Here are the available cottages for rental in Wales.

Where the dolphins come out to play

From the Mail on Sunday

Standing on a high grassy promontory, I gazed over a stretch of flat, empty sea. Seagulls mewed, a few lambs bleated and somewhere along the cliff a peregrine falcon screeched. Now and again a wave smashed on the rocks far below. But out to sea all was quiet. Was I in the right place?
Anticipating a search of needle in haystack proportions, I began to scour the slate-grey waters. But let's end the suspense...
This is what I actually wrote in my notebook. 'Arrived 10.05. 10.10 saw my first dolphin!!!'
A few hundred yards offshore, this most elegant and intelligent of marine life forms broke the surface in a perfectly circular motion, as if fixed to a revolving hub 20ft below the surface.
I had a tantalising glimpse of head and fin and tail before it curved back in. But for the next half hour a supreme marine athlete, on a stage the size of a small town, gave a command performance to this audience of one.
Well not quite. Some loitering juvenile gulls with nothing better to do put down on the water and scattered with much alarm when the sea erupted under them.
Can you guess where I was? Monterey in California? Australia? Maybe near the Cape in South Africa? Give up?
I was actually at Ynys Lochdyn, a few miles south of New Quay in West Wales. You've heard of sport for all. This is wildlife for all. One of the world's top water stars, and you don't need to fly or even drive to it.
When the list of top 10 hidden gems of tourism is compiled, I shall, without hesitation, nominate the dolphins of New Quay.
The Wales Tourist Board should look urgently at replacing the rugby post as unofficial national emblem with this stupendous creature. Dolphins are something England doesn't do. There are only two places on the entire UK coastline where you can see them from the land - the other is the Moray Firth in Scotland.
But it seems that, for a long time, people were all so busy trying to decide if New Quay was Dylan Thomas's town with the naughty reverse spelling, Llareggub in Under Milk Wood, that they missed the reality out at sea.
In the dark days of captive dolphins, people would queue and pay to see them in zoos. We gave that up and switched to watching the creatures in Attenborough marine series on TV. ... more

Where the dolphins come out to play

From the Mail on Sunday

Standing on a high grassy promontory, I gazed over a stretch of flat, empty sea.
Seagulls mewed, a few lambs bleated and somewhere along the cliff a peregrine falcon screeched. Now and again a wave smashed on the rocks far below. But out to sea all was quiet. Was I in the right place?
Anticipating a search of needle in haystack proportions, I began to scour the slate-grey waters. But let's end the suspense...
This is what I actually wrote in my notebook. 'Arrived 10.05. 10.10 saw my first dolphin!!!'
A few hundred yards offshore, this most elegant and intelligent of marine life forms broke the surface in a perfectly circular motion, as if fixed to a revolving hub 20ft below the surface.
I had a tantalising glimpse of head and fin and tail before it curved back in. But for the next half hour a supreme marine athlete, on a stage the size of a small town, gave a command performance to this audience of one.
Well not quite. Some loitering juvenile gulls with nothing better to do put down on the water and scattered with much alarm when the sea erupted under them.
Can you guess where I was? Monterey in California? Australia? Maybe near the Cape in South Africa? Give up?
I was actually at Ynys Lochdyn, a few miles south of New Quay in West Wales. You've heard of sport for all. This is wildlife for all. One of the world's top water stars, and you don't need to fly or even drive to it.
When the list of top 10 hidden gems of tourism is compiled, I shall, without hesitation, nominate the dolphins of New Quay.
The Wales Tourist Board should look urgently at replacing the rugby post as unofficial national emblem with this stupendous creature. Dolphins are something England doesn't do. There are only two places on the entire UK coastline where you can see them from the land - the other is the Moray Firth in Scotland.
But it seems that, for a long time, people were all so busy trying to decide if New Quay was Dylan Thomas's town with the naughty reverse spelling, Llareggub in Under Milk Wood, that they missed the reality out at sea. ... more

