Salcombe rings a bell with me. We may have walked a bit of the Coastal Path there. It was a beautiful little spot.

We also popped in to Jamaica Inn (because of the book). There was a fierce wind that day and the sign was swinging madly. One could just imagine smugglers, etc.

Salcombe is indeed beautiful, but over-run by tourists in season. also, it's in Devon!

Jamaica Inn has always seemed a little forced to me, but it makes a reasonable lunch stop. the best place, IMHO, to get the feel of the wreckers is Morwenstow - see the church where the Rev. Hawker preached to the animals [yes, he was a little nutty] his hut on the cliff where he used to sit watching for ships that his parishioners would try to wreck, so he could rescue the living and bury the dead..a truly great man.

I have been out of town for a week, so I am just starting my in depth stuff.
Thanks so much for your input all....I ahve to get a Cornwall book.

I sat down with DH and we looked at the map and decided to do Cornwall and SW England next time.
We are going to concentrate on South Wales and Ludlow.
Ludlow first, maybe in a self catering, then Tenby, then Chepstow with a return to LHR.
My DH did not want to drive too very much.
We thought to day trips from these towns.... Caerphilly, Tintern Abbey, St Davids, Cardiff, Iron Gorge etc.

BTW Mucky, would another town in the Tenby area be a better base?

oh Judy, what a shame. Still, I'm glad to read that there'll be a next time.

good luck with your Wales planning.

Hi Judy,
Tenby should be fine, you can access the area quite easily from there. It's a lovely walled town, right on the harbour.
Also...
Check your map, for a small place called Solva.
One of my favourite places in West Wales.
Check out Cenarth, where they have the Coracle centre.(Coracle is a traditional welsh boat)
These places can be seen en route.

Caerphilly is fine for a day trip. It has a fabulous castle, http://www.castlewales.com/caerphil.html well worth the visit but not much else there really. I would stay in Cardiff and drive there for an afternoon. And whilst your there check out Castle Coch, (The red castle) It's quite close to Caerphilly. http://www.castlewales.com/coch.html

Muck

I will be back Annhig. :-)
I have it half planned already!

Mucky thanks for the info. Keep it coming!!!!
You really think we should stay in Cardiff!?
I think DH does not want to deal with the traffic..so it will be day trips from Chepstow and Tenby.

I have my trusty GIANT map and see a relatively decent route from Ludlow to Tenby. we will stop at a few places along/near the way. The Gold mines sound good and there are other sites I have highlighted.

Hi Judy,
No you don't have to stay in Cardiff.

BUT..

Just a suggestion which you can totally ignore if you like. :-)
I can recommend a hotel that is on the outskirts of Cardiff, easy access to the M4 West and East, A470 Caerphilly and Cardiff. It also has a good view of Castle Coch.

It's up to you of course...whatever you decide have a great time.

http://www.village-hotels.co.uk/hotels/cardiff

Muck

Thanks Mucky!

BTW, here is our self catering in Ludlow.



http://www.24millstreet.net/

Judy, that cottage looks lovely!

I'm sure you will love Ludlow. For 3 years 1994-1997 I lived 5 miles from Ludlow on the lower slopes of Clee Hill in a tiny hamlet called Whitton.

I spent a lot of time in Ludlow and also Tenbury Wells where the children started in school. It is a most beautiful part of England, even more so than the Cotswolds.

The views from the hills are out of this world. Where we lived we could see - on a clear day - 60 miles south to the Brecon Beacons and the peaks of Pen-y-Fan and Carn Dhu. To see the sun set behind them was something very special.

I loved living there. It was only some very unpleasant personal circumstances that forced me to move away. But one day I may well move back to south Shropshire.

I think so too julia_t! It is so interesting looking.
BTW, I remember you telling me you lived there once and you loved it. So, here we go! It looks wonderful.
I thought that basing ourselves there, we can do so much...Stokesay, Powis, Ironbridge so much to see.

We will do Cornwall and SW England next year.
I never tire of the UK.
I still buy my lotto tkts, so I can have a place in the UK..... in my dreams.
:-)

I'm glad that you're already planning for Cornwall, Judy.

Before i forget, let me tell you about the drive we did today [not our original plan, but the helicopter to Tresco broke down and our day-trip there to celebrate my mum's 80th birthday was cancelled, so we had to come up with a plan B].

From Penzance [which we left at about 10am] we drove west towards Land's End, but turned off before we got there to Porthcurno, to see the Minack Theatre, built in a stunning spot on the cliffs overlooking the beach. After an hour or so admiring the view and the gardens, we drove back down the road to the Telegraph Museum, reached through a 2nd WW bunker. [we didn't stop; the weather was too nice to want to be indoors].

We carried on round the coast [we missed out Lamorna and the Logan's rock as we'd been there before but they are both lovely and interesting], by-passing Land's End itself [the amusement park is not really something to interest an 80 year old] but heading to Sennen, where we could have parked on the cliff, but not in the village. You can easily walk from Sennen to Land's End and enjoy the fabulous views without the tackiness.

Then we drove slowly up the coast towards St. Ives, ending up at about 1pm at the Gurnard's Head hotel [the closest that Cornwall has to a gastro-pub, IMHO] on the way we by-passed the Geevor MIne [a tin mine which closed about 20 years ago; you can see the miners' changing rooms and gear, watch how they sorted the ore, and go down a 300 year old mine working], but did go down to Cape Cornwall following the road down from St. Just, a very quaint and increasingly interesting little town.

At the Gurnard's Head, we had a very good lunch - steamed sole with spinach, broccoli and steamed pots, salt beef with the creamiest mashed potatoes, carrots and beans, and smoked salmon with celeriac remoulade and soda bread. we could have had a set lunch for £16.50 but we'd taken mum out to donna last night and we still quite full! To drink we had [very strong] flat dry local cider, beer, and a shandy.

if we'd done all there was to do, and got out and walked along the coast, it could have taken all day to do this drive, rather than 3 hours.

To finish, we drove over the hills back to Penzance to buy some lobsters from the shell-fish processors at Newlyn - about 20 minutes - which gave us some wonderful views over St. Michael's Mount and the Bay.

BTW, the Gurnard's Head people run The Griffin at Felin Fach at Brecon. I've never been there, but I should think that it's pretty good if the 'Head is anything to go by.

Have a great time on your Ludlow/Wales trip!

Wow annhig, what a fabulous day.
I 'll do that next year!
The sole and all the food sounds yummy.
Sounds like you had good weather.

Judy - the weather was lovely - which made the cancellation of the trip to Tresco all the more gaulling and frustrating. I hope that what we managed to cobble together made up for the disappointment a bit.

it was a great drive, and brought home to me something that I had not really appreciated - actually the north and south coasts are very close together at that point, so whether you stay at St. Ives or Penzance, you can easily enjoy both in one day.