The travels of Tim and Megan: Tenby, Wales

Sunday

We arrived in Tenby around lunchtime on Sunday and we were instantly impressed. Tenby is the largest resort town in Pembrokeshire with a population of around 5,000 and its town centre was buzzing with hundreds of people. After checking into the Castle View Hotel (which was also very nice and we recommend it to fellow travellers), we wandered through the medieval-style streets amongst the crowds of tourists.

The town was bigger than we had expected and there were literally dozens of pubs - sadly we didn't get to them all, but we tried our best. We had lunch at a cafe called Blueberry's, which was well below par...don't go there! After lunch we had a stroll along the very pretty North Beach and we were amused to see the Welsh / English folk in their swimsuits sunbathing and even swimming at the beach in the warm but very grey overcast conditions - the British summer!

Castle Hill sticks out on a tiny peninsula that separates the North Beach and the South Beach of Tenby. We climbed up Castle Hill and checked out the Prince Albert memorial at the top and enjoyed the stunning views before making an assault on the South Beach. The South Beach is very long and has magnificent caves and rocky cliffs up to the town centre high above the sandy beach.

In the 1500s, Tenby was a smaller town and was completely enclosed by huge fortified walls. Some of these walls still stand today, including the famous Five Arches gateway. There was a relaxed holiday atmosphere around Tenby, which made a pleasant change from some of our "holiday" destinations. We made our way through the Five Arches gateway and had another look around the shops before testing out some of the pubs. We visited the Buchaneer Inn (which had a very nice outdoor beer garden), Tenby House, the Lamb Inn, the Five Arches pub and finally the Crown Inn. These were all really nice pubs and we were extremely impressed by the food on offer at the Five Arches, where we had dinner. We each got a massive roast with about 30-odd veges for something like £6. Bargain.

After our awesome dinner we went for another stroll through the streets that look down to the South Beach. The sun had come out and it was a beautiful warm evening. We were very tempted to join the Sunday night bingo competition in the town hall, but figured we would be the youngest people there by a long way and we decided against it.

Monday

On Monday we had another brilliant breakfast in the hotel before setting off for the Tenby Harbour, where we caught a boat out to Caldey Island, just off the coast of south-west Wales. Caldey Island (population 50) is home to a small village, but it is best known for its monastery. A Celtic monastery was founded on the island in the 6th century, and a Benedictine foundation existed from 1136 until 1536 (when it was stamped out during the Reformation) and again from 1906. The present monastery is Reformed Cistercian.

The monks get up at 3:15 am to pray, and then go to work which includes making chocolate and fudge in their small chocolate factory on the island and perfume and soap etc from the wild flowers there. When we arrived on Caldey Island we had a look around the old post office / museum, which contains a history of life on the island and information about how the monks spend their days. The actual monastery buildings are closed to the public, but we looked inside St David's church and the Old Priory.

St David's Church is tiny, but very pretty. It has a few beautiful stained-glass windows, including one of a fish, which is pictured below. The present building dates back to Norman times, but the foundations that it sits on are those of a Celtic chapel built in the 6th century. There is a small graveyard just outside the church where small wooden crosses mark the graves of monks and islanders, but the ground was also a pre-Christian Celtic burial ground 1,800 to 2,000 years ago.

The Old Priory and St Illtyd's Church, with its leaning spire, are amongst the oldest buildings on Caldey Island. The Priory was home to the Benedictine monks who lived on Caldey Island in medieval times. St Illtyd's Church is another tiny but pretty church with ancient stone walls and a pebble floor. It is the home of the 6th century Caldey Stone, which was excavated in the grounds. The stone is inscribed in the Celtic Ogham script and also in Latin. After buying some chocolate and fudge from the chocolate factory, we walked to the far end of the small island, where a lighthouse stands proudly on a cliff.

We caught a boat back to Tenby around midday, in time to catch a bus across to Pembroke. Pembroke is another very pretty small town in the south-west of Wales, its chief attraction being the massive Pembroke Castle in its town centre.

The history of Pembroke Castle goes back to at least Roman times, but little history of that period remains today. The present castle, one of the largest and most impressive Norman castle in Wales, was first established in 1093 during the Norman Conquest of Wales. The castle was given to Jasper Tudor, along with the earldom of Pembroke, who brought his widowed sister-in-law, Margaret Beaufort, to the castle to give birth to her only child, Henry Tudor, the future King of England, Henry VII, in 1457.

We had a very interesting tour of the castle, including the Henry Tudor Tower, where King Henry VII was apparently born and several other towers that contained exhibitions on the history of the castle etc. We climbed to the top of the Norman keep (see photo of king of the castle on top of the keep below). The walls of the keep are 2 metres thick and 23 metres high. We also checked out the Wogan Cavern, a huge natural cave underneath the south-eastern corner of the castle that was used for storage.

After our castle tour (the Welsh sure love a good castle - there are over 400 castles in Wales), we strolled along the main street of Pembroke, looking at a few shops as we went. We also had a walk along the river that runs through the town before catching a bus back to Tenby in the evening.

Back in Tenby, we continued our tour of pubs, visiting the Hope & Anchor (another lovely outdoor beer garden), Ronni'z Wine Bar (tres classy) and the Lifeboat Tavern, where two of the barmaids were clearly bored and disappeared for a few minutes only to return as "Captain Anonymous and Pirate Vader", wearing bizarre dress-up costumes. One was in a Darth Vader suit without the mask...rather funny. Then we returned to the Five Arches for roast beef with yorkshire pudding / sausage and mash...and they didn't disappoint. It was another brilliant dinner.

Tuesday

Sadly Tuesday was a very wet day in Wales. We braved the elements in the morning to check out a few more shops, buy a raincoat and also have a look at St Mary's Church in the centre of Tenby before heading for the train station and making our way back to London via Swansea and Cardiff.