Wales off-season: rain, tea, and golf with cows

By Kathy Shorr, Globe Correspondent, 01/05/03

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		Printable version How to get there There are no direct flights from the United States to Wales. Best bet is to fly to London. Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines, and British Airways offer nonstop service from Boston to London, with upcoming fares starting at $320 on British Airways. You can rent a car at the airport; Avis weekly car rentals start at $201 for a mini, $227 for an intermediate size, $275 for standard size car. Many prefer to hop a National Rail train to a smaller city like Cardiff (two hours) or Chester (2 hours) and start the drive from there, especially if they're unfamiliar with driving on the left. From Cardiff, take the M4 to the A470 heading to north Wales. From Chester, the best route is via the A55 to the A470 in Conwy, just before Llandudno. Another option for those traveling to north Wales is to fly to Manchester about an hour's drive from the Welsh border. American flies to Manchester via Chicago, starting at $404; British Airways has a Boston-London-Manchester route for $475. What to do General information Welsh Tourist Board www.visitwales.com British Tourist Authority 800-462-2748 www.britishtouristauthority.org Aberdovey Golf Course 011-44-1654-767-493 www.aberdoveygolf.co.uk Golf between the mountains and the sea; watch out for the cows. Green Fees $46 per round weekdays; $56 weekends. Where to stay Castle Cottage Y Llech, Harlech 011-44-1766-780-479 www.castlecottageharlech.co.uk Cozy, small rooms with sloping ceilings and a homey feel. Single $48-$72), double $96-$104), includes full breakfast; single $83-$102), double $166-$173 includes dinner as well. Castle Hotel High Street, Conwy 011-44-1492-582-800 castlewales.co.uk One of the original coaching inns. Great bar and restaurant, rooms range from Holiday-Inn plain to four-poster fancy. $88-$99 single, $110-$165 double. Includes full breakfast. St. Tudno Hotel North Parade, Promenade, Llandudno 011-44-1492-874-411 www.st-tudno.co.uk Victorian elegance overlooking the Llandudno promenade and Great Orme, with a heated indoor pool and fabulous parlors with bay window views for tea and drinks. Rooms $68-$208 including full breakfast Wynnstay Hotel Maengwyn Street, Machynlleth 011-44-1654-702-941 www.wynnstay-hotel.com Once the coaching inn for the Shrewsbury stage, well-behaved dogs welcome. Single $72, double $112-$160, including breakfast; dinner packages also available. Where to eat Badger's Cafe & Patisserie The Victoria Center Mostyn Street, Llandudno 011-44-1492-871-649 www.badgerscafe.com Award-winning Victorian tea room-in a mall. Lunch, high tea, fanciful pastries like dragon eclairs, and excellent Bara Brith (Welsh fruitcake). $15 for either lunch or Victorian tea (which includes sandwich, cakes, barabrith, scones, and tea). Shakespeare's Restaurant Castle Hotel High Street, Conwy 011-44-1492-582-800 www.castlewales.co.uk Chef Graham Tinsley is captain of the Welsh Culinary Team. Upscale Welsh cooking featuring local products. $110 for dinner for two with wine. Castle Cottage Restaurant Y Llech, Harlech 011-44-1766-780-479 www.castlecottageharlech.co.uk Three-course dinner for two, $80 plus wine. Anna's Tea Room Conwy Victorian tea room above an outdoor goods store. Savory dishes like Welsh rarebit or sweet, apple crumble with hot custard. Strong good French press coffee comes with a pitcher of hot milk. $5.40 for afternoon tea with sandwiches and scones with preserves and clotted cream.

ABERDOVEY, Wales — The guy at the front desk at our mid-Wales inn was helping us map out a route for the next morning. "You want to skip this section," he said, pointing to the coastal road that ran past Aberdovey. "There's nothing to see, really, and Tywyn is awful, especially this time of year. Don't even bother going there."

So we headed just that way. What can I tell you? His description matched my idea of perfect sightseeing.

