Our Favorite Things About Wales

We only spent a couple of weeks in Wales on our nearly three months in the UK. When we were in Galway last summer, we ran into a father and son from Wales in a pub and asked what we should see and, aside from Snowdonia Park, they didn’t really have any recommendations. For Ireland, yes, for Wales, no. We thought it a bit strange. Our Lonely Planet guidebook was also a bit comparatively sparse on info as well. So, for those who might visit in the future, here are the things we liked best about our visit.

1. Snowdonia Park. The father and son were right, Snowdonia is special. It is full of stunning beauty and cute little stone villages and bridges. We shorted our time in the park itself and would likely stay inside it, in a village like Betws-y-Coed or similar, on a return visit.

2. Tenby. Utterly fantastic. The long, flat, sandy beaches which get wider and wider as the tide recedes coupled with the colorful building along the cliffside and the cool little downtown introduced us to the south coast of Wales where we would focus any return visit.

3. Oat cakes. At every stop along the way, our Airbnb hosts left us some wonderful little Welsh oat cakes for our breakfasts. They were delicious and are available in every bakery.

4. The Pubs of the Mwmblws. Finally, we’ve had some good pub experiences in the UK, both on this trip and on our first trip together to London. The pub experiences we had in Mwmblws were next level. How can you go wrong when the local Welsh patrons bid you croeso (welcome), embrace you as one of their own for dancing and singing and losing one’s voices to a husband-and-wife electric ukelele duo? Fantastic. Diolch.