Hello All!
Merry Christmas!! (I can say that now that Thanksgiving has gone) It's crazy to think that it has barely been a week since my parents were here, time flies when you have a party to plan;) It was just last weekend that Mom, Dad, and I were exploring Pembrokeshire. Pembrokeshire is a county in Wales that runs along the southern coast of Wales. The county is known for its Coastal National Park, the only one of its kind in the UK and its beautiful beaches make it an extremely popular vacation destination for the English. We spent the weekend wandering through Welsh Gardens, and Taking in Coastal Views while also helping Dad navigate the narrow British Roads (let's just stay some of the two lane roads here would barely qualify as a large walking path back home). Overall the weekend was incredible and it was hard to leave and return back to "real" life for all of us.
Friday
We arrived in Wales Thursday night and stayed in Swansea that night. The next morning Mom and I found coffee and food while Dad went off to rent a car and soon we were on our way. Our exploration began with visiting Aberglasney House & Gardens. Aberglasney is an estate that has had a rich history and yet has fallen into disrepair many times. Aberglasney was made famous by the BBC television series “A Garden Lost in Time” which followed its restoration, and today it is quite simply one of Wales’ finest gardens according to its website. Here are some of the pictures from these beautiful gardens.
After our lovely visit to Aberglasney we continued on to our B&B we drove along the coast and it was a beautiful drive! One of the incredible things about Pembrokeshire is that the entire coast is a national park and that it also has a coastal past that runs for over 180 miles. Here are some photos from our drive.
Once to our B&B we found some dinner and enjoyed a quite night with each other planing our next few days.
Saturday
The next day we decided to head to Picton Castle & Gardens for their Holiday Market and to see the Castle decorated for christmas. Picton Castle is a medieval castle it was originally built at the end of the 13th century by a Flemish knight, and it later came into the hands of Sir John Wogan. To this day it is still inhabited by his descendants, the Philipps family. The Castle is beautiful and it was fun to see it decorated in victorian style for christmas.
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You can see the original Castle
and the addition here |
After spending our morning enjoying Picton we headed out to go on a little hike around Martin's Haven. The Haven is a peninsula that offers incredible views of ocean and islands of Pembrokeshire when we were there it was raining and windy (what else for Britain) and yet it was incredibly beautiful here are a few photos.
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| As I said it was very windy, rainy, and cold! |
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See the little house at the top of the hill
it's a weather station with a very nice
weather man in it :) |
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After our walk along the bluffs we headed back to the car thoroughly soaked but happy we still had two more places to visit so off we went to St. Govan's Chapel. The Chapel is surrounded with legends. However the most prevalent one seems to be that Govan was an Irish monk who was traveling to Wales. However he was set upon by pirates and sought shelter on a cliff. Legend says that the cliff opened up and left a fissure just big enough for him to hide in until the pirates left. You can still see the outline of his ribs in the cave wall. St. Govan decided to stay in this cave and worship. The present small vaulted chapel of local limestone was built over the cave and dates from the 13th century although the site may have been of monastic importance since the 5th century. There are also two wells at the sight Both are now dry; one was where the medieval chapel now stands, the other, which was lower down the cliff, later became a holy well. The Chapel also has a steeple where a bell must have once hung the bell no longer there also has its own legend they say the bell was silver and that when rung its sound was of perfect tone and clarity, but pirates who heard the sound left St Govan desolate when they stole the bell. Angels flew in and took it from the pirates and returned it to the hermit. To stop the pirates returning and taking it again, the angels encased the bell in a huge stone, that is, the Bell Rock which is found at the water's edge. The legend said that when St Govan "rang" the stone, its vigour had become a thousand times stronger. These tales cast a eerie light on the chapel filled with mystery and wonder when we visited.
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| You can see just the roof of St. Govens Chapel |
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| The view out of the Chapel window onto bell rock |
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| St. Govan's Chapel. You can see where the bell once hung. |
The Chapel was beautiful and I loved the Legends that go along with it. However the sun sets early and we still wanted to see the Stack Rocks and Green Bridge of Wales. The Stack Rocks and Green Bridge of Wales are caused by Erosion that leaves incredible structures making for great coastal views!
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| Looking across the Bridge |
As Mentioned above the views were incredible and the perfect way to end our day.
Sunday
Sunday we packed up our stuff said goodbye to our B&B and headed back to Swansea with a few stops along the way. Before leaving Pembrokeshire we wanted to stop and explore Tenby a small vacation and fishing village that is said to be the best of the county we had driven through on friday but weren't able to stop and i'm so glad we decided to go back the morning we spent in Tenby was one of my favorite of the whole trip. The Town is filled with Colorful little houses, interesting shops, and yummy pubs, all surrounded by an old city wall and incredible beaches. We walked the beach for a couple of hours before heading back into the town to find a pub
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The Town reminded me of a Tropical Paradise and is a place I will dream of going back to. Tenby was where we ended our our weekend we drove back to Swansea and waited for our trains before heading our separate ways Mom and Dad back to London for their plane and well I did eventually make it back to Nottingham although I did end up having to spend the night in Cardiff (watch out for trains of strike). Tenby was the perfect end to a lovely week with my parents.
Cheers!
Meghan
“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.” – Anais Nin
