Tenby

We made ourselves a little base in the seaside town of Tenby, the home of 2.5 miles of sandy beaches, a panty-stealing ghost and a major summer tourist destination.  In late October, it was quietly occupied with locals, a group of hardy dog-owning walkers and the occasional drinker.

With a population of roughly 5,000 year round residents it's the biggest seaside town west of Swansea.  This isn't saying much.  But in terms of peace, beauty and solitudinal walks, it wins, hands down.

Tenby is enclosed in 13th century medieval walls; we were housed right outside the western turret--an epic view if you didn't grow up in an old country. The town itself was filled with what you'd expect a seaside town to be filled with: penny-candy stores,  bucket and spade shops and the occasional consequence of rising inflation:

There's also a rogue pasty shop, a taste of what I thought was Michigan but turns out to have a historical link all the way back to the miners of Cornwall:  

A very cluttered used book store with room for one person at a time:

And then stunning view after stunning view:

Tenby at low tide 

Island view, accessible at low tide only

Tenby harbor at high tide

beardless and windswept 

We were also v. impressed with a range of delicious dining choices.  Though restaurants didn't operate to our London-hour dining schedules, it didn't stop them from being crammed with people at all hours of the day and evening.  Our particular favourite, The Mooring, was a nondescript white building just across from Tenby's Tesco store.  The lights were sufficiently dim but unromantic but the waiting list and custom suggested otherwise.  Two hours later, I floated away on a cloud of fish stew and Paul on a cloud of duck cooked to perfection.  Impressive.  

We used our Tenby haven as a base to explore the rest of Pembrokeshire National Park and were not disappointed.  Because we had no access to a car, we had our concerns about getting around the region, but this proved only a minor inconvenience.  Because who can argue with walking on the beach in the sun at low tide: 

Buses weren't nearly as frequent as they would have been in the summer and tours and boat rides were shut for the season, but we still made our way around.  I tried to be patient as we waited in places but was secretly grateful that everywhere was not swarming with tourists.