Swansea, the city on the bay

Swansea, in Welsh Abertawe, is the second city of Wales and the gateway to one of Britain's most beautiful coastlines, the Gower peninsula. Facing a wide crescent-shaped bay at the western end of South Wales, it has about 240,000 inhabitants. In the 19th century it was the world capital of copper, nicknamed Copperopolis, and the smoke of its smelters blackened the valley; today it is a university and seaside city, with an eight-kilometre promenade leading to the village of Mumbles. It is also the birthplace of the poet Dylan Thomas, who fondly called it an ugly, lovely town.

Trains from London Paddington take about three hours, via Cardiff, which is less than an hour away. Cardiff Airport is the closest, about an hour's drive.

A history of Vikings and copper

The English name probably comes from a Viking chieftain, Sweyn, who is said to have had a landing place here: "Sweyn's island". The Welsh name, Abertawe, means "mouth of the River Tawe". After the Norman Conquest a castle was built, whose 14th-century ruins, with an elegant arcaded parapet, survive in the centre. For centuries Swansea was a small port and market town.

Everything changed in the 18th century. The Tawe valley had plenty of coal, and a harbour where ships could unload copper ore from Cornwall, Anglesey and later from all over the world, from Chile to Cuba. Since smelting copper needed far more coal than ore, it made sense to bring the ore to the coal. In the 19th century the lower Tawe valley came to produce a large share of the world's copper: Swansea's ships rounded Cape Horn with their cargoes, and the smelters wrapped the valley in poisonous yellow smoke that killed the vegetation. When copper declined in the early 20th century, the valley was left for decades as an industrial wasteland, cleaned up from the 1960s onwards.

In February 1941, in three nights of bombing known as the Three Nights' Blitz, the German air force almost completely destroyed the city centre. Swansea was rebuilt after the war in a modern style and became a city in 1969.

Dylan Thomas

Swansea's most famous son is Dylan Thomas, born in 1914 in a house on Cwmdonkin Drive, in the hillside Uplands district, now restored and open to visitors. A poet of extraordinary musicality, author of the radio play Under Milk Wood and of stories about a Swansea childhood, he died in New York in 1953, aged just 39. The Dylan Thomas Centre, in the Maritime Quarter, has a permanent exhibition on his life and hosts a literary festival every year in late October, around his birthday. In nearby Cwmdonkin Park, where he played as a child, a stone bears some of his lines. Those who want to follow in his footsteps can travel to Laugharne, in Carmarthenshire, where he spent his last years in the boathouse overlooking the estuary and where he is buried.

What to see in Swansea

The Maritime Quarter

The Maritime Quarter, created from the old docks, is one of the most pleasant parts of the city, with a marina full of yachts, colourful houses, restaurants and seafront walks. Here is the free National Waterfront Museum, which tells the story of three hundred years of industry and innovation in Wales, from copper to coal, from railways to the digital age, in a modern building joined to an old dock warehouse. A few steps away, Swansea Museum, opened in 1841, is the oldest museum in Wales, with a quirky collection that includes an Egyptian mummy.

The market

Swansea Market is the largest indoor market in Wales, under a bright glass roof. It is the place to taste local produce: cockles from nearby Penclawdd, on the Gower coast, sold boiled in little tubs with pepper and vinegar; laverbread, a dark seaweed purée that the Welsh eat for breakfast with bacon and eggs; and Welsh cakes cooked on the griddle in front of customers, small flat cakes with currants and spice.

The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and the castle

The free Glynn Vivian Art Gallery grew out of the collection of a member of a copper-smelting family and shows Welsh and international art, porcelain and glass. In the centre, the ruins of Swansea Castle are all that remains of the medieval town, surrounded by the modern buildings of the post-war rebuilding.

The copperworks ruins

North of the centre, along the River Tawe, you can visit the remains of the great Hafod-Morfa copperworks, once the largest in the world, with engine houses, furnaces and an iron bridge. A regeneration project is turning the site into a place for visits and events, with a Welsh whisky distillery in the old workshops.

Parks and gardens

Swansea is a very green city. Singleton Park, next to the university, is a large park with botanical gardens and glasshouses, while Clyne Gardens, a little further along the bay, are famous in spring for their hundreds of varieties of rhododendrons and azaleas, colouring the slopes around a small lake red, pink and purple. From Clyne Park a cycle path also runs up the valley along the route of an old railway.

