Wales: The Rough Guide, Second Edition [Paperback]

Mike Parker (Author), Paul Whitfield (Author)

Book Description

Series: Rough Guides | Publication Date: April 1, 1997

This travel guide to Wales features mountain walks, information on alternative culture, coverage of Welsh environmental and nationalist issues and details of Welsh culture and language. Also included are critical listings of restaurants, pubs and accommodation.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Mike Parker has had close ties with Wales since buying himself a "Teach Yourself Welsh" book at the age of twelve and is a contributer to the Rough Guide to Britain. Paul Whitfield has had a similarly long-term relationship with Wales and is author of the Rough Guide to Alaska and co-author of Rough Guides to New Zealand and California.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Where to go

Like all capital cities, Cardiff is atypical of the rest of the country, but as the first major stop on both rail and road routes from England into south Wales, it's a good place to start. Most national institutions are based here, not least the new National Assembly, currently in a temporary home but soon to be housed in purpose-built splendour amidst the massive regeneration projects of Cardiff Bay. The city is also home to the National Museum and St Fagans Folk Museum – both are excellent introductions to the character of the rest of Wales – and the brand-new Millennium Stadium, which hosted the 1999 Rugby World Cup. The only other centres of appreciable size are dowdy Newport and breezy, resurgent Swansea, lying respectively to the east and west of the capital. All three cities grew as ports, mainly exporting millions of tons of coal and iron from the Valleys, where fiercely proud industrial communities were built up in the thin strips of land between the mountains.

Much of Wales' appeal lies outside the towns, where there is ample evidence of the warmongering which has shaped the country's development. Castles are everywhere, from the hard little stone keeps of the early Welsh princes to Edward I's incomparable series of thirteenth-century fortresses at Flint, Conwy, Beaumaris, Caernarfon, Harlech and Rhuddlan, and grandiose Victorian piles where grouse were the only enemy. Fortified residences served as the foundation for a number of the stately homes that dot the country, but many castles were deserted and remain dramatically isolated on rocky knolls, most likely on spots previously occupied by prehistoric communities. Passage graves and stone circles offer a more tangible link to the pre-Roman era when the priestly order of Druids ruled over early Celtic peoples, and later religious monuments such as the great ruined abbeys of Valle Crucis, Tintern and Strata Florida lend a gaunt grandeur to their surroundings.

Whether you're admiring castles, megaliths or Dylan Thomas's home at Laugharne, almost everything in Wales is enhanced by the beauty of the countryside, from the lowland greenery of meadows and river valleys to the inhospitable heights of the moors and mountains. The rigid backbone of the Cambrian Mountains terminates in the soaring peaks of Snowdonia and the angular ridges of the Brecon Beacons, both superb walking country and both national parks. A third national park follows the Pembrokeshire Coast, where golden strands come separated by rocky bluffs overlooking offshore bird colonies. Much of the rest of the coast remains unspoilt, though seldom undiscovered, with long sweeps of sand often backed by traditional British seaside resorts: the north Wales coast, the Cambrian coast and the Gower peninsula display a notable abundance.

When to go

The English preoccupation with the weather holds equally for the Welsh. The climate here is temperate, with Welsh summers rarely getting hot and nowhere but the tops of mountain ranges ever getting very cold, even in midwinter. Temperatures vary little from Cardiff in the south to Llandudno in the north, but proximity to the mountains is a different matter: Llanberis, at the foot of Snowdon, gets doused with more than twice as much rainfall as Caernarfon, seven miles away, and is always a few degrees cooler. With rain never too far from the mind of any resident or visitor, it is easy to forget that throughout much of the summer, Wales – particularly the coast – can be bathed in sun. Between June and September, the Pembrokeshire coast, washed by the Gulf Stream, can be as warm as anywhere in Britain. The bottom line is that it's impossible to say with any degree of certainty that the weather will be pleasant in any given month. May might be wet and grey one year and gloriously sunny the next, and the same goes for the autumnal months – November stands an equal chance of being crisp and clear or foggy and grim. Obviously, if you're planning to lie on a beach, or camp in the dry, you'll want to go between June and September – a period when you should book your accommodation as far in advance as possible. Otherwise, if you're balancing the likely fairness of the weather against the density of the crowds, the best time to get into the countryside or the towns is between April and May or in October. If outdoor pursuits are your objective, these are the best months for walking, June to October are warmest and driest for climbing, and December to March the only times you'll find enough water for kayaking. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Rough Guides; 2 edition (April 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1858282454
• ISBN-13: 978-1858282459
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,934,987 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very useful guide, September 19, 2002

By 

Paul Silver "Paul" (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Rough Guide to Wales 3 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) (Paperback)

This was the first Rough Guide I bought for the first of my solo
vacations. I chose it after comparing with various other guides,
such as the Blue Guide and others. This provided an immense
amount of detail on all sorts of historical sites, little towns,
etc. and was of great value in planning out my trip. One thing that keeps me from giving it 5 stars is that I later discovered that there are a number of "dark age" monuments (forts, inscribed stones, gravesites, etc.) that it doesn't list; it concentrates on larger places. I would have liked to have seen alot of those, as dark age Britain is an interest of mine. To be fair, other guides leave those things out, too, and I had to find the info in archeological and historical references.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Off the Beaten Track to Wales..., April 26, 2008

By 

D. S. Thurlow (Alaska) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Rough Guide to Wales 5 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) (Paperback)

The 2006 "Rough Guide to Wales" features a part of Great Britain generally off the beaten track for most tourists coming from the United States. Although a small component part of the United Kingdom, Wales has fiercely maintained its independent character over the centuries. Travelers will find a geographically varied region celebrating its Celtic origins while welcoming tourists.

The Rough Guide to Wales combines vital visitor information, maps, graphics, and photographs in a compact format, along with the expected Rough Guide opinions on where to go and what to see. Wales offers some dramatic shoreline and equally dramatic hill country in Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons. Wales also features an excellent selection of castles, many in good repair and most open to the public. If some popular areas, especially along the seacoast, have become overrun with caravan (trailer) parks, other parts are relatively uncluttered and offer spectacular attractions. Wales has been a tourist destination for the British for many years and the infrastructure for accomodations, eating, and traveling are both well-developed and offer options across a broad price range.

The Rough Guide breaks down Wales into seven geographic regions in order to address to address the principal attractions, accomodation, and information on how to get around. Website addresses are generously included for those needing additional information about hours, rates, and times of specific facilities. The last portion of the guide features some interesting narrative essays on the history of Wales, its modern sense of nationalism, its natural history, and its music and other cultural attractions.

This guide is highly recommended to visitors to Wales. Coupled with the appropriate Ordnance Survey maps, the guide should be a very sufficient planning resource for most vacations.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good start, June 21, 2007

By 

C. M. Mulcahy (Shrewsbury, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Rough Guide to Wales 5 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) (Paperback)

After travelling in Europe with the Lonely Planet guides for Paris and Barcelona, I found this guide somewhat more difficult to navigate. However, I suppose you must consider that the city guides will generally be more detailed than those for an entire country.

Although the guide gives a wealth of attractions, restaurants, and sleeping options for the various regions, I found it a bit lacking in maps and "how to get there" information. In addition, I would have liked it if the author had included a more website references. Finally, for some of the hotel and restaurant options, it would have been nice if there was some system used to denote how cheap or expensive a place was.

If you plan on using this book as your primary reference for your visit to Wales, I highly recommend purchasing a good map and plan on doing a lot of driving.