TRAVEL | BEING THERE
PHOTO: CODY DUNCAN. NGM MAPSCastles of Wales
Wales is said to be home to more castles per
square mile than any other country in Europe. Why
the density? Blame it partly on Wales’s history as
a contested territory among native Welsh, Normans,
and English, who all erected epic fortresses. Here
are four of the best. —RAPHAEL KADUSHINChepstow Castle
Has the oldest castle doors
in Europe
Castell y Bere
Rates as one of Wales’s most
photogenic ruins
Kidwelly Castle
Starred as a backdrop in Monty
Python and the Holy Grail
Powis Castle
Renowned for terraced,
Italian Renaissance–style gardenson the country’s west coast. The castle-rich North
Wales Way follows a centuries-old trading route 75
miles from northeastern Queensferry to the cliffs at
Holyhead on the Isle of Anglesey.
Each route is a gateway to wider outdoor adven-
ture. On the western Pembrokeshire coast, surfers
ride the swells at Freshwater West, site of the Welsh
national surfing championships. Climbers can follow
in the footsteps of Sir Edmund Hillary, who trained
on 3,560-foot Mount Snowdon before his 1953
Everest ascent. Elsewhere in Snowdonia
National Park, the River Tryweryn is the
top destination for white-water kayak-
ing and rafting in Britain. This is poetry
to get the blood pumping.
In the 1980s the Welsh pioneered a
new adrenaline rush called coasteering.
This increasingly popular adventure
sport may include rock climbing, cliff
jumping, cave exploring, swimming—
experiencing with all senses the impact zone where
water meets land.
The speed is slower on Wales’s hundreds of miles
of walking trails, including the 870-mile Wales Coast
Path, which follows the country’s entire shoreline,
from Chepstow in the south to Queensferry in the
north. Once I spent a sunny afternoon unexpectedly
walking a very short section of the path from Port
Eynon Bay to Oxwich Bay, in the Gower Peninsula,
where I’ve been visiting relatives since I was 14 years
old. I’d thought only to stroll out to one end of the
bay and back, but the desire to see what was beyond
the headland kept me walking. At Oxwich Bay, Ifound families out enjoying the unseasonably warm
weather on broad golden sands. The bay flows out
to the Bristol Channel, which has one of the highest
tidal ranges in the world. In Wales it always pays to
see what wonders lie around the bend.
Or what surprises. At Devil’s Bridge, in the north-
ern Cambrian Mountains, a steep trail leads down
a wooded gorge to Devil’s Bridge Falls. I arrived one
spring at dusk and had the trail nearly to myself.
I heard the rumble of the falls before I saw them.
They plunge 298 feet in several cascades, the water
sometimes gathering in potholes, where the bedrock
has eroded. The trail wound down closer to the base
of the falls, and each view seemed different, as if I
were looking at a multitude of waterfalls, rather than
the same one from various vantages.
Its prismatic beauty attested to why this has been
a tourist attraction since Victorian times. Nature’s
green generosity was on display, brightened by bursts
of pink and purple rhododendrons. The lushness
reminded me of Hawaii. “Can such force / Of waters
issue from a British source ...” wondered William
Wordsworth in his poem “To the Torrent at the Devil’s
Bridge, North Wales, 1824.” As I made my way back
up out of the valley, I couldn’t help but smile. If this
is devil’s territory, then let all hell break loose.
Beyond lyrical landscapes, there’s the
torrent of actual poetry Wales has pro-
duced. Its poetic tradition reaches back
to the late fourth century and forward
to the annual National Eisteddfod, a
full-blown festival of poetry and music
that is Wales’s biggest gathering.
Some of the earliest written sources of
the Arthurian tale, dating from the ninth
century, have connections to Wales or were
written in Welsh. Travelers search for connections
to the legendary ruler and his knights at towns
such as Caerleon, a supposed site of Camelot, and
Carmarthen, said by some to be Merlin’s hometown.
Dylan Thomas, perhaps Wales’s most famous poet,
was born in Swansea and still influences artists and
writers today. That parking lot billboard? It’s a work
by artist Jeremy Deller, who was commissioned as
part of the city festivities around Thomas’s 100th
birthday in 2014. Deller was right: Even in Wales,
you can never have enough of words and wonder. jAmy Alipio is senior editor at National Geographic Travel.The hiking trail around Carmarthen Fans, in Brecon Beacons
National Park, takes in windy escarpments and glacial lakes.AFRICAASIA
WALES
ATLANTIC
OCEANU.K.