6 June - off to Abertawe

Up bright and early to pack and have a quick bite - Sally Lund Bun makes good toast. Made the short walk to the train and headed for Cardiff where we would change trains for Swansea or Abertawe, as it's called in Welsh. We heard an announcement informing us that due to track congestion our train would be eight minutes late. Then twelve, then eighteen. We were really going to be cutting it close to make the connection. Eventually the train arrived. It was the Great Western Railway, aka God's Wonderful Railway, aka Great Wet and Rusty. These aren't names I made up, by the way. A gentleman we shared a table seat with from Salisbury to Bath told us that. Well, we got to Cardiff eventually, but long after our connection had departed. We had non-refundable tickets so we weren't technically allowed to take the next train, but because there were extenuating circumstances, Transport for Wales allowed us to travel. We found seats and discovered that we had chosen a coach with some real characters. A group of women were having a party onboard. The champagne was flowing, the music played loudly and turned into karaoke with lots of loud chatter. As annoying as it sounds, it was actually hilarious, not least because of the dirty looks the upper class businessman kept shooting them. I thought it was probably a hen party. When I finally got a look at them, they weren't 20-somethings at all. They looked like they ranged from 40s to 60s. I don't know where they were going or what they were doing, but I knew they were going to have a great time (and a huge hangover.)

We were staying at an AirBnB and our host met us at the train station to give us the keys to the flat. We hopped a cab to the Maritime Quarter and found our flat which was lovely, very stylish and modern. We dumped our bags and went for a walk along the seafront which was about 50 feet from our building. There was a huge expanse of sand and I thought that when the wind wasn't blowing and the temperature was over 60 it would be a hopping beach.

There was a bit of art

and something that looked like an observatory. It had been one at one time but was now a restaurant

and the Welsh sense of humor was on display.

We walked to the end of the beach to the weir,

across the pedestrian bridge,

and past the Queen's head pub, where Bruce stayed.

I walked along the other side of the marina past a statue of Swansea's favorite son, Dylan Thomas.

By the time I got back to the flat, no more than 90 minutes later, the view from the tiny balcony of the flat was totally different. Gone was the expanse of beach. It's quite dramatic, I guess because the slope is so very gradual it seems as though the tide comes in in a flash.

I unpacked and we went across the street to a tapas restaurant that actually turned out to be a tapas restaurant and pizzeria. The food was really good though I have to admit I would never have thought of having tapas in Wales. The music was a bizarre mix of very loud 80s rock, blues, 60s pop and, well, you name it. The waitress advised us to order the garlic bread. Okay. It was the last to come out of the kitchen and was actually a pizza with  garlic paste on it. Funny. Made the short walk home to get comfy.

Nos da (good night).