A walk along the coast and up the hill to a brilliant village pub: the Britannia Inn, Gower Peninsula
A pub is an essential part of a country walk, but how do you do it? First the whole walk, then a pub for some well-deserved food and beer? Or a halfway pub, to restore the weakened body and mind, the open miles making that second or third beer a bad idea? On this walk from the beloved Britannia Inn in the Gower village of Llanmadoc, we can decide the day: it's a figure-eight route, with the 'Brit' near where the loops intersect. There's a rain forecast for later, so we start early and aim for a late lunch after the walk, with stops to soak up the views without getting soaked.
And what views. Part of the beauty of this peninsula lies in the variety of its landscapes: wild moors, golden beaches, limestone cliffs, grasslands, mixed forests and salt marshes.
De Brittany, we head west along Frog Lane, past the charming Siop y Bobl of Llanmadoc. The post office closed in 2007 but volunteers opened this community store, with fresh produce, a postal counter and a café. We can't justify a coffee stop just yet, but bunches of freshly picked Gower lavender are tempting.
Glimpses of sea, sand and the cast iron lighthouse of Whiteford are just a taste of what awaits you, and a little way you turn left at the sign of a bridle path on a triangular green. Turning left again between a cottage and a stone wall, at a sign for Llangennith, we climb a stony path up the brambly hill of Llanmadoc.
Three or four paths lead upstream from here: anyone heading southwest will do. In high summer, when the ferns are thick, it's more like a paddling pool, but the 10-15 minute climb offers views of most of South Wales. To the left are the Preseli mountains of Pembrokeshire, then part of Carmarthenshire before the Brecon Beacons in Powys. Including Swansea, that's four counties. Closer, the blues of the Loughor estuary and the golden sands of Whiteford and Broughton bays form a harmonious whole. ridge, and sea views also open to the south: across Gower to the Bristol Channel, the North Devon coast and the Somerset Levels. But the route has even more to offer: as we ascend the now gentle slope to the summit, the beautiful beach of Rhossili comes into view, with the rocky Worms Head. A spot behind is Lundy. A trigonometric point at the top tells us that Timbuktu is 2,409 miles away.
We retrace our steps along the backbone of the hill, then continue straight. It's a sunny Sunday and we're less than 15 miles from Swansea, but there's hardly anyone here. It looks like this peak is no more crowded than it was 4,000 years ago, when Bronze Age men built burial cairns.
A pub is an essential part of a country walk, but how do you do it? First the whole walk, then a pub for some well-deserved food and beer? Or a halfway pub, to restore the weakened body and mind, the open miles making that second or third beer a bad idea? On this walk from the beloved Britannia Inn in the Gower village of Llanmadoc, we can decide the day: it's a figure-eight route, with the 'Brit' near where the loops intersect. There's a rain forecast for later, so we start early and aim for a late lunch after the walk, with stops to soak up the views without getting soaked.
And what views. Part of the beauty of this peninsula lies in the variety of its landscapes: wild moors, golden beaches, limestone cliffs, grasslands, mixed forests and salt marshes.
De Brittany, we head west along Frog Lane, past the charming Siop y Bobl of Llanmadoc. The post office closed in 2007 but volunteers opened this community store, with fresh produce, a postal counter and a café. We can't justify a coffee stop just yet, but bunches of freshly picked Gower lavender are tempting.
Glimpses of sea, sand and the cast iron lighthouse of Whiteford are just a taste of what awaits you, and a little way you turn left at the sign of a bridle path on a triangular green. Turning left again between a cottage and a stone wall, at a sign for Llangennith, we climb a stony path up the brambly hill of Llanmadoc.
Three or four paths lead upstream from here: anyone heading southwest will do. In high summer, when the ferns are thick, it's more like a paddling pool, but the 10-15 minute climb offers views of most of South Wales. To the left are the Preseli mountains of Pembrokeshire, then part of Carmarthenshire before the Brecon Beacons in Powys. Including Swansea, that's four counties. Closer, the blues of the Loughor estuary and the golden sands of Whiteford and Broughton bays form a harmonious whole. ridge, and sea views also open to the south: across Gower to the Bristol Channel, the North Devon coast and the Somerset Levels. But the route has even more to offer: as we ascend the now gentle slope to the summit, the beautiful beach of Rhossili comes into view, with the rocky Worms Head. A spot behind is Lundy. A trigonometric point at the top tells us that Timbuktu is 2,409 miles away.
We retrace our steps along the backbone of the hill, then continue straight. It's a sunny Sunday and we're less than 15 miles from Swansea, but there's hardly anyone here. It looks like this peak is no more crowded than it was 4,000 years ago, when Bronze Age men built burial cairns.
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