National Botanic Garden of Wales
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Concealed in the rolling Tywi valley countryside, this lavish complex opened in 2000 and is still maturing. Formerly an aristocratic estate, the garden…
Must-see attractions in Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
This idyllic, 324-hectare, beautifully landscaped estate, immediately west of Llandeilo, incorporates a deer park, pasture, woods, an Iron Age fort, the…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
The western extremity of the Gower is guarded by this mile-long promontory, which turns into an island at high tide. Worms Head takes its name from the…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Wandering through these formal walled gardens feels a bit like walking into a Jane Austen novel. They date originally from Elizabethan times, have evolved…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Dylan Thomas, his wife Caitlin and their three children lived in this cliff-clinging house from 1949 to 1953. It's a beautiful setting, looking out over…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Spanning 20 hectares, these magnificent gardens are particularly impressive in spring, when the azaleas and rhododendrons are at their most spectacular…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Three Cliffs Bay is named for the pyramid-like, triple-pointed crag pierced by a natural arch that juts out into the water at its eastern point. It's…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Covering 97 hectares on the northern shore of the Burry Inlet, across from the Gower Peninsula, this is one of Wales' most important habitats for waders…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
On a fittingly desolate ridge near Reynoldston stands this mysterious neolithic burial chamber capped by a 25-tonne quartz boulder. The view from here is…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Set in a beautiful wooded estate, this is the only known Roman goldmine in the UK. The exhibition and the mining machinery above ground are interesting,…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Built in the 13th century, picturesque Laugharne Castle was converted into a mansion in the 16th century for John Perrot, thought to be the illegitimate…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Rising above a narrow waterway dotted with gliding swans, this forbidding grey eminence was founded by the Normans in 1106, but most of the system of…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
The Cambrian Mills factory, world famous for its high-quality woollen products, closed in 1984 and this surprisingly interesting museum has taken its…
Swansea (Abertawe)
Housed in the former guildhall, this unassuming museum contains absorbing displays on the Swansea-born poet's life and work. It pulls no punches in…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
One of Wales' most acclaimed organic cheesemakers, Caws Cenarth produces all the well-known Welsh cheeses (Caerphilly, Perl Wen, Perl Las) as well as the…
Swansea (Abertawe)
Swansea University's collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities, some 5000 artefacts donated by various British institutions and collectors, includes a…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Nestled in a tiny valley between wooded hills, this verdant park contains the Long Cairn, a 5500-year-old burial chamber consisting of a stone entryway, a…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
The shattered ruin of motte-and-bailey Llandovery Castle looms ineffectually over the town centre. Built in 1100 and then rebuilt in stone in the 1160s,…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Perched above a languid loop in the River Teifi, this ruined fortress holds the distinction of being the first stone castle to be built by a Welshman…
Swansea (Abertawe)
Housed in a 1901 dockside warehouse with a striking glass and slate extension, this museum's 15 hands-on galleries explore Wales' commercial maritime…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Rhossili beach is backed by the steep slopes of this humpbacked, heather-covered ridge (193m), whose updraughts create perfect soaring conditions for hang…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
A fascinating view over the salt marshes awaits at this partly ruined late medieval castle, built in the 13th and 14th centuries. Grouped around a…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
A couple of solid walls and a few crumbling towers are all that remain of Carmarthen's 12th-century castle, which was largely destroyed in the Civil War…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Housed in a restored mill with a working waterwheel, this complex has plenty to keep the kids entertained when the weather drives you off the beaches…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Once a common sight on Welsh rivers, coracles are small, lightweight, round fishing boats. Housed in a 17th-century flour mill, this museum showcases a…
Swansea (Abertawe)
Dylan Thomas referred to this august institution as 'the museum which should have been in a museum'. Founded in 1834, it remains charmingly low-tech, from…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
The Mumbles' mile-long strip of pastel-painted houses, pubs and restaurants comes to a picturesque denouement with a rocky headland, a pretty sandy beach…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
It wouldn't be Wales without a castle, and sure enough the trendy shops and bars of Newton Rd are guarded broodingly by a majestic ruin. Once the…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Located in a 13th-century country house, which served as the bishop's palace right up until 1972, this museum is a musty emporium of archaeology,…
Swansea (Abertawe)
The bad boy of Welsh poetry was born in this unassuming Uplands house and it's here that he wrote two-thirds of his poetry. The house has been lovingly…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Local hermit Cenydd (pronounced Kenneth) lends his name to both the village and this Norman church, topped with a blunt stone tower. Inside there's a 12th…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
This shingle beach is backed by a wooded ravine known as Bishopston Valley. There's no road access, but you can walk here from Bishopston village (less…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Housed in a former art college, this stylish little gallery stages changing exhibitions of contemporary art. The shop sells a nice range of craft and…
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Set on a hillside above the beach, the stately grey ruin of Oxwich Castle is less a castle and more a sumptuous 16th-century, mock-military Tudor mansion.
Swansea (Abertawe)
Only a small pocket of the central city around Wind St and Castle Sq escaped the WWII bombing raids and retains a remnant of Georgian and Victorian…
Swansea (Abertawe)
The name may conjure up images of Disney's hippos in tutus, but it's smaller critters that feature in this glass pyramid, parked between the depressingly…
Swansea (Abertawe)
The seemingly never-ending refurbishment of Swansea's main art gallery was still in progress when we last visited. By the time you read this, the elegant…
