Mountains and Coastlines and Villages, Oh My: Exploring the Welsh Countryside

I suppose I should start with introductions.

Everyone this is Wally; Wally, everyone. Wally was my companion on the rolling hills and gentle coasts of the Welsh countryside. And after witnessing my first car accident literally within 2 minutes of picking up my buddy here (key word here is “witnessing”. Don’t worry, Wally kept me very safe) and some arguments over the navigation system we got along swimmingly. So, fueled with coffee, I headed off on the open road.

Originally I was going to head through the gut of Snowdonia National Park; however, after a brief study of the map, I decided it made more sense to tackle the coastline first and hit Snowdonia on my way back. It turns out that Snowdonia is rather big so I crisscrossed in and out of it for much of my journey to Aberystwyth, my destination for the day. Anyway, first stop of the drive was Mumbles Pier because how could I not stop at a place called Mumbles Pier? I found the first of many houses that I could see myself living in, a nice boat to sail around the ocean blue and a lighthouse to always lead me home. What more could I ask for?

As for the rest of the drive, I’ll just let the pictures do the talking.

I made it into town just in time to see the castle (well castle ruins) against the nighttime sky. The castle was nice and all but it was the the view from the castle and the way that the color of the sky played off of the ocean that really caught me.

It was my goal to have some fresh seafood while I was on the coast and boy was that the right call. I popped in to Gwesty Cymru (google translate tells me that that means Hotel Wales) and had the sea bream. I don’t know what sea bream is, but it was absolutely delightful.

New day, new destination. Which means more time with my good friend Wally. My final stop was to be in Bethesda/Bangor but there were many stops to make along the way, to admire small towns, rolling waves and snow-capped mountains.

One such small town was the seaside village of Portmeirion. Architect Clough Williams-Ellis purchased it in 1925 and spent the next 50 years developing it. His intent was to show how a beautiful site could be developed without spoiling it. The resulting village looks like a little slice of Italy right there in the middle of Wales, overlooking the Traeth Bach tidal estuary and surrounded by a sub-tropical forest called Y Gwyllt. It may have taken him 50 years to develop but I think the final result was well worth the wait.

After a pint at the very cosy, first licensed pub in Wales, I finally made it to my lodging which for the first (and only) time on this trip was an Airbnb. The lack of wifi was rather disappointing but holy cow did the view make up for it.

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I had a long day ahead of me and coffee was a necessity so I stopped in at The Alpine Coffee Shop and made friends with a gorilla. It probably helped that he wasn’t real because monkeys aren’t usually my thing. But something about this shop converted me into such a softie that I wanted to go up and give that fake monkey a hug. Must have been something in the latte.

With the knowledge that my time with Wally was rapidly coming to a close, I took the long way home through Snowdonia National Park and made a pit stop at the Penderyn Distillery. I just couldn’t let him go without a proper cheers. I was fortunate enough to hit a nice intimate tour (third wheel over here!) which allowed us to have a tiny additional sample…for purely educational purposes of course. It was practically a science experiment. Did you know that pouring whiskey into a warm glass takes off some of the edge (particularly if said whiskey is of the peaty variety)? Well now you know.

And with that, I brought Wally back home and bid farewell to the beautiful and welcoming country that gave me my first, but hopefully not last, snow sighting of the season.