I've long resisted traveling where and when I'm expected to. When I read about how 19th-century visitors to Paris often explored public works projects, schools, and jails, I could identify: I still haven't climbed the Eiffel Tower, and I never made it to Stonehenge during the six months I lived in England. Instead, I had passed my days talking politics at the tea wagons with the people who worked in the neighborhood; sitting in Hyde Park on warm days or in tea rooms on cold ones, reading The Guardian and P.G. Wodehouse; and wandering in and out of every alleyway and mews and shopfront in every neighborhood I could manage.

I've always preferred to spend time in places as they exist when left to their own devices, and this seems most possible in the off-season, when the self-conscious displays put on for tourists are less present. This feeling has only grown after 20 years of living on Cape Cod, where locals draw a collective sigh of relief at the end of the high season, as if they are getting off stage, taking off their high heels and makeup, and unbuttoning their stiff collars.

So, late this fall, as the weather turned pitiful and dull and my friends bought their tickets — for Mexico, Tuscany, and most desirable of all, New Zealand, where summer was just beginning! — I took off with a friend for Wales.

Aberdovey turned out to be a seaside resort village, with sturdy old four-story buildings fronting one side of the road and Cardigan Bay on the other. On a rainy, dreary day like this, it had the evocative feeling of a playground an hour after school has been let out, or an Edward Hopper landscape. A few people wandered the high street, stopping in at the bakery or newsstand. A small boy, riding on his father's shoulders, craned his neck to watch the leashed brown-and-white spaniel walking toward him. As they passed, the dog twisted his head too, trying to keep eye contact with the boy.

At the edge of town, we came to a series of dunes, where several cows munched on the long, thick grass. Walking among them were a few clusters of men, dressed in long ponchos, dragging something behind them: golf bags. This was, in fact, the Aberdovey Golf Course, a famous 18-hole links where you have to navigate not only tracks (a train runs alongside the course), but frequent mud pies. Cows are allowed to graze on the course; a yellow sign at the cattle crossing warns that you should use caution if bringing your dog along (as what, caddy?), since the cows can be aggressive, especially if they have calves. "What happens if you hit one of the cows?" we asked one of the golfers. He smiled and replied, "I think you gain a stroke."

A few minutes later we reached Tywyn, driving along a promenade that bordered the beach. Facing it was a series of stone Victorian buildings: ornate and elegant, but derelict and apparently uninhabited. We stopped at a gas station, and I asked the woman at the counter about the buildings we'd seen. She said they had been closed for about three years. Despite their choice waterfront location, they needed a lot of fixing up, and no one had been willing to buy them. But they're in such a lovely spot, I remarked. Her face lit up. "Oh yes! I used to live there, growing up," she said, and held her hands about 10 inches apart. "The walls was this thick!" There was an "Employees Only" sign on the only door in sight, but I asked if I could use the bathroom anyway. She exchanged glances with the guy working beside her, then showed me in. An off-season perk.

The walls of the women's room were plastered with pinups clipped from magazines: Ricky Martin, George Clooney, Sylvester Stallone, Brad Pitt, and John Hannah, the slight Scottish actor who played one of the gay guys in "Four Weddings and a Funeral." "I like that you've got John Hannah up there," I remarked on the way out. "He's not macho," the woman said, beaming, "but he's nice."

The sheer niceness of such people made up for the sheer torrents of rain that dogged most of our days in Wales. If you think England is rainy, try Wales. Writer Jan Morris, who is half-Welsh, calls it "one of the wettest corners of Europe"; one year Wales had 10 times as much rain as London. Add to that a day that's dark by 4, and a person with seasonal affective disorder might think twice before heading over.

But in some ways, Wales is a great place to be this time of year. After all, a nation that has spent its lifetime adapting to crummy weather has learned how to manufacture warmth. When it's 40 degrees and drizzling, what better time to step into a pub with its amber lamplight, faded velvet love seats, and availability of brandy to take the edge off? If it's too early in the day for a shot, there's the omnipresent cup of tea.

