We’d spent the night at the comfortable Springfield B&B in Rosslare Harbour, Ireland, before getting on the Irish Ferry back to Wales.
here we are, breakfasting on healthy porridge at 7:00 a.m. – we had to get up at 6:30 because of getting to the ferry on time. i’m reading my journal, which i wrote at 9:30 in the morning, and i said “i felt pretty chipper,” which is something for me at that time of the morning.
we rolled our suitcases down to the ferry and we could see it moored at the dock…
…and i was pleased i’d thought of dropping our car off the night before because of this huge line of cars going there! up ahead is a person with at least a couple of cute dogs who we passed.
the voyage back to wales was uneventful, and we had all our nice irish cheese and stuff we’d bought the night before to snack on. nice.
it started to rain, and when we got back to the Pembroke dock it took quite a while to get our luggage, but we picked up our car, which had been parked in the free and somewhat deserted long-term parking lot for a few days, and off we went to Carmarthen.
now, Carmarthen is a place i wouldn’t care to visit again. but while we were in Ireland, i thought a lot about all the driving kevin had to do, and i wasn’t happy with the thought of the rather long drive we’d have to take when we got back to Wales – i’d planned that we’d go to the Brecon Beacons; i’d booked us a hotel in the town of brecon because the Brecon Beacons looked like really cool mountains, and i planned that we might stop at some obscure waterfall that you could walk behind.
but on saturday we got up early, and then took the four-hour ferry ride, and kevin wasn’t so keen on driving for two hours to get to brecon. so on thursday night i spent a lot of time looking cancelling our hotel and trying to figure out a better place to stop for the night. we knew that on sunday we were going to two different gardens farther east in Wales, and so it was challenging for me to try to find an alternate place.
now i wonder why i didn’t choose tenby, which is a charming little town along the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, and i know i’d read about the place even though we didn’t walk near it – i remember a photo of it, with many brightly-colored buildings. i just looked it up on trip advisor, and there are 24 hotels in tenby, so what was i thinking?
i guess i wanted to get us a little closer to our destination on sunday, but now, looking at the map, i realized that it’d only have been another 40 minutes to drive on sunday – why, oh why, didn’t i choose tenby instead of carmarthen?
i think it’s because when i’m planning a trip, i give myself plenty of time to research things well in advance, and i was exhausted trying to find stuff after hiking all day in glendalough, plus i had to look it all up on my little phone. but dang, we could have spent the night in such a cute little town! but tenby is only 20 minutes from pembroke, so i probably also thought we should go a little farther…
oh well, it wasn’t a total wash, and it’s a little late to worry about it now. but next time…
travel is educational.
anyway, the worst part about finding the b&b i’d found was…finding it. we took a big road to get there, less than an hour away…but when we got into Carmarthen, we got caught up in a roundabout nightmare, and couldn’t figure out how to get to the street where the b&b was located, and it was all a little bit frazzling, and once we got near the street, we couldn’t find it, but then finally we somehow saw a little tiny sign – It was called the Tir Celyn B&B, and the street just said “emlyn terrace.”
whew. we were euphoric to find it, but when we got there…nobody was home. there were many unfinished projects all around outside – and no way to get in. hmm.
i just looked the place up on trip advisor, and it gets glowing reviews and it’s rated #9 of 25 b&B’s in Carmarthen, so that’s why i picked it. we decided to walk down the way, and stopped at an Aldi and a garden store kind of like Menard’s, and there were lots of cars parked and other ugly stores and we didn’t like that so much. we finally walked back to the b&b and an old guy showed up – we’d arrived so early that the woman in charge wasn’t home, so the guy let us in. our room was fine, no complaints, plenty of room. it overlooked a chicken pen.
we walked to the main part of town and kevin’s blood sugar was low, so we got this lovely chocolate cake in a little cafe.
so, right there, totally worth it to be in Carmarthen because of the chocolate cake. plus ice cream!
we walked over to the Carmarthen Castle, and this is the view – our b&b is just beyond all that business stuff there across the river.
the castle was very ruined, and not in very good shape, and the town was kind of like that too. not a tourist place at all, and i seemed kind of…rough.
another view from the castle ruin.
this is a very cool giant thing in a shop window. it would have been neat to buy it, but not so easy to carry. plus the shops were mostly all closed.
we did find a nice old church, and took a peek inside.
this modern bridge crossed the river.
…with plenty of sheep across the way.
i think the old guy at the b&b told us about different restaurants in town? we chose this one because it was overlooking the river, and we had a delicious dinner of fresh fish. i think this is a cheese toasty appetizer with…something else that was good. no idea what that thing on the left might be.
kevin has fish and chips and i had…some kind of delicious fish.
we ate pretty early, which i guess is why there was nobody inside yet.
bu the time we left, there definitely were other diners outside.
and more sheep to look at while eating!
this is the dragon symbol of wales.
another shot of the bridge, which we didn’t actually walk across because we didn’t know where we’d end up.
it’s funny that there were sheep grazing right next to a parking lot and all the businesses.
this bird was hanging out on top of the train station.
i love love loved this sign!
as we walked on the road back to our b&b, a woman driving by pulled over…she was the b&b propriet0r, and she knew we were staying there! i guess we looked like we didn’t belong in Carmarthen. she asked us what we wanted for breakfast and roared off.
sunday was going to be a very big day…
ok then,
mrs. h.