"Croeso i Abertawe (Swansea)" a Swansea Travel Page by aaaarrgh

"An ugly, lovely town" is how poet Dylan Thomas described his home city. Swansea is not as bad as some people say. It has improved massively over the last 5 years. Only 55 minutes from Cardiff by train and with good motorway links, it is easy to reach.

There are lots of shops, a university, a great art gallery. The newly developed marina looks super and has a beautiful new industrial museum.

Swansea has a tremendous coastline. Not far away are the Mumbles, the Gower peninsula and super beaches. Definitely the place to go on a hot summer day.

My sister went to university here. My grandfather was brought up here. I have fond memories of the place.

One word of warning - it has a reputation of being quite rough on Saturday nights. Fortunately the evening train service is so bad it means i have never spent the night in Swansea bars and clubs. You enter at your own risk ;-)

On 19-21 February 1941 the Nazi Lufftwaffe helped out (uninvited) with Swansea's slum-clearance programme. Swansea was one of Britain's great ports and industrail cities. The bombs levelled all of Swansea's old city centre, houses, shops, market, church.

So the centre of Swansea today is modern and, quite frankly, dreadfully ugly. If you want to see some of what Swansea used to be like, then walk along Wind Street towards the Maritime Quarter. Lots of older, grand and picturesque buildings, many of which are now trendy bars, restaurants and pubs.

Welsh women are definitely no longer short, squat, with frilly hats and beards. Thirteen delightful young ladies danced through Swansea's grotty streets of semi-derelict cut-price shops to celebrate the opening of the Waterfront Museum. They were followed by a carnival parade of hand made banners and flags. Fortunately the weather was splendid for October, otherwise dancing around Swansea in red underpants would have landed them in hospital with pneumonia ;-)