Let me extol the virtues of the Lleyn Peninsula.

[Slubberdegullion]

Spent last week there in a self catering cottage, on a farm.

For those who are mildly geographically challenged it is the sticky out bit just underneath Anglesey.

Absolutely beautiful. Just the tops. Lots of small mountainous/big hillish bits. Everywhere else is rolling green hills with sheep and cows galore. Occasional cool mini bits of forest to drive through (tunnels of trees that the dd's squealed with delight every time we drove through).

And the beaches........well if the sea hadn't been shriek inducingly cold we could have been on a tropical island. Aquamarine blue it was. Top sand, nice rock pooly stuff, good tides so you didn't have half a mile to get to the sea when the tide was out, but big enough so as DH could make a proper big (I may not own a ferrari but check out the size of this mound of sand) sized sand castles.

Most of the beaches had good cafes on. Our fave beach (Porth Oer aka Whistling Sands), had a cafe that did Cheddar and Chutney panninis....how wonderful is that.

Abersoch (where the Cheshire Set holiday donchaknow), also v nice, some good shops and plenty of good eating establishments. No tat.

Oh and the weather was excellent, I got a mild tan...in October.

So there we go. Had to get that out of my system. Great place. We will be returning.

let moondog have a guess. Is gwyn white?

Better still, get moondog to drive past

Oh well it's so deepest Wales, you cant even drive past, it's like 5 mins up a farm track. Hang on a min, I'll stick a picture of their front drive on me profile.

I'm down that way tomorrow.
Could do a drive past.

Photos up.

It's on the road between Pwllheli and Nefyn, you go oven a little stone bridge over a mini river and it's the first turning on the right.

Its definately Gwynn something, Gwynnghar perhaps.

at you working there moondog, how lucky are you?

ooh yes we camped right out on the tip once, it was brilliant - the sun sank behind Ireland, absolutely beautiful.

Hi again - do you have the name of the farm? If you can get a bit more info and then send it to me or post it here, I'll add it to the review. Don't worry, I won't make you sit in the corner!

Abby, I will e-mail the company in the morning.

I do not want to fail MN on my first review attempt.

[swot emoticon]

Guffaw at it being 'Gwyn' something. There are millions of Gwyn somethings.

Yes Slubber. I love it and never ever fail to appreciate how lucky I am.

Alright, alright, I'm a complete English arse. I will find out tomorrow what sort of Gwyn farm it was (what does gwyn mean btw?).

Oh moondog, as you obviously are a Lleyn knower of things, all the lovely (and actually quite large) church/chapels that are in every single village you go through, what brand of Christianity is that? Are they Presbeterian, or a branch of the Baptists or Methodists?

Also are/were the Welsh in those parts great abstainers of alcohol, just that we didn't see many pubs about. Or maybe we weren't looking in the right places.

Ohhhh looking at those photos brings a tear to my eye - I have been to nearly all those places, fished of a lot of the beaches, I would love to go back but can't drive

Fished of =- should be fished from obviously

The common accent strikes again

No,you are not an English arse at all.
Reasonable enough assumtion to make.

What you see are chapels. Wales went through a big non conformist scene in the 1800s so a very austere brand of Christianity practiced-mostly Presbyterian and Baptist. It was to do with breaking away from the Anglican church which was seen as too fancy and frivolous. Chapels were built absolutely everywhere. Have you ever been in one? I love the simplicity and austerity of them.

Wales was never a boozy nation like Ireland or Scotland (although people are making up for that now). The chapels were very big on temperance (no alcohol) which had a big knock on effect re pubs. The Lleyn was also 'dry' on Sundays until about 15 years ago.

There are also lots of smaller and older churches stretching down the Lleyn,if you know where to look. These date from much earlier times when all of Britain was Catholic. They formed part of a pilgrims' route all the way to Bardsey (Ynys Enlli) Island which is a very holy place.Three pilgrimages there were worth one to Rome (or something similar).

There is a particulalry lovely one on the right a few miles before Nefyn at Pistyll.The door is usually open and the floor is strewn with grass and rushes.

I met a nice guy the other day who doeas organised walking holidays along this old pilgrims' route.I'll see if I can find his website...

Edge of Wales walking tours

Thanks moondog. That's really interesting. I didn't get to go into any of the Chapels last week (although I wanted to, I have a bit of a thing about church architecture), however was overruled by DH and the DC needing to get to the beach! I couldn't get over the size of the chapels. From the outside they look like they could seat at least a hundred, and yet they would often be sat in a little hamlet of about 3 houses.

When I commented upon this in the car I recieved a lengthy lecture from DH about the large rural population pre industrialisation and everyone going to church without fail back then etc.

Never the less the chapel to domestic housing ratio did seem extraordinarily high. Are most of them still used? I hope so.

Will def. go into one when we go back again (hopefully this year maybe for a weekend break) it's only just over 2 hours away from us.

Cool, thanks for the walking holiday link. Have bookmarked. One to do in a few years maybe when the DC can walk at something slightly faster than a snails pace

Yes,it was all a bit mad.

We had a sermon on it in my chapel the other day.
A lot of it was about outdoing the next village. Most people agree that it was over the top.

Like all Christian establishments,attendance is falling, but yes,lots are still used.In my village,the mothers run a Sunday school in our chapel.I want my children to understand how special and unique it is.

Next time you come,go down to the National Language Centre in Nant Gwrtheyrn which is in the village of Llithfaen (just outside Nefyn on road from Caernarfon)

It is built in an abandoned quarrying village at the bottom of a very steep valley.Amazing place and fantastic for snooping and walking. Great beach where you sometimes see seals and a nice cafe.

Yes,I plan to do that walk too in a few years when the children are older (and not so bloody lazy..)

lol, nothing like a spot of competitive chapel building eh?

Will def. go to the Language Centre (I think you can see I am am needing some assistance with the language)!

We saw a seal at Porth Oer, DH and I leaping up and down pointing for the DH to see, they were completely underwhelmed by the whole thing (too many visits to Chester Zoo has numbed them to the thrills of proper wild nature).

For the DC to see durrr

need to go to bed, am confusing my DC and DH's

I saw a seal once, while fishing for mackerel off the rocks. Dad started packing up as soon as he saw it - he said it would pinch anything off the line even if it hadn't scared all the fish away!

Ahem, and where's that information? (Taps fingers on desk in a scholarly fashion.)

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Nefyn Holidays only got back to me today.

For some reason (privacy ) they don't want to farm/cottage named, but they are happy for this link to go on the review page. Hope that's OK.

Have I still got my MN dunce hat on?

They have to pay to have a link on - so no good at moment, although can use that photograph. What was the name of the farm - any idea?

I'll e-mail them, if needs be - explaining that they can upgrade review but that we need more details if it is to go on the site.

It was Gwyn something or other....but as moondog politely pointed out there are a million Gwyn's all over the place so that's not terribly helpful is it.

sorry.