travel

Beacons Way, day 8: Carreg Cennen to Bethlehem

May 16, 2025 0 Comments
Beacons Way, day 8: Carreg Cennen to Bethlehem

The taxi arrives at the White Hart on the dot, and we set off from Llandeilo, on another fine morning, through Ffairfach and Trap to the farm car park at Castell Carreg Cennen. I thank Mr Teilo Taxis for his essential help, and he leaves for home and a day of painting his house, unless […]

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Beacons Way, day 7: Llanddeusant to Carreg Cennen

May 9, 2025 5 Comments
Beacons Way, day 7: Llanddeusant to Carreg Cennen

The day’s started well:  I’m travelling on one of my favourite railways, the Heart of Wales Line.  The two-carriage train is dawdling and rattling its way towards Llangadog.  The trick is to choose a seat on the left, and catch views of the coastal mudflats and Gower across the water.  At Llanelli the train reverses, […]

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An anatomy of early Welsh tourism

May 2, 2025 2 Comments
An anatomy of early Welsh tourism

How many tourists visiting Wales today, I wonder, ever think about their early predecessors?  I mean those who first arrived, in surprisingly large numbers, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  How many are aware that these travellers, rather than composing Instagram posts, blogs and TikTok videos, would most likely have busied themselves drawing […]

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Beacons Way, day 6: Craig y Nos to Llanddeusant

April 25, 2025 4 Comments
Beacons Way, day 6: Craig y Nos to Llanddeusant

After a comfortable night in the Penycae Inn I opt for the full breakfast, on the theory that yesterday’s fatigue was caused by lack of calories, and make an early start in the spring sunshine.  Before the climbing starts there’s an hour-long ‘overture’ of flat walking.  I cross the Tawe and retrace my steps along […]

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Beacons Way, day 5: Storey Arms to Craig y Nos

April 18, 2025 1 Comment
Beacons Way, day 5: Storey Arms to Craig y Nos

Another cloudless day, another trip on the TrawsCymru T6 bus from Swansea to Brecon, followed after a break by the T4 to Storey Arms.  This time I’m on the other side of the A470 from Pen y Fan.  I’ve always wanted to explore the unfashionable west slopes above Storey Arms, and now’s my chance.  My […]

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Beacons Way, day 4: Llangynidr to Storey Arms

April 11, 2025 0 Comments
Beacons Way, day 4: Llangynidr to Storey Arms

In the Coach and Horses I’m awake early.  The day’s bright again, and after a modest breakfast, I’m outside and walking before eight o’clock.  I find the lock on the canal, cross on a small wooden bridge and start the journey westward, through trees and then a series of fields, past two farms, Llwyn-yr eos, […]

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Beacons Way, day 3: Crickhowell to Llangynidr

April 4, 2025 2 Comments
Beacons Way, day 3: Crickhowell to Llangynidr

It takes two bus journeys from home to reach today’s starting point, Crickhowell.  The T6 winds its way via Cwm Nedd, Cwm Dulais and the Usk valley to Brecon, and there I swap to the smaller X45 bus that speeds along to Crickhowell.  There are just a few fellow passengers, including a group of workers […]

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The other Capel-y-ffin

December 13, 2024 11 Comments
The other Capel-y-ffin

There were two other people, a man and his wife from Caerffili, at St Mary’s church when I visited Capel-y-ffin last week.  They stood and shared my wonder at the wonky beauty of the tiny building, with its wooden bellcote, eighteenth-century pews and pulpit, and miniature staircase and gallery.  As we left, we took photos […]

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Is there a history of walking?

November 1, 2024 3 Comments
Is there a history of walking?

It’s a question that wouldn’t have been asked, let alone answered, before Rebecca Solnit’s pioneering book Wanderlust, published in 2000.  Solnit is a writer probably best known for her books on women – she was the first to formulate the idea of ‘mansplaining’ – but her range of reference is startlingly wide, and her work […]

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Walking across Afghanistan

October 4, 2024 0 Comments
Walking across Afghanistan

There can’t be many more walks more extreme than the one described by Rory Stewart in his book The places in between.  He takes us with him on a journey he made, entirely on foot, across the central regions of Afghanistan in 2002, from Herat to Kabul, soon after the US-led invasion of the country […]

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