The sun accompanied our arrival and we explored the city centre a bit before heading to the hotel. We headed up Castle street, aptly named, as the ruins of a small but striking castle sit right in the centre square, across from a large McDonald´s which, as we saw later that night, must send out a silent whistle that only teenagers can hear, as it becomes overun by tweenies and teenies at night.
The sunny Saturday afternoon led us past the McDs to the high street, where we discovered the Swansea market, and of course we jumped right in to discover a large local market which, in spite of Swansea´s 227,000 population, seemed more like a big small-town market than anything comparable to how a proper city market feels. The first thing that struck us, hard, were the prices. It was as if we travelled back in time rather than simply 4 hours west of London. We bought a cheese and potato pasty and an almond pastry for 1.05 (together) and had we stuck around, I am sure we would have bought a few more things, as you could pick up 4 brownies for 60p, cheese for a third of London prices, etc. Some of the stands sold items which we certainly don't see at the Portobello market, like burlap aprons that your grandma might wear in the kitchen – prominently placed and on sale for just 4GBP. Again, small town feel in the centre of Swansea.
Oh Swansea. Swansea might be in the same Welsh family as Cardiff, but rather than Cardiff's little brother, Swansea is more like the hick second cousin you only see at weddings and funerals. On first appearance, with the market, the castle and the sun, Swansea seemed quaint, but upon our return from our day on the Gower, that all changed. But I am getting ahead of myself.
After our exploration, we walked up the hill and up Walter Road to the White House Hotel.
As the owners, Mike and Phil, had been super helpful pre-booking, I was very interested to check the hotel itself out. While `Hotel´is a bit of a misnomer, this quaint and well-run B&B provides a perfect base for any visitor to Swansea/Gower Peninsula. The room was very clean, spacious, complete with bath, hair and face towels, hair dryer, warm blankets, nice chairs, a very comfortable bed, TV, big window which let in lots of blue sky, and a spic and span tiled bathroom with a powerful and roomy shower (no tub, but who needs a tub?). Breakfast was included in the 72GBP nightly room rate, and we had an excellent breakfast on Sunday morning. The breakfast buffet included fresh (really tasty) fruit, cereals, yogurt, milk, orange and mango juices, nuts, jams and pastries galore, and the service included tea or coffee, toast and full English or Welsh breakfasts, beans on toast, and eggs on toast among others. The room also had a nice selection of hot chocolate, tea and coffee as well as three different types of cookies. The only downside to the hotel is not the hotel´s fault. As with every building in the UK, insulation is at zero, which means you hear everything, well a lot, from the rooms....which we found out the humiliatingly hard way. Overall – we would very much recommend The White House Hotel!
The Gower
After quickly settling in the room, we ran out the door and 100m down the road to the bus stop where we hopped on the 118 Gower Explorer to Rhossili Bay/Worms Head. The 50 minute ride is more like an unguided tour through some of the most beautiful open land and quaint little villages I have seen in the UK yet. And the sheep – there are hundreds of them, roaming the countryside, so close to the road that if the windows of the bus were open it would be like a drive-thru petting zoo in spots along the way.
Once we arrived at Rhossili, we could hardly contain our excitement as we sprinted down the 800m National Trust gated path to the beach along some of the most beautiful coastline I have ever seen. I'll let the pictures do the talking here:
Then it was back up the path, through the gates and over to Worms Head, which we explored for another two hours. Windy as can be, Worms Head is stunning, and had we gotten there earlier, we could have hiked all the way out to the tip of the worm. When the tide comes in, however, the head gets cut of completely from the mainland, and there are hefty warning signs with safe cross times, warning even of past deaths of the uber-adventurers.
We took a pass, explored the top of some beautiful cliffs, and headed back to the bus stop, where we hopped on the 116 to Port Eynon, where we spent an hour before heading back to Swansea for the night. This is the touristy summer hot spot, which is evidenced by not one but 6 camper van locations, and the 'high street' consisting of a surf shop, gift shop, restaurant and a pub. For a chilly April late afternoon the tables outside were quite full, but mostly with locals rather than the hordes of tourists that will no doubt hit while we are in Spain on the Bank Holiday Weekend 2-5 May.
