Wales

If you like Elvis they have an Elvis festival in Porthcawl in Sept - could be the first weekend - will check with DS - we went one year by accident - many an Elvis singing in the bars etc! Lovely fish and chips on the front. It has had a bit of a face lift and the Rest Bay end has a lovely coastal walk - next to the Golf Club. Some fancy new flats and houses built that end too.
We used to go to U3A for French lessons in what was the Rest Bay Hotel when we lived nearby.

NfK, our roads, South Wales is ok but not further up, it's mostly mountains.

Oh, I can sympathise about the roads! Its taken years of lobbing but we do now have a continuous dual carriageway all the way out of the county from Norwich in the direction of London. Just the one! We feel quite advanced! An outer harbour was built at Great Yarmouth, but it's hardly used as there's no proper access to it!

It's Mid Wales which has the most problems, easy to get to South from England and up North from England and not bad to parts of West Wales, but Mid, if coming from the South there are the Brecon Bescons which have the unpleasant habit of getting snowed up! Not too bad coming in from Hereford to bottom of Mid but Brecon on up to top of Mid not good. Add the that we are a small country but have three National Parks, putting up a sky dish csn have problems , the parks cover 20% on Wales, add the mountains and not a lot left is there

My eldest grandson lives in Porthcawl.
We went to Wales several times, and I can honestly say that there was only one place that I really didn`t like, and that was Barmouth. I love the Snowdonia area particularly.

Ydy'r aelodau arall sy'n dysgu Cymraeg? O siarad Cymraeg?
Dw i'n dysgu ers tair blynedd yn ôl.

dwi yn dal i ddysgu Jess!

Are you being rude?

Dè tha iad ag ràdh?

callgirl we were not that impressed with Barmouth (but the weather that day didn't do it any favours, I have to say) but we went into a lovely art gallery there and saw an amazing marine watercolour, which we would dearly have loved to have. DH was between jobs at the time and we were watching the pennies, but he said that if I really wanted it he would raid our savings, but I said no. The week after we got home, he got another job! We rang the gallery. It had gone. That's life.

Dim siarad Cymreag, sori Chewbacca, JessM!

Anniebach I think there should be a railway line capable of reasonable timescale travel direct North to South or South to North, Wales.

For me to visit friends even in Aberystwyth, it means over 5-6 hours rail journey via Hereford and Crewe. To North Wales, say via Bangor, a whole days rail travel.

What does anyone else thinK?

Last year when driving back to South Wales from Yorkshire we decided to take the scenic route and crossed into Wales fairly north. The problem we found was that on the whole way back we did not find one coffee shop or toilet till we were almost at Newport! It took us so much longer too but as the weather was good it did not worry us.

Sparkly, we use to have trains which even though steam did link us up, we use to get from Aberfan to Anglesey by train , did take hours and hours though. But now one has to have a car. So wrong , traveling from Mid Wales to Cardiff can be difficult because of limited number of bus times. Many towns are quite isolated . And the roads are not great are they

I agree it would be nice to have a train line up and down the country, my niece lives near Aberystwyth and her Mum my sister lives in Saundersfoot West Wales and its a devils own journey of 3+hrs from one to the other in fact we can probably do West Wales as quickly from London. Don't think a train line is going to happen though

Dwi'n siarad Cymraeg, Jess M.

It looks as thought the M4 at Newport is finally to get the go-ahead to bypass the Malpas Tunnels. At last!

Anniebach thats amazing Aberfan to Anglesey/Ynys Mon....we can only dream these days..there is a bus line that goes up the A470 through Brecon to Builth Wells but it starts in Cardiff...

tanith it is a long journey and its a shame there will not be a railway North to South anytime soon....

My son is coming to visit this weekend en route to Devon. Does anyone remember the paddle steamer that went from Cardiff to Ilfracombe?. I remember going on it twice. It would make his journey so much easier if it was still running. I believe there were plans to revive it but they have come to nothing.

Mr C talks about it bbevan, I did wonder if he had made it up, maybe not .

bb there are still paddle steamers running between Cardiff and the West Country but only in the summer. I don't think they are meant to be commercial, though. Can't remember its name! Grr..will google.

The Waverley!!

The Waverley is in Scotland for much of 2017, gets to the Bristol Channel in September. We have promised ourselves a trip this year. Was it the Waverley that went to Ilfracombe? If so a real memory lane trip for Mr C. The Balmoral (motor vessel rather than paddle steamer built in 1949) was sailing the West Country and across to Wales but there are worries over funding for her. These old ships cost a fortune to keep safe. She was berthed in Bristol, not sure if she is still there. We did a short trip on her last year, she's a beautiful ship.

I went on the Waverley years ago just before she had a refit. From Southwold Pier down the coast and up the Thames. Tower Bridge was opened for us (at 6pm!) and the Waverley's Captain sent loud hailer greetings to the Bridge Captain from "The Waverley, The Pride Of The Clyde". And all us East Anglians cheered, Scottish for a minute! A once in a lifetime experience!

There is a N-S bus. It's going to be free at weekends soon!
Trouble with a N-S rail line is that there is nothing remotely resembling a flat route. And I know N Spain has put a lot of infrastructure into tunnels through mountains, but I can't see that ever happening in Wales. (Let's spend our entire GDP on a railway... maybe not)

Yes, the Waverley used to go to Ilfracombe. Twice now I have missed out on a trip on the Waverley although DH has been.