St. Elvis and the Seals
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On Sunday, we left London for a week’s journey into Wales. We rented a car, which is certainly an adventure, particularly for Rob who a) has to drive it on a side of the road he’s rather unused to, and b) has to drive it while just recovering from a nasty stomach malady which plagued him for most of our stay in London. Oh, and by the way, there was a petrol strike on, the ramifications of which would become more significant to us as the trip wore on. But on Sunday, we had only the hour and a half drive to Bath to worry about. I’d been to Bath during my English sojourn years ago; the weather was foul, there was no one there, and I watched "Damien: the Omen II" in my B&B. Rob and I didn’t have many expectations for the stay, so we were pleasantly surprised by having a lovely time. We took one of those dreadful bus tours that turned out to be most undreadful, inspiring us to spend the next morning in Bath as well. Rob elected not to win “Husband of the Year” by accompanying me to the Jane Austen Center (though he did come with me to the house where she lived). Bath’s architecture isn’t very interesting when considered house by house (mostly Georgian), but when you look at it all at once, it is very impressive. See Rob’s pictures. We did not have high tea at the Pump Room, which is usually de rigueur—I’ve already had it there and at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston and at the Empress in Victoria, and I can safely say that I never really need to have high tea again. It’s not that it is a bad experience, but when you’ve had one cucumber and butter sandwich, you’ve pretty much had them all.

  Monday after lunch (buns at Sally Lunn’s, in case you’re interested) we began our journey to Wales. Now, before we left, we’d heard talk about petrol strikes in France closing down lots of things, and we vaguely worried about them affecting our trip to Paris. Then we heard rumblings about petrol strikes in the UK, but didn’t pay much attention. As we left Bath, we couldn’t help noticing long lines of cars in front of gas stations, and we began to worry a little. Being the responsible, paranoid, oldest-sibling-types we both are, we immediately pictured our being stranded in Wales with no gas as both our deadline for returning the car and the Eurostar train to Paris we’d booked passed along without us. As a result, we did some of the “panic buying” that we later heard about on the news: it took trips to two different stations (each with a £10 limit on purchases), but we arrived in St. David’s in the Pembrokeshire National Park on the Welsh coast with a full tank of gas and resolutions not to drive ANYWHERE.

  Our few days in Wales were among the most relaxing and pleasant ones on our trip. The main attraction of the Pembrokshire National Park is the Coastal Path which runs, well, along the coast all for about 186 miles. I’d heartily recommend our trip to the PNP to anyone, so here are instructions so you can have as lovely a time as we did:

1)       Go directly to the visitor’s center of the town where you’re going to be staying. We chose St. David’s because it is in the middle of the park (this was before we couldn’t drive anywhere), but there are a number of similarly-sized towns such as Tenby, Newport, and Fishguard. The nice people at the visitor’s center will help you find accommodations—they know what’s fully booked, which places have bathrooms en suite, etc. etc. We stayed at a terrific place called the Waterings. While you’re at the visitor’s center, you can pick up pamphlets and books about hikes and attractions, etc.

2)       Every morning, pick out a one or two walks to do that day. We liked to do a shortish one in the morning, have lunch, then do a longish one in the afternoon. Our hotel would provide packed lunches, but a lot of cafes do that as well (NOTE: If you aren’t from the UK, make sure you tell anyone who is making a sandwich for you to hold the butter, otherwise it's like a butter sandwich with a tiny little bit of ham and a couple of cucumber slices). We ended up walking between 6 and 11 miles a day.

3)       Come back to your hotel, take a nice bath, then head out to a little pub or hotel restaurant for dinner. You won’t get your pad thai, your blackened-chicken Caesar with dressing on the side, or your pasta puttanesca in small-town Wales, but there is killer lamb, great chips, and that warmish beer is just right on a chilly, rainy night.

4)       Sleep like a baby, wake up, and do it all again.

The Welsh coast is magical. Most of it is steep cliffs running straight down into the water, but the scenery varies greatly depending on where you are. On one walk, Rob turned to me and said, “It’s like 360 degrees beautiful here.” We saw coves with newborn seals being fed by their mothers, great fields of wildflowers, wild horses, lots of sheep (and their dung), lots of cows (and their dung),  Iron-age ruins, and a little shrine to St. Elvis (I’m assuming the saint predates the King, but there wasn’t much information). As, ever, Rob’s pictures do it far more justice than I ever could. We grew very relaxed after the frenzied pace of London. I could have easily stayed another week, especially if there’d been some fuel to buy.

Alas, Friday arrived and we had to go back to London. We arrived with gas to spare, returned the car (getting reamed for not filling the tank, but were too relaxed to get as pissed off as we should have), bought ourselves some great Camper shoes, did our laundry, updated the website, and got a good night’s sleep. I’m writing this on the Eurostar train from London to Paris. Next dispatch from the City of Light. Oooh la la!

--Lisa

Roman baths

Husband of the year

Bath in Bath