest colony in the world: 160,000 strong.
To visit Skomer, the Dale Princess cruiser offers …
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Chepstow Castle
Magnificent Chepstow Castle perches atop a limestone cliff overhanging the river, guarding the main river crossing from England into South Wales. It is one of the oldest castles in Britain (building began in 1067) and the impressive Great Tower retains its original Norman architecture.
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St David's Cathedral
This is Wales' holiest place, receiving a stream of pilgrims year round. The main granite building was constructed in the 12th century on a site where a church had existed for 600 years. Welsh patron saint Dewi Sant established the first monastic community here in the 6th century. His shrine is in the northern choir aisle; his relics are behind the altar.
The atmosphere inside the cathedral is one of great antiquity.
The floor slopes sharply and the pillars keel drunkenly following a 1248 earthquake. The Norman nave's superb Irish oak ceiling was carved in the 16th century. The equally richly carved choir in the centre of the cross is illuminated from the tower above.
Try…
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Bishop's Palace
Across the river from the cathedral, this atmospheric ruined palace was begun at the same time as the cathedral, but its final, imposing form owes most to Henry de Gower, bishop from 1327 to 1347.
Its most distinctive feature is the arcaded parapet that runs around the courtyard, decorated with a chequerboard pattern of purple and yellow stone blocks. The corbels that support the arches are richly adorned with a menagerie of carved figures – lions, monkeys, dogs and birds, as well as grotesque mythical creatures and human heads.
The palace courtyard provides a spectacular setting for open-air plays in summer.
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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 …
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Nelson Museum & Local History Centre
Admiral Horatio Nelson visited Monmouth twice in 1802, officially en route to inspect Pembrokeshire forests for timber for his ships (though it may have had more to do with his affair with local heiress, Lady Emma Hamilton). Despite this tenuous connection Lady Llangattock, local aristocrat and mother of Charles Stewart Rolls, became an obsessive collector of 'Nelsoniana', and the results of her obsession can be seen in the Nelson Museum & Local History Centre.
It's fascinating to see how complete Nelson worship was in 19th-century Britain, with forged relics such as locks of his hair, alongside copies of his first attempt to write with his left hand. Children can make Ne…
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Caldey Island
Boat trips run from Tenby harbour to Caldey Island, home to lots of grey seals and seabirds, and a red-topped, whitewashed monastery that houses a community of around 15 Cistercian monks. There are guided tours of the monastery and great walks around the island, with good views from the lighthouse.
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Holy Trinity Chapel
In a recess in the Holy Trinity Chapel at the east end of the cathedral is the object of all those religious pilgrimages - a simple oak casket that contains the bones of St David and St Justinian. The chapel ceiling is distinguished by superb fan vaulting dating from the early 16th century.
Lord Rhys ap Gruffydd, the greatest of the princes of South Wales, and his son Rhys Gryg are known to be buried in the cathedral, although their effigies in the south choir aisle date only from the 14th century. Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis), an early rector of the cathedral, is said to be buried here; there is a gravestone, but scholars suggest he is buried at Lincolnshire Cat…
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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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St Mary's Church
The graceful arched roof of this 13th-century church is studded with fascinating wooden bosses, mainly dating from the 15th century and carved into flowers, cheeky faces, mythical beasts, fish and even a mermaid holding a comb and mirror. There's a memorial here to Robert Recorde, the 16th-century writer and mathematician who invented the 'equals' sign, along with a confronting cadaver-topped tomb, intended to remind the viewer of their own mortality.
The young Henry Tudor – later to become Henry VII – was hidden here before fleeing to Brittany. It's thought that he left by means of a tunnel into the cellars under Mayor Thomas White's house across the road (where Boots is …
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Carew Castle
Looming romantically over the glassy River Carew, 12th-century Carew Castle and its restored tidal mill exude historic atmosphere. The Elizabethan tidal mill has a causeway that once trapped the incoming tide in a pond, then released water through sluice gates to turn the millwheels. For 400 years until 1937, the mill ground corn for the castle community.
The 1.6km (1mi) circular walk around the castle, mill, causeway and bridge is recommended. A tall 11th-century Celtic cross stands by the road near the castle entrance.
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Walks
You can put together coastal walks of all lengths starting from Caerfai Bay, three-quarters of a mile south of town, and following the coastal path to Porthclais (2 miles), St Justinian (6.5 miles) or Whitesands Bay (8.5 miles), returning to town on the Celtic Coaster bus.
The section from Porthclais to St Justinian is especially fine, with wild coastal scenery, plenty of wildlife (look out for seals, porpoises, sparrowhawks, choughs, gannets and cormorants) and views across turbulent Ramsey Sound to Ramsey Island.
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Tintern and Return
The classic Tintern and Return walk begins at the tourist office and heads upriver along the Wye Valley path to Tintern Abbey, returning via the Offa's Dyke Path on the eastern bank. The total distance is around 13 miles; allow a full day, with lunch at Tintern. The tourist office sells a leaflet to accompany the walk, but you'll also need Ordnance Survey Landranger map No 162 (also available from the tourist office). You can cut the walk short at Tintern and return to Chepstow (or continue to Monmouth) by bus.
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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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