CARDIFF & THE SOUTH OF WALES - England 2012 and the Best of Wales - page 693

Black Mountains, is an attractive town where you can still catch a cattle market
(some Tues and Fri), and where Tower House, one of only two fortified houses in
Wales, serves as the tourist office ( & 01874/712226 ). Nearby is the Pwll-y-
Wrach Nature Reserve with its waterfalls and springtime carpet of bluebells,
where you may see otters, and the Woodland Trust's Park Wood, on a ridge above
town.
Exploring Hay-on-Wye
For a small town Hay has a huge reputation, not least for its eccentricity: It is twinned
with Timbuktu, and once declared independence from Britain. Hay (once half in
England) is famed for having more secondhand bookstores than anywhere else in the
world, but it was the Hay Festival (www.hayfestival.com), launched in 1987, that
put the town on the international culture map. During the 10 days of the literary
festival, starting the last week in May and attracting authors from around the globe,
it becomes an arty city of 150,000. All the events and hotels get booked up fast, but
you can still have a charming day here, thanks to the food marquees and setting. The
rest of the time Hay is a leisurely delight with the bookstores interspersed with bric-
a-brac emporia and organic food stores, and you can wander down to the River Wye
for a gentle stroll. The Bailey Walk follows the river more than a mile on the town
side to The Warren, a beauty spot where you can have a paddle and a picnic. Hay also
has the remains of a Norman castle, now, predictably, a secondhand bookstore. The
Offa's Dyke Path and easy Wye Valley Walk run through town; you can pick up a Walk
Pack from the tourist office near the parking lot on Oxford Road.
Perhaps the biggest bookstore is the Hay Cinema Bookshop, Castle Street
( & 01497/820071; www.haycinemabookshop.co.uk), in the former cinema, with
200,000 volumes here, from 50p to £1,000 or more. Some of the most desirable
volumes are found at Boz Books, 13A Castle St. (tel. [phone]; www.boz
books.demon.co.uk), which features many first editions by Charles Dickens and
other 19th-century authors, as well as Dylan Thomas.
Drop in at Old Black Lion, Lion Street ( & 01497/820841; www.oldblacklion.
co.uk), parts of which date back to the 1300s, near the Lion Gate of the old town
wall. It's rated as one of Britain's best dining pubs and serves smart bar food as well
as lunch and dinner in the oak-beamed restaurant dating from the 1600s. The cuisine
is rather sophisticated: Everything from Moroccan lamb with couscous and an apri-
cot-and-fig compote to peppered venison casserole. There are also 10 bedrooms, from
£45 per person.
Hay-on-Wye is at the northeastern tip of the Black Mountains: Take the A40 north
from Abergavenny, then the A479, turning onto the B4350 just before the English
border.
Exploring Tintern
This is a small, rather lovely village a few miles southeast of Abergavenny, in a mysti-
cal wooded setting near Chepstow. Despite the antiques and bookstores, pubs and
cafes, its real attraction is just down the hill and takes your breath away. Tintern
Abbey ( & 01291/689251; www.cadw.wales.gov.uk) is in ruins, but it's spine-
tinglingly beautiful. Only the second Cistercian abbey in Britain, it was founded in
1131, became one of the most important monasteries in Wales, and survived until
Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. The towering remains are mostly from
the 13th century, but you don't really need to go in. Parking is free (quite something

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