Everybody stops for tea in the late afternoon, regardless of location or activity. One afternoon I was in the north coastal town of Llandudno, the grand turn-of-the-century Victorian resort where Lewis Carroll first met the Liddells and their daughter Alice, the inspiration for "Alice in Wonderland." I was trying on clothes in a thrift shop. The manager chatted with her 12-year-old son on the phone, as he listed groceries for her to pick up on her way home: makings for chicken Kiev, haggis, and pizza. "Well, he cooks!" she said to the other two women working there, obviously all long known to one another. "Otherwise he'd never get anything to eat!" It was close to 4 o'clock, and it suddenly started to pour. The women looked at me, and led me to the basement with them to collect the cups and electric tea kettle. The four of us spent the next hour perched on stools, egging each other one another on to don sequin-spangled jackets, faux fur hats, and reindeer antlers.

The bad weather definitely cut down on roaming outdoors, though I did take advantage of a rare sunny stretch the next day to climb around Great Orme, the 600-foot-high limestone headlands that overlook Llandudno. It's a popular tourist site, complete with a tramway and cable cars. But the day I was there, despite the glorious clear sky, I was alone, except for the half-dozen wild goats that picked their way along the cliffs.

Fortunately, saddled with a soggy climate, the Welsh perfected the art of one-stop eating, drinking, and sleeping centuries ago. Weary travelers would ride to a coaching inn, tie up their horses, and retire indoors for the evening. Many coaching inns still exist, and often offer the best dining in town. Every time we stayed in one, we ran into the local newsstand owner or fishermen drinking in the bar or having dinner along with visitors.

For instance, in Conwy we stayed at the Castle Hotel, one of the original coaching inns, right near Conwy Castle. And in Harlech, a tiny hill town that hugs the coast about 20 miles north of Tywyn, we stayed at Castle Cottage, a small, six-room inn with views of Harlech Castle, Cardigan Bay, and Mount Snowdon, the highest peak in Wales. Owner Glyn Roberts, who was named Mid-Wales Chef of the Year a few years ago, cooks with local ingredients. (The Welsh exhibit a nationalistic pride in their own products, making sure you know you're eating Welsh black rib-eye steak, Welsh lamb, Welsh mullet, and Welsh cheeses.)

Once we hauled our luggage in, I never put my shoes on again. I made myself a pot of tea in the room (in-room electric tea kettles and shortbread are de rigeur in Wales). Eventually I trotted downstairs in my slippers, got a drink at the bar, and carried it into the living room to read till it was time for dinner. Along with our table was a table of 10 celebrating the birthday of a local man. The hall phone for guests wasn't working, so after dinner, Roberts loaned me his phone, and I sat with my feet up on the coffee table, chatting away while the neighborhood table sang to their birthday boy.

The off-season does have its downside. There was, for instance, a hotel whose hot water would disappear after 90 seconds. The first time they told me it was "air in the line" and the problem was being fixed. But after climbing out of one too many suddenly cold showers, I persisted in questioning the staff, and one finally admitted that they turn down the water heaters when the hotel is mostly empty.

Such inconveniences are outweighed, though, by the pleasure of being in the only car on those winding, narrow roads. The hills rise on either side, covered with white specks that turn out to be sheep, and a single white farmhouse folds into the land, looking small and very alone. The mist hangs over the road, and the gnarled trees look as if they have been twisted by a magic spell. No wonder: People who believe in Merlin, and the legend of Camelot, will tell you it all took place here.

One afternoon when we were on such a road, we came around a curve and hit the brakes. Ten feet ahead, two men and four dogs were herding 100 or so sheep directly in our path. What else could we do but pull off and watch? They moved the herd slowly into a series of pens, and began an hourlong, intricate process of opening and closing gates, moving a few sheep at a time from pen to pen. The men, with curly, dark hair and skin, called out to one another in Welsh, though one of them spoke briefly with us in English to explain. They were preparing to mate the sheep with four rams, and were dividing them by size to match the ewes as closely as possible to the appropriate ram.

Eventually, I asked our interpreter my standard request: Do you have a bathroom? He directed me toward the far side of the house. I climbed the long drive, congratulating myself on having found another place immersed in its ordinary routine, a place most travelers would never spend time in, a place where it was surely only thanks to my status as an off-season traveler that they would let me use the facilities. And then I saw the long narrow outhouse, one side marked "Men," the other, "Ladies." I was, it seemed, just another tourist being herded to her destination.

Kathy Shorr is a freelance writer who lives in Wellfleet.