Hello coddiwomplers, and welcome back to Part 2 of our trip to South Wales in July 2025.
Following a more successful breakfast (see Part 1 – Wowed by the Gower) it was time to move on and I’d made a plan to visit the UK’s smallest city of St Davids. After a misty and murky start the clouds cleared to reveal St Davids at its best. The main street consists of many independent shops selling arty crafty goods plus a few household named shops. And of course there are the essential cafes! The highlight though has to be the cathedral. It’s jaw-dropping in stature and dates back to the 14th century and the Dark Ages. It’s well worth a visit.
Our B&B for the next two nights was in Penally, close to Tenby, which was about an hour’s drive from St Davids. We couldn’t resist stopping off at Newgale beach for a spot of sunbaking en route.
Suffice to say we got more sense out of our host here within the first 5 minutes than we did from the previous two days! Our large room overlooked the sea and towards Caldey Island, and it had a decent shower! Breakfast was brought to our room every morning and there’s a great pub just 5 mins walk away.
I was conscious that Tim had done a lot of driving over the previous couple of days and I decided we could explore Tenby by foot. Thursday started off misty, but still very wam and we walked into Tenby via the beach. I can’t think of a more perfect way to walk to a town: barefoot on the sand!
It soon became very apparent that I would need a sunhat, so the first part of our excursion was meandering through Tenby’s picturesque streets visiting the charity shops and beach shops as I was on a Mission. Thankfully I found a bargain at just £4! I’m surprised we weren’t thrown out at one point because of Tim trying different hats for size causing me to convulse; bless him, he really can’t do hats!
I thought it would be nice to take a boat trip to Caldey Island, about a 20 minute ride from the harbour and it felt like we’d stepped onto a tropical island. It’s actually owned by monks and has a very Italian vibe about it. The island path took us around the spectacular headlands, past the lighthouse and through the farm. Sea mist kept rolling in, which we were grateful for as it cooled the temperatures down. It also created a spooky, mystical air to the tops of the cliffs. We were told that Puffins were nesting there, Mum would’ve loved that. The boat trips were busy but we soon managed to lose the crowds as we walked further round the island. It’s a wonderful way to spend 2-3 hours, and yes the cafe is good too! These three short videos sum up our walk perfectly and there are more photos at the foot of this blog.
Caldey Island Misty Capers and Sunhat
Once we’d made it back to Tenby Tim had the great idea of catching the train back to Penally, it only takes 6 minutes. We bought our tickets from the machine and sat down on the platform to wait for our imminent train; until we realised that we were an hour early! By then we were getting hungry so we set off to discover what Tenby could offer us for dinner (the next train wasn’t for another two hours). The more time I spent in this pretty town, the more I loved it, I loved the narrow streets lined with colourful, pastel coloured buildings, I loved the quirky shops and best of all I loved the vast sandy beach and the pretty harbour.
Tim fancied a quick dip in the warm sea before we found a good pub and enjoyed a delicious meal before heading back to the station. The issue with Tim’s dip was that he’d used his underpants as swimming trunks, so was left to carry them around for the rest of the evening (he was wearing his shorts by the way!) Tenby seemed to echo with the question: “Have you still got your underpants?” accompanied with some very bewildered looks in my direction from confused passers by…never a dull moment, with another mini adventure still to come…
Thankfully, the train arrived quickly and we reached Penally within 5 minutes, however the doors wouldn’t open to let us off! To cut a long story short, we ended up taking a long (and mostly scenic) trip along the Pembrokeshire coast back to Pembroke Dock (not so scenic and we had already driven through it earlier that afternoon), where we had to sit and wait for a staff change, before we could be returned safely back to Penally. The staff couldn’t have been nicer, they even brought us two cold cans of mineral water to drink on our journey.
This little jaunt with just us on the train, plus Tim’s wet underpants, took an extra 90 minutes and it was getting dark when we got back! Well, we did say we didn’t want to drive that day as we knew we were going to have a hot, sticky drive home the following day.
I really can’t recommend Tenby and its surrounding area enough and felt I could’vestayed there a bit longer.
