WILD WALES

THERE IS AN OLD SAYING that if the steep hills and deep valleys of Wild Wales were smoothed out, England’s western neighbour would actually be the bigger country. Wales used to be considered a dangerous place full of mountains and precipices, deluged with rain and populated by superstitious druids who spoke a strange language. Then in the eighteenth century, the English found it was no longer safe to travel to revolutionary Europe in search of inspiring landscapes.

So Wales became popular with poets and artists, clutching their notebooks and phrasebooks. Once the railways arrived in the nineteenth century, Wales became a place for affordable holidays, with the Welsh coastline turning into a string of pretty Victorian seaside resorts.

Today Wales remains another country to be discovered just across the English border and the perfect place for a UK staycation.