Welcome to Prestatyn

From the Mail on Sunday

Where would you expect to find the A-list stars of the raunchy US TV series Sex And The City taking their summer break?
Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos Islands, Sandy Lane in Barbados or perhaps Manele Bay in the Hawaiian islands?
Not Kim Cattrall, who plays sex-mad single girl Samantha in the show.
This September she is said to be planning a short break at Pontin's Prestatyn Sands holiday camp with her mum.
Liverpool-born Kim, 44, has apparently chosen Prestatyn ('the family fun centre of North Wales') because her mother Shane, now 76, worked there 40 years ago as a chalet maid.
Kim has described the journey as 'a trip down memory lane'.
But, as anyone who has travelled down memory lane knows, it's a route often beset with unpleasant surprises.
Like other UK seaside resorts, Prestatyn has faced a tough struggle for survival since the rise of the package holiday in the Sixties.
It now has so few attractions that the Nant Mill Farm Duck Pond squeezes in at Number 13 in the town's Top 13 attractions (at number one are the 'larger stores' and 'quality restaurants' on Prestatyn High Street).
Kim, who recently co-wrote a sex manual entitled Hot Sex, Guide To Getting It On, The Art Of The Female Orgasm, may find life at the Prestatyn camp - sorry, 'holiday centre' - a little tame.
Activities include crazy golf, table tennis and snooker.
But the nightlife is slightly more promising. ... more

The lyrical lure of the Bard's land

From the Daily Mail

Tourists do not disturb the peace of Llareggub, that wacky community which provides the setting for Dylan Thomas's most famous fictional creation - Under Milk Wood.
Yes, despite its Welsh-looking name, the town is meant to be read backwards, giving it a connotation that explains why, even today, Thomas is not always supremely popular in his native Wales.
But things are changing. The chapel-bound, curtain-twitching mentality that Thomas could not help satirising in the Fifties has given way to greater self-assurance.
Attribute it if you like to having a national assembly, or to the prominence of celebrities such as Catherine Zeta Jones.
Now all aspects of Welsh culture are fair game, as anyone who saw the ebulliently nihilistic film Twin Town can confirm.
Why, there are even stirrings of rivalry for the honour of being the original Llareggub between Laugharne, in Carmarthenshire to the west of Swansea, where Thomas lived his last years, and the west coast town of New Quay in Ceredigion (formerly Cardiganshire) where he spent time in World War Two.
Expect this competitiveness to become fiercer as the 50th anniversary of his death in New York in November 1953 draws nearer.
More reason, then, to schedule a visit to Wales now rather than later. Following the trail of Dylan Thomas offers an excellent introduction to the varied delights of the Principality, and early summer is a very good time to be there.
The weather is still variable enough to experience that special quality in the Welsh light - the way clouds chase each other across the sky, creating shafts of luminosity that briefly and dramatically bathe the countryside. ... more

The best holiday cottage in the world

This is the most beautifully located holiday cottage anywhere in the world. Ever.
'I'm worried that when people see it for the first time as they turn the corner they'll go 'Wow' and just drive off the road down a cliff.
'We should have a warning notice up there,' says Jill Farrow, local manager of The National Trust's holiday cottages.
It's only when you stand at the top of Worms Head in West Glamorgan and gaze over the massive sweep of Rhosili Beach that you realise just how spectacular is the view.
And, when you catch sight of the Old Rectory, a whitewashed building clinging to the lower slope of the hill that rears up behind the beach, there is indeed just one word: 'Wow.'
It is the only building to be seen along this stretch of coastline - and, if you had been smart, it could have been your holiday home for a week.
You will have to have been very smart because the Old Rectory is the single most popular property on The National Trust's books, reserved for almost the next two years.
The queue to book a week there has grown even longer than normal because last year the property was closed for a number of months due to the foot-and-mouth crisis and a serious fire.
The blaze, set off by an electrical fault, went undetected because it occurred while the house was quarantined and empty last March and caused extensive damage. It was only after the foot-and-mouth crisis ended that work on repairing the cottage could get under way. ... more