Day trip to Swansea

I can't believe it's March already! This week flew by. This week was highlighted by a post-physics lab girls dinner on Friday (complete with a great trip to KFC for ice cream), a Colgate potluck on Saturday, and an incredible day trip to the coast on Sunday.

Lauren's sister, Sam, is visiting for a few days so Lauren wanted to take her on a nice day trip outside Cardiff to show her some more of Wales. After consulting the tourism center here, we decided on a trip to Swansea. Swansea is a cute city on the southern coast of Wales on the Gower Peninsula that is home to Cardiff's rival, Swansea University. The city, itself, is great but on Sundays, there is not much going on. Therefore, we consulted our "Gower Coast and Countryside without a car" pamphlet from the tourism center and decided to go to Rhossili, a tiny village on the tip of the Gower Peninsula, that has incredible views of the beaches from atop huge, picturesque cliffs.

We left our flats a bit before 10 and caught an hour long train to Swansea (another great thing about the day--the train was only 7.20 pounds round trip!). We meandered through the Swansea center, explored a bit, and got on a bus to take us to Rhossili.

Swansea: 2nd greatest city after Paris??

The bus took about an hour because it was a local bus that made a lot of stops, but once we got out of the city it was an incredible drive through rural villages and countryside--I want to explore all of these places more!

Map of our journey.

We arrived in Rhossili and were immediately awestruck by the beauty.  We walked along the tops of the cliffs, which were covered in farmland and sheep, for a few hours.  It was only ~2 mile walk but it took about two hours because we stopped for the view like every 30 seconds.

Sam is the dot at the top of the cliff--SO incredible!

Lauren and I at the start of the walk.

Sheep EVERYWHERE.

Frolicking in the countryside.

We were pretty cold from the wind after the walk, so we got some tea in a cafe overlooking the ocean.  Our bus (the only bus from Rhossili to Swansea that day) left at 5 so in our remaining half hour we explored the town's gift shop and their extremely quaint church that was built in the 12th century!  We headed back to Swansea and had my favorite meal of my time in Europe so far at this great Indian restaurant, Miah's.  Lauren did some research the night before and this place is very highly rated.  The ambiance was great (it was in a refurbished old church) and had the BEST Indian buffet I've ever had for 8 pounds.

Best meal EVER.

We got back to our flats around 9:30.  I really want to come back to explore more of the Gower Peninsula and have another meal at the Indian restaurant!