Wales, for many, is a holiday destination for a summer getaway. We – and the children – would happily spend a week or even longer here, enjoying the great outdoors in the same way as we would in somewhere like Brittany.
You can be across the Severn Bridge in a couple of hours from west London, or across the border in far less from cities like Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. That means it’s increasingly a place where you can easily find a decent family retreat for a couple of nights. And the ever-increasing number of adventure specialists also means that more and more people expect to come outside high season (and expect to get wet).
The great thing about Wales is that you are going to a completely different country, with different attitudes, yet you don’t have to worry about passports and airports, foreign baby foods and strange electricity sockets. Wherever you go you’ll find recognisable high street shops and food that’s as reassuring as you want it to be. When we first took the children they didn’t know what to expect, but quickly became attuned to the fact that they might be on a beach one day and up a mountain the next, in a theme park or in a water park.
A trip to Cardiff is one of the biggest hits (they’re usually quickly bored walking along streets), and they rarely objected to getting into the car, knowing that there was going to be somewhere and something interesting at the other end. Don’t worry too much about where you’ll end up – just go!
For many more it’s somewhere you can get to for a long weekend break, or even a short one.
Where to go and why
Cardiff City life with hands-on museums, sports stadiums, waterfront, culture, great restaurants, plenty of shops, parks ... and the Doctor Who exhibition. And Cardiff is a perfect base for exploring the seaside (Penarth), and the interior where there’s a wealth of countryside along with industrial heritage (particularly coal mines), which has been turned into child-friendly attractions.
The South You couldn’t wish for a more varied landscape and region. There’s the tranquillity of the Welsh Wye Valley towns, the surprisingly pretty Vale of Glamorgan and its Heritage Coastline, the fascination of the Welsh Valleys’ industrial heritage, and the new visitor attractions of Swansea – plus the world-class beauty of the Gower Peninsula’s beaches.
The West Tenby is one of thebiggest, busiest seaside resortsand yet it just about maintainsthe feel of a moderate-sized fishing town. There are dozens ofbeautiful beaches to discover inthe Pembrokeshire CoastNational Park – most of themsandy. Manorbier, Barafundle, Broad Haven South and Marloes are among the best. Go further and you find the delights of the St David’s Peninsula, a place of crashing waves and beaches, wedged between cliffs or stretch- ing for miles. The coast becomes wilder and the cliff tops more beautiful as they skirt past Fishguard northwards to the sandy estuary beaches of Newport and Poppet Sands, where Teifi estuary heralds the start of mid Wales.
The Middle This green heaven tumbles down on either side of the Cambrian Mountains where you’ll find isolated gold mines, the pretty university town of Lampeter, reservoirs and more mountains. The Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains both have their lofty, away-from-it-all charms, but are in easy reach of civilisation.
The North One of the biggest, boldest places in the UK, this is where you find Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales, and a bewildering mix of hard-core outdoor activities and tourist attractions centred on the village of Llanberis, set among the most stunning scenery in the country. In one direction you find sparsely-populated Anglesey, in the other the bucket and spade seaside frenzy of Rhyl and Llandudno. It’s yet another region of extraordinary contrasts, typical of Wales.
