Booking.com came up with a Bed & Breakfast overlooking South Beach and within a few minutes walk of the station and the town centre at Tenby. When we got there it was obviously a converted parsonage house, the current Rectory having been built in its grounds! Our bedroom had the most fantastic view over the sea. But I digress: first we must get there!Our journey on the 10:05 from Stamford to Birmingham was the usual smooth and comfortable ride we have come to expect and we had enough time in Birmingham to buy provisions for a picnic lunch on the next stage of the journey to Bristol. This second leg was on one of the Voyager units CrossCountry inherited from the Virgin franchise and was comfortable enough but the overhead "luggage" racks just about took our coats: we travel light but even our little cases were too much and we had to take our cases to the racks by the doors. In any other train you only have to do that with really huge cases. Since these trains travel long distances serving major cities and several holiday destinations you would think they'd have been designed with luggage in mind.
Like every arrival on this fairly complex trip, our train arrived bang on time at Bristol Parkway where we waited a few moments at the same platform for our Great Western High Speed Train to Swansea. I'd never been at Bristol Parkway before: it was built both for this interchange purpose and as a railhead for motorists off the M4 and M5 motorways wanting to join trains without having to drive into central Bristol, and it functioned very well for our purpose. Another first was the transit through the Severn Tunnel, short by Channel Tunnel standards but still a long tunnel which predates the two motorway bridges by many decades. The journey through South Wales took us through many well-known industrial places and the principality's capital Cardiff. Across the Bristol Channel can be seen the north Somerset coast where we have been many times and looked across at these towns and cities. It is an area very much in transition and a lot of rebuilding is taking place. In spite of the toll taken of its industry by several recessions there is still a lot happening in South Wales!
On our arrival at the terminus at Swansea after more than 90 minutes we were ushered across the platform into the waiting train for Pembroke Dock which would drop us at Tenby after another couple of hours. This was very different from the HST we had just left, an Arriva Trains Wales Sprinter unit which certainly moved quickly but had a very long way to go. We were now into into rural Wales and followed the coast at times, river estuaries at other times, always something to see. While this train was perfectly adequate and got us there in good time it seems a missed opportunity not to have trains of better quality for such a long trip. The fragmentation inherent in the franchise system will probably prevent this from happening: Arriva does not run to London and Great Western does not run to Pembroke. They co-operate at Swansea, but that is all. It is also a bring-your-own-refreshments train, and I think we were the only holiday-makers on board. A far cry from the trainloads that used to come to these places in the past. No wonder the roads are jammed.
Arrival at Tenby was bang on time just after 5.30pm and we strolled off to our B&B, hoping it was as good as its photos on Booking.com. It was under new management and refurbishment was under way, our room being one of the better ones with a sea view. The entire staff seemed to be young men, mostly students, with a young manager, and on the whole they did very well. This is a surfing area and I expect they were there for surfing. There was a surf shop advertised at the house but we saw no sign of it: an aspiration of the new owner, I expect! Off into town for dinner. Now, Tenby is a sort of Chelsea on Sea and finding an affordable restaurant was proving difficult until we spotted a pub offering bargain sausage-and-mash which turned out to be excellent. We made a mental note to return here another day but we never did.
We had four nights at Tenby and although the weather in the summer of 2012 could have been a great deal better it was a very good holiday with enough time on the beach and plenty of time in the town. There was very little rain and some hot weather and we were able to do a lot of walking and exploring.
At low tide one day we walked the entire length of the five beaches and across the harbour. We never left the town, for although I had looked up local train and bus times ready to do so we found plenty to see and do in Tenby itself. We discovered a terrific bar/restaurant just a few steps from our B&B, controversially sited on the South Beach but we were perfectly happy with it, as seemed to be many hundreds of others who packed it every evening! There was a museum, and as we often do we picked up a town trail leaflet at the tourist office and followed the trail around the town. In the parish church is a monument to Robert Recorde, the eminent mathematician who is credited with inventing the "equals" sign, =, and who died in 1558. Hard to imagine a world without the "equals" sign!
Friday, and the time finally came to leave and we went to catch the "local" train back to Swansea where we caught our Great Western connection. This time, however, we left the train at Newport where we had coffee at a very pleasant little coffee shop on the platform before taking a connection to Gloucester for the final two nights of our holiday with our friends. The line takes the north-west bank of the Severn along the edge of the Forest of Dean and has some great views of the river, another line we'd never travelled before and which has far better views than the parallel road which we'd used several times in the past. As we passed over the ring road at Gloucester I couldn't help noticing that the traffic jams had not improved since we left the county in 1991! Again, arriving on time at Gloucester we could have caught a bus to our friends' village on the outskirts but they kindly met us in their car and drove us there.
We left our friends after Sunday lunch and they drove us to Cheltenham Spa station since their village has no Sunday bus service. We were pleased with the comfort (and luggage space) of the CrossCountry HST that picked us up on time and took us to Birmingham for our connection back to Stamford. The uphill walk from Stamford station is compensated-for by the great feeling as we cross the meadows and see the view of the town ahead of us, and we were opening our front door by 7.15pm having enjoyed a great week away.
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