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September 3, 2004 - Jennifer Tullock
Swansea:
an Ugly, Lovely Town
Just
beyond the southwestern sweep of Swansea bay, a wooden
lattice pier overlooks miles of ocean lapping gently
at the serpentine stretch of mussel covered beach. Peppered
with distant city lights, and with a grand pier that
offers an extended seaside view, Mumbles Head is one
of Wales’ most idyllic sights.
The
beach itself is just yards away from two enormous rock
bodies which stand about two hundred feet high above
the water’s surface. One, on the southern face
of the beach, leaves a trail of smaller rocks between
it and the sand, inviting curious tourists to skip across
for a climb.
When
Swansea was seiged during the Three Nights’ Blitz
of World War II, the majority of its land was completely
demolished. In fact, one of few buildings that remained
standing was the Swansea Castle, ironically the city’s
oldest. While the attack shut down Swansea’s already
diminishing smelting industry (the decline of the industrial
revolution had left the