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 Maritime Quarter, Swansea
Swansea, Wales ’ second city is a heavily industrialised blot on another wise scenic coastal landscape around Swansea Bay.
 Swansea Marina, Image ©Wales Tourist Board
Swansea’s most famous son the writer Dylan Thomas once referred to Swansea as an ‘ugly, lovely town’. The ugly can be found all around the city centre where postwar concrete developments quickly replaced the mills and tenements that the Luftwaffe devastated with incendiary bombs. The lovely can be found around Swansea Bay with the redeveloped and revitalised Maritime Quarter, with stylish dockside apartments, restaurants and a marina for 600 boats.
The Maritime Quarter also houses the oldest Museum in Wales built in 1841, which according to Dylan Thomas was a ‘museum that should be in a museum’. Nearby is the Maritime and Industrial Museum, outlining Swansea’s industrial history and modes of seafaring from the traditional small round boat the coracle to the ocean going liner. The best of the museums here in the merchant quarter is the Dylan Thomas centre, which also goes by the more formal name, the National Literary Centre for Wales, housing exhibitions on the ‘Welsh Bard’s’ life and works.
On a good day, Swansea Bay is a magnificent sight, some call it the Welsh Riviera, not with a hint of sarcasm, but because it’s perfect curvature is almost identical to that of its more distinguished look-a-like. Further along the coast towards the Gower Peninsula is the Victorian seaside resort of Mumbles equipped with seafront shops, promenade and pier. With its fine retaurants and the legendary Mumbles mile of pubs it is a fun and hugely popular place on a summer evening.
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