Wales

Two weeks sunshine in Wales

There are different ways to get to Wales. We very soon dropped the idea to go by car. Besides the costs I would have had to take at least one more day off work – it’s a long way from Munich, and then the passage with the ferry.

Of course we wanted to be mobile in Wales so we decided once again to fly and drive. There are several smaller regional airports in Wales but the connections are not really cheap. You can take a direct flight from Munich to Birmingham. It is not yet Wales but strategically situated conveniently for our travelling plans.

Take-off for your holiday on the Saturday before Whitsuntide? An experience in itself. The airport is crowded. Fortunately nowadays everything works automatically. We already checked in online at home yesterday. You also register your baggage yourself. Even the admission control to the plane works without staff, we just have to show our barcode to the scanner. We hope there is a genuine pilot on board and not just an automatic one.

After two hours of quiet flight the plane lands in time in Birmingham. Though the weather forecast wasn’t very promising the sun shows with some cloudy patches. Also in England complete automation rules at the airport. Passport control is again done with a scanner and a camera you have to look into. We find our car hire at once; we get a larger KIA this time, the car is still brand new.

Gernot is the first to drive and he does quiet well – thousands of kilometers on the wrong side of the road have been a very good training. Regretfully I didn’t expect the route to Mathry at the Southernmost end of Wales to be that long. Without losing our way it takes us nearly four hours to reach our destination. Where it is possible Gernot drives faster – hopefully we won’t get any ticket! Only on the last quarter of our route we finally reach the rain front which we had already expected much earlier. When we reach Mathry though the rain has already stopped again.

Plas y Mabws is anything else but easy to find. The roads get more and more narrow, at last we have to take a farm track. In exchange our first accommodation here in Wales is great. It is an old, roomy building from 1870, modernised very carefully to a high standard; the interior is a brilliant mixture of old original elements combined with modern techniques. Our landlady cannot welcome us personally, but she left the lights on for us. There are tea and coffee, milk is in the fridge. Little Welsh cakes will save our breakfast tomorrow morning.