We did explore an old ruin, an old salt extracting plant made of stone, about a 5-minute walk from the bus stop, which is where we headed an hour later, after a trip to the gift shop and the purchase of jams for Dani's grandma and peanut brittle for me, which I gleefully bit into before we even made it onto the bus. Note: Dumbest health and safety warning ever:
Peanut Brittle - Caution: This product may contain nuts
And back to Swansea it was. Rather than clean up first at the hotel (a sure fire guarantee of falling asleep after such an adventurous and windblown day) we took the bus straight into the city centre in search of a nice restaurant for a hi-calorie dinner that we both earned!
Alas, Swansea has no food. Well, no typically Swansea-type places. No hidden gems. No character, at least none that we could find on that Saturday night. And if anyone has a nose for sniffing out yummy local hidden gems, its the two of us. We were forced to choose among the most major of the restaurant chains for dinner, as chains seems to be doing swimmingly in Swansea. TGI Fridays, Revolution, Frankie and Benny's, an American Diner, Chiquito, Ask, Pizza Express and La Tasca, which we we chose in the end. Food – bland, Service – Slow, price – affordable. Suggestion: Do internet search of restaurants before heading to Swansea or hit the Tescos before it closes! Though we had found the market in the morning, any further bits of life or originality were completely absent in Swansea.
Entire streets were absent of cars and empty storefronts lined both sides of what was once a major thoroughfare to the station. But in terms of Saturday nightlife, those chains are hopping, and all the locals were out, and out big. Similar to our nights out up in Durham, girls dressed in almost nothing and men with their buttons downs all buttoned up and tucked into jeans spilled out of bars, drunkenly squealing for the next chip shop or queue to enter the next cheesy Whetherspoons-type chain next door.
We did manage to find a bar waving a rainbow flag and head into Exchange, a Swansea gay bar, which was, ahem, interesting. Like your typical farm town gay bar, there were flamboyant men and equally drab bull dykes, a few girls who had seen the L Word and since given lipstick lesbianism a half-assed shot, and friends of friends who were, quite obviously, visitors to the gay scene, rather than regulars. A quick Corona and a cranberry juice later, and we wrapped back up in our scarves and coats and headed out onto the streets back to the White House Hotel.
Sunday morning, after our delicious breakfast and power shower, we had a lie-in (Friends was on!) and decided to head to Mumbles, a 20-minute bus ride or 3 hours walk down the coast from Swansea. Note: Mumbles was named after a mispronounced French nickname – meaning, as described in the Lonely Planet, er..teats. The walk up the beach to the Mumbles was gorgeous, the town was quaint, and we enjoyed a peaceful three hours among the more active of Swansea folk on the way to the pier at the other end, which was our unspoken goal. The winter ocean had spilled piles of shells onto the beach, and we crunched along the entire way. The water didn't come anywhere near us, as it crashes onto the shore about 200m out from the beach proper.
Legs tired and aching, we reached what came ever more clearly into view as the rickety, falling down pier three hours later, which we didn't even go out on because a: I was scared we would fall through the rotten planks and b. they wanted 50p each to walk out onto this deathtrap that has literally nothing out on it except a fence to keep you from going over the far end.
We climbed down around the other side of the pier for awhile, but after we both took hearty spills among the rock jutting dangerously out of the earth, we headed back into town, pausing to stop at Salt at the George, a fabulously affordable and scrumptiously satisfying all-purpose family-restaurant and 2-for-1 cocktail bar right in the Mumbles centre. The restaurant is independently-owned, well-decorated, very large with two floors, a balcony and amazing sea views. Veggie options were creative, and we ordered the Veggie Platter for two, which, along with a side order of fries, stuffed us right up. The platter had vegetable root crisps, veggie tempura, flat bread, vegetarian wontons, dips, olives and lettuce. We had all that, plus fries and two diet cokes for 12 GBP. What a deal.
The bus back to town was less of a deal, as it cost us 5 pounds for the two of us to ride back 20 minutes. Note: Day savers are the absolute best option, both for travel within Swansea and out with the Gower Explorer.
With a little over an hour to spare before heading back to London, we attempted to find something else to discover, but the high street in Swansea on Sunday was absolutely empty, shops were closed, and, as tumbleweed blew across the road in front of us, we headed to the only beacon of life on the High Street – Starbucks.
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