Pembroke: All the Stairs. Tenby: more like 10-Sea.

Despite the good Doctor, it doesn't take too long to run out of things to do in Cardiff. Sure, you can sit around the glorious sun filled bay and drink cider. But when in Wales, consider taking the time to see some nature. Sea-cliffs come highly recommended.

I wandered around for a couple days. Heard there were some castles in the country. I decided to go to Pembroke Castle.

This was no simple voyage. A three point five hour train ride that turned into a three hour train ride plus an hour of bus and waiting for the bus. See, we were most of the way there when one of the train cabins started filling with smoke and the train just kind of stopped. But they fixed it enough to get us to the next station and dump us unceremoniously onto the pavement! It's cool, they sent a bus. Seven sunburns later, the bus arrived, and I finally reached the land of Pembroke.

Medieval-era learning tent outside.

It was a strikingly well preserved medieval castle, with all the charm of bare stone castles. Plus displays inside with mannequin/sculptures acting out historical scenes. I couldn't decide if it was cheesy or creepy. Maybe just cheapy. But it DID have a tall tower with a very high ceiling. I think there used to be intermediate floors. The obvious upshot: THE TOWER INSIDE LOOKS LIKE AN ARTISTIC ROBOT EYE.

Do castle towers dream of Welsh sheep?

So Pembroke was nice, but it didn't have sea cliffs.

Note the distinct lack of sea cliffs.

So I took the advice of the nice people I had been train-stranded with, and took the first train to Tenby, which was back towards Cardiff. (Yes, this was a psychotically planned daytrip).

Lo and behold, though I could have sworn I smelled smoke, the train transported me safely to Tenby!

Rocky ain't got nothin on this.

In case you aren't well versed in Welsh beach hotspots, Tenby is a picturesque beach community with cute shops and a medieval wall jutting out of the cliffs. It even has sand!

Sand > Brighton's pebbles

It was a beautiful day. I'm talking sunshine and lollipops nice. I was all ready to buy a summer house there when people started warning me that the weather was not, in fact, typical.

Condemned monastery (too easy). 

Nice is not the typical weather? Suddenly it made a lot more sense that the whole place had a weird sort of Florida retiree vibe. And by vibe, I mean, I passed a couple stores that were advertising walkers, and some places that used Bingo as a selling point.

They also had some mini-sea-cliffs.

Hard to traverse with a walker.

It was pretty. And windy. 

Not pictured; the 75,000 snails that live there.

On the whole it was a disappointing day. I went to all the trouble of coming to wales, and I didn't see a single whale.

Much like the rest of my trip, I saw some seagulls:

Unlike the gulls of Bath, this bird is at least thinking about eating sea creatures.