Introducing St Davids, Wales: smallest city and beautiful peninsula

After having visited Cardiff and having walked the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path for the first time, I drove to St Davids for the last part of my trip in Wales, the UK.

St Davids is the smallest city in Britain with only around 1,600 inhabitants, but it’s also the name of the Welsh peninsula on which you can find the city of St. Davids.
 

St Davids, the city

As St Davids is so small, you can easily visit it on foot, but a car does come in handy if you want to explore the rest of the peninsula. Most of the pubs and stores are located around the central Cross Square and the two main attractions, St Davids Cathedral and St Davids Bishop’s Palace, are right next to each other.
 

St Davids Cathedral

Unlike most cathedrals, you won’t find St Davids cathedral clearly in sight. It lies a bit hidden in a hollow and was built there to hide it from the plundering Vikings. Unfortunately, its location didn’t serve its purpose and the cathedral was raided several times.

It’s great for modern visitors, though, as you literally look down on the cathedral when you approach it from St Davids center. It’s a magnificent sight, one that made me think of the series “Pillars of the Earth”. Have you ever seen it? It’s a mini-series of eight episodes but well-worth watching.

As is St Davids Cathedral:

Don’t just admire it from the outside, though. Admission is free unless you want to enter the cathedral’s library.

 

St Davids Bishop’s Palace

My plan was to visit St Davids Bishop’s Palace right after I’d visited the cathedral, but it started raining so badly that I decided to come back later. Good thing I did, because when the skies cleared up again there was a hint of sunshine to be seen and I had no problems taking photos.

When you pay the admission fee for the palace, you get a small brochure with explanations on what is what. There are also information signs in the different rooms of what once must have been a magnificent building. A plus: there are also voice recordings of the explanations in Welsh and English for those who can’t read well or prefer listening to reading.

 

St Davids Peninsula

The night I arrived in St Davids I met a lady who was traveling by herself as well. She told me about a few places she’d visited on the peninsula and quickly had me convinced that it would be a shame not to venture out of the city. So the next day I followed her recommendations and added in an extra walk as well.

My first stop, after breakfast, of course, was Porthgain. Porthgain used to be a busy industrial harbor. Now it’s mostly popular among fishermen and recreational boaters in summer. It also lies on the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path and as there’s a large free car park by the harbor (enter Llanrhian, Porthgain in your gps), it’s a good place to start a walk.

From Porthgain, I drove on to Abereiddy. This place is famous for its “Blue Lagoon” – actually a former slate quarry – and pebble beach. It’s also popular for coasteering. Oh, and Red Bull has organised World Series Cliff Diving there in 2012 and 2013.

When I arrived at Abereiddy it was drizzling and not more than 15°C, yet I saw a group of coasteerers (how do you call these people?) happily jumping into the water. Rather them than me! It is something I noticed, though: people in Wales really don’t care about the weather. They go bodyboarding in the rain, they go to the beach in the rain, they go hiking in the rain. They’re pretty badass. Then again, if you have that kind of nature on your doorstep, it would be a shame to stay in.

My last stop was at Whitesands Bay. There’s a surf school there, but I came to walk. There’s a large parking lot (£4/day) where you can start walking the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path, but I did the loop to St Davids Head and back, past Carn Llidi viewpoint.

You can find a description of the walk here, but I strongly advice you to walk it in the other direction as the first part described in that document is rather boring, while, if you do it the other way around, you’ll immediately get amazing views and you’ll be motivated for the rest of the walk.

The first part is really easy to follow and you’ll get some great views without having to stand too close to the edge of the cliffs. However, when you walk onto the tip of the peninsula, called Coetan Arthur Cromlech, there’s one pretty scary part where the path is just wide enough for one person and it really runs right along the edge. I was scared here and I just focused on the ground until I reached the tip. There’s supposed to be an ancient burial chamber there, but I must admit I didn’t look for it. As I was still suffering from my fear of heights at that point I just looked for the path as I couldn’t really find the way to proceed.

On the map I saw that I could’ve skipped the tip of the peninsula as there’s a part of the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path that cuts through inland and crosses the path I was walking on right before and right after the tip. So I decided to go back and take that shortcut. I was a bit disappointed in myself, but this was supposed to be fun and I knew I wouldn’t enjoy any of the views if I was terrified.

The shortcut quickly brought me back on the right path and in the right direction. I was now walking inland and climbing, as this was the way to Carn Llidi, the viewpoint. Unfortunately, it was so misty that day that all you could see from the viewpoint was, indeed, fog. So please, if you ever do that walk, take a photo for me from Carn Llidi!

From the viewpoint, it’s just a short walk back down to the road and the car park. This part is rather uninteresting, which is why I suggest you don’t start your walk with this.
 

If you want to know what else I did in Wales, check out this video:

 

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I traveled to Wales on behalf of VisitBritain, who took care of my accommodation, transportation, food and activity costs. Please know that I'll always give you my honest opinion on every trip I take. This post contains affiliate links.