I was on holiday in Wales last week!

It was the first time I’d been out that way, and it was a nice change from heading to the Yorkshire/Derbyshire area, which I had been doing most summers since I was a child – including last year.

I kept a diary of the six day trip, so here’s what we (my mum, step-dad and I) got up to:

Day 1 – Sunday 16th July

Departure day. It wasn’t just us going on holiday – our budgie, Messy, was spending the week at Dave’s brother’s house, and he’d been taken there on the Saturday night. We had said we wanted to be on the road by 8am, so of course we left shortly after 9am.

I had taken a travel sickness tablet, and tried to get some sleep on the journey. I put my head down somewhere near Thetford and when I woke up we were just to the south of Birmingham! We stopped for a break at Hopwood Park Services and then completed a pretty smooth journey by crossing the Prince of Wales Bridge into Wales.

We were staying in an Airbnb in Caldicot, a small town near Chepstow. This was the first time we’d used Airbnb and first impressions were good. Our accommodation was a self-contained apartment attached to the owners’ house.

That evening we walked to find the railway station and explore the town.

Day 2 – Monday 17th July

With the weather forecast good for our first full day in Wales, we decided to go to Cardiff on the train. But once we’d arrived at Cardiff Central Station, we decided to carry on to the coast at Barry Island. This was, of course, where a lot of the sitcom Gavin and Stacey was filmed, as well as a few scenes from my favourite film Submarine.

I have to say I wasn’t expecting Barry Island to be quite so beautiful. The beach is huge, and with the sun shining the water sparkled and you could see Weston-Super-Mare on the other side. We stopped at a café on the sea front before walking to the end of Friars Point, where the heavens opened and we got soaked.

Making our way back, we had lunch at a fish and chip shop next door to Marco’s Cafe, the real life place that Stacey works at in Gavin and Stacey. It’s clear that Barry Island is very proud of its association with the hugely successful BBC show – there are murals celebrating the fact all over the place, and the shops are not short of mugs emblazoned with Nessa’s catchphrase ‘oh, what’s occurring?’ or t-shirts with ‘sugar tits’ printed on them, the ‘affectionate’ nickname Dave Coaches used for Nessa.

A game of adventure golf and a drink sitting outside a pub followed before we headed to the station, but the day wasn’t over. I like ticking off any sporting arenas I see on my travels, and Cardiff has several. Not far from Cardiff Central I was able to see the Principality (formerly Millennium) Stadium, the home of the Welsh rugby union team, although we couldn’t get too close to it due to some work being done. I did take this photo though.

The cricket ground, named Sophia Gardens after the park that is close to it, is a bit of a walk from the Principality but we made the effort and were rewarded when we were told by a steward that we were welcome to go in and watch the end of a women’s match that was going on.

I can now add Sophia Gardens to the list of cricket grounds I’ve seen a match at: Lord’s, Trent Bridge, Headingley, Old Trafford and Edgbaston.

When the match was over, we were on our way back to the station when we realised that the next train back to Caldicot wasn’t until 7.50pm! So we had dinner at a Wetherspoons around the corner to kill the time. We were pleased we did, as it was in a fascinating old building – a theatre that was the venue for the first performance of the Welsh National Opera.

Reaching our apartment just before 9pm, we were all shattered. Our first full day would turn out to be our longest!

Day 2 – Tuesday 18th July

After the events of Monday, a quieter day was mooted for Tuesday. We walked into the town to see the market, which turned out to be about four stalls. The most noteworthy event that morning was a man tripping on a raised bit of paving and going down in instalments, hitting the ground chin first. Dave, a trained first aider, rushed to help. The response was actually quite heart warming – a chair was brought over from a nearby restaurant, a first aid kit was procured from a betting shop, and an off-duty nurse took over. As we were leaving, the police (or ‘heddlu’ as they are known in the utterly impenetrable Welsh language) were just arriving to see what was going on.

We got in the car and went to Chepstow, which is only 5 miles or so away. The only thing I really knew about Chepstow before arriving was that they did horse racing there, but it’s actually a really interesting town with plenty of history. Here’s a photo of Chepstow Bridge, where you can actually walk between Wales and England.

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I’ll be writing about the rest of my trip to Wales in the next few days – I hope you’ll come back for part 2!