Llandeilo, Llandovery or Llanwyrtd? (Visit for 30/10/23)

[70014IronDuke]

Am near Swansea, and planning a sort of half day trip up the Central Wales Line tomorrow. Request opinions on which place to get off and explore a bit and eat lunch. Plan to leave on the 09.09 ex Swansea, return on 11.22 ex-Shrewsbury from which ever place we go to.

Obvously would have more time in Llandeilo, but imagine it might be too long! Llanwyrtd looks might small, so tending to opt for Llandovery. But would appreciate thoughts of those who know. Thks.

 

[30907]

Llanwrtyd is also a bit of a trek from the station, but you do get to do the summit section.
You could go through to Llanwrtyd, change and come back to Llandovery, with a good 2.5hr to explore and each lunch. Googlemaps says there's a museum, castle ruins and a decent pub for lunch, but I've not been there myself.

 

[daodao]

You could visit Parc Dinefwr (a National Trust property) if alighting at Llandeilo (arr 1009, dep 1428).

 

[The exile]

Assuming the weather is good, shouldn’t be too hard to while away 4 hours over lunchtime in Llandeilo.

 

[Techniquest]

I'd go for Llandovery out of those. Llandeilo was a bit of a boring place when I went many moons ago, but more importantly here is the station has seen far better days.

Llandovery isn't hugely exciting, don't get me wrong, but it's a bit nicer than Llandeilo from what I've seen. Plus Llandovery has the benefit of railway interest with the level crossing and a decent station building. My only proper visit to the town was many moons ago, I think May 2022, when I stopped off on a Gran Fondo ride. I didn't see a whole lot of the town, but I'd sooner stop off in Llandovery than Llandeilo.

Have you considered Llangammarch Wells? It's a small town that has a claim to fame but I've completely had a memory failure right now, so I forget what it is. I've only ever really passed through on family car journeys, so I don't have much to comment on with the place but worth looking into.

 

[chipbury]

There's a good antique/vintage centre just outside of the station in Llandovery which sometimes has a few modelling bits in there. La Patissiere on Stone street is a great bakery.

 

[70014IronDuke]

Many thanks to all for suggestions. We ended up - well, two of the three of us - following @30907 's suggestion. The one who didn't for some strange reason stood on the platform at Llanwrtyd as the train - a single 153 - departed. He said he was thinking for some reason that we other two were hiding in the waing shelter or some such. (I think it was a very senior moment).

The 09.09 ex-Swansea was a 2-car 150, and about 1/3 full. Passengers seemed to join or alight at most stations (not Ffairffach, Cyngordy or Sugar Loaf, possibly not Llagennach). I suspect about half the passenges were travelling free on TfW bus passes.

Return from Llanwrtyd to Llandovery was also about 1/3 full, and second 153 from Llandovery to Llanelli similar. Quite a of folks left at Llanelli, so it was down to 1/4 full for the last leg into Swansea.

I must say I was suprised by the speeds achieved, seemed really lively, apart from a couple of PSRs/TSRs (not sure). Quite regular scraping the lineside trees, with some quite heavy bangs. I don't know if this causes any significant damage to the units.

Our lost traveller at Llanwrtyd says he took a 5 min walk to find the Cafe Sospan, which he found perfectly satisfactory cheesy ciabatta. We wandered into Llandovery to look around. Many shops closed on the Monday. Had lunch in the Castle Hotel, my friend had fish n chips and I had a beef curry, the latter very filling. Not exactly cheap by my standards, but I suppose it's rather normal. Nice atmosphere in any case.

The hillsides when the sun was out were a stunning, scintillating green - seemed almost 'fake' caused by tweaking the colour saturation application. There again, I suppose the clue was in the over flowing river, a result of heavy rain recently that saw the lined closed for periods last week.

A great day out. The weather was awful this morning, and I almost thought of calling it off. Glad I didn't. Thanks again to the advisers up thread!