Category: travel
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Wye Valley Walk, day 11: Newbridge-on-Wye to Rhayader
Sun and warmth have returned. We’re taxi’d back from Rhayader to Newbridge for a rather longer walk than yesterday’s. We wait on the bridge, and immediately spot our first kite of the day. As well as A we’re joined by a second guest, J. The four of us start on a minor road below the…
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Wye Valley Walk, day 10: Builth Wells to Newbridge-on-Wye
We’ve been given a short stretch today after yesterday’s labours. The owner of the guest house waves us off. We’re too late to see the otters, he says, but we might consider a dip in Plum Tree Pool, a few miles upriver. Luckily I’ve left my swimming trunks behind. The sky has heavier clouds than…
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Wye Valley Walk, day 9: Boughrood to Builth Wells
At breakfast we resume our conversation with another Two Women. This time they’re trail riders (I detect a wince when I let slip the term ‘pony trekkers’). We saw them twice yesterday, next to the river. They’ve come from Hay, their borrowed horses are spending the night in a nearby field, and in the morning…
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Wye Valley Walk, day 8: Hay-on-Wye to Boughrood
Hay looks unbookish today. It’s a few weeks before the Literature Festival gets under way. The bookshops are open, but there aren’t enough visitors in town to make them look busy. Other shops look closed or hibernating, waiting for the end of May. But we’re here, C and I, back to start the Wye Valley…
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Y Lôn Goed a’r beirdd
Rhodfa lydan â dwy linell o dderw a ffawydd oedd y Lôn Goed, a dim mwy na hynny, i ddechrau. Enw yn unig oedd y Lôn imi tan y ddiweddar, pan ddarllenais gyfrol ddifyr Rhys Mwyn, Real Gwynedd, a darganfod mai lleoliad go iawn yw hi. Ac yn wir, lleoliad hanesyddol. Fe’i lluniwyd gan John…
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Cefn Bryn and the writers
The sandsone ridge of Cefn Bryn is an obvious magnet for painters, but it doesn’t seem to have drawn many creative writers, despite its brooding presence along the backbone of the Gower peninsula. One exception is Amy Dillwyn, the pioneering industrialist, feminist and lesbian, in her best-known work The Rebecca rioter (1880), an historical novel…
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Be welwch chi o gopa Cader?
Llynedd, am y tro cyntaf ers blynyddoedd, methais i ddringo i gopa Cadair Idris. Sa i’n gwbod pam. Covid a’i ofidiau, siŵr o fod, neu absenoldeb meddwl, neu ohirio oherwydd pwysau eraill. Ond, o edrych yn ôl, dwi’n teimlo rhyw fwlch bach yn fy mywyd, rhyw rwyg yn yr edafedd o lwybro rheolaidd ar y…
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Cymraeg ar y mynydd
Enillydd cyntaf Gwobr Ysgrif O’r Pedwar Gwynt yw Rebecca Thomas, cymrawd ôl-ddoethurol yr Academi Brydeinig ym Mhrifysgol Bangor. Ei maes academaidd yw hanes Cymru yn yr oesoedd canol cynnar, a chawn beth o’i gwybodaeth drwyadl o’r pwnc yn ei hysgrif fuddugol, sy’n dwyn y teitl ‘Cribo’r Dragon’s Back’. Er yn fyr, mae’r darn hwn yn…
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Ar ben pella’r byd
Dyma’r ffordd o’i chyrraedd. Edrychwch am droad i’r dde wrth ichi deithio tua’r gorllewin ar y ffordd i ben pella’r penrhyn. Mae’n hawdd ei golli. Cadwch eich llygaid ar agor am fryn coediog gyferbyn ar y chwith. Wedi troi, mae’r lôn syth yn disgyn yn raddol â llain o lawnt ar y ddwy ochr. Ar…
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Wye Valley Walk, day 7: Monnington-on-Wye to Hay-on-Wye
Before breakfast we meet the Couple from Chepstow properly for the first time, and have a chance to share our parallel experiences of the Walk. S. and J., it turns out, live in Tunbridge Wells and are keen ramblers. They’re not stopping at Hay like us, but plan to go on to Rhayader. Not for…