The bay and Mumbles

Swansea Bay, about eight kilometres long, can be followed on foot or by bike along a path beside the beach. This was the route of the Mumbles Railway, which in 1807 carried the first fare-paying passengers in history on rails, in horse-drawn carriages; it later switched to steam and then electricity, before closing in 1960. At the end of the bay, the village of Mumbles has a Victorian pier, a lighthouse on an islet, the ruins of Oystermouth Castle, ice-cream parlours and pubs. It is also where actress Catherine Zeta-Jones grew up. Mumbles is a lovely place to end the day: the pier has been restored, a lifeboat station stands at its end, and the seafront terraces, cafés and fish restaurants look back across the whole curve of the bay towards the city lights. On clear days you can see across the Bristol Channel to the hills of Exmoor on the English shore.

The Gower peninsula

West of the city lies the Gower peninsula, which in 1956 became the first area in the UK to be designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, now called a National Landscape. It is a land of limestone cliffs, golden sandy bays, dunes, salt marshes and moorland, followed by a coast path.

• Rhossili Bay, at the western tip, is one of the most beautiful beaches in Britain: five kilometres of sand below a hill, with a shipwreck that appears at low tide and, on the horizon, Worm's Head, a long rocky island shaped like a sea serpent, reachable on foot for only a few hours at low tide.
• Three Cliffs Bay takes its name from three limestone points plunging into a bay, with castle ruins on the hill: one of the most photographed views in Wales.
• Oxwich Bay and Port Eynon are wide, family-friendly beaches; Llangennith is a surfers' paradise.
• In the middle of the peninsula, on the moorland of Cefn Bryn, where semi-wild ponies graze, stands Arthur's Stone, a Neolithic tomb topped by a huge boulder: legend says it was a pebble King Arthur took out of his shoe and threw. From the top of the hill you can see both coasts of the peninsula.
• On the north coast, Penclawdd is the village of the cockle gatherers, who for centuries worked the sands of the estuary.

More places nearby

• Aberdulais, in the Neath valley: a spectacular waterfall beside the ruins of a tinworks, now National Trust, with a working water wheel.
• Neath Abbey, the imposing ruins of a medieval Cistercian monastery, later turned into a mansion and a copper smelter.
• Waterfall Country, on the southern edge of Bannau Brycheiniog National Park: a series of waterfalls in the woods, including Sgwd yr Eira, where a path runs behind the curtain of water.
• The National Botanic Garden of Wales, in Carmarthenshire, about half an hour's drive: a botanic garden with a great domed glasshouse designed by Norman Foster, one of the largest single-span glasshouses in the world.

A day in Swansea

A possible itinerary: in the morning visit the market and have breakfast with laverbread and cockles, then pass the castle ruins and head down to the Maritime Quarter, with the National Waterfront Museum and the Dylan Thomas Centre. After lunch hire a bike and ride the promenade to Mumbles, stopping for an ice cream, a stroll on the pier and the climb to Oystermouth Castle. At sunset the bay lights up. In the evening dine in Mumbles or return to town for a concert. Devote the next day to Rhossili and the Gower peninsula.

Sport and life

Swansea City became in 2011 the first Welsh club to play in the Premier League, and in 2013 won the League Cup, the first major trophy in their history. The Ospreys represent the region in rugby, the Welsh national sport. Swansea is a university city, with Swansea University, which has a campus in Singleton Park and a second, modern campus on the beach, and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. Nightlife centres on Wind Street in the centre and the bars of the Maritime Quarter. The city also has a new arena for concerts and shows, opened in 2022 near the sea.

Living in Swansea

Swansea offers a much-appreciated quality of life: the sea and countryside minutes away, cheaper housing than Cardiff and the south of England, and a welcoming community. The economy is based on the universities, healthcare, public services, tourism and new tech businesses, while heavy industry has moved to nearby Port Talbot, with its steelworks. Wages are below the British average. You will also hear Welsh spoken in the city, taught in schools and present on every road sign.

Getting there and getting around

• By train: Great Western Railway trains from London Paddington take about three hours, stopping at Cardiff, which is less than an hour from Swansea. Trains also run from Swansea to west Wales.
• By air: Cardiff Airport is the closest, about an hour's drive; alternatively Bristol, about two hours away.
• In the city and on Gower: buses link the centre with Mumbles and the main Gower beaches, but a car is best for exploring the peninsula at leisure; the promenade to Mumbles is ideal by bike.

For travel around the rest of the country see trains and transport, and for the region see Wales and the history of Wales.

Tips for your visit

• How long: a day for the city and Mumbles, at least one or two for the Gower peninsula.
• When to go: May to September for the beaches and the coast path; late October for the Dylan Thomas festival.
• What to eat: a Welsh breakfast with laverbread and cockles, and freshly made Welsh cakes from the market.
• Mind the tides: before crossing to Worm's Head check the safe crossing times posted at the Rhossili coastguard lookout; anyone stranded on the island must wait for the next tide.

Swansea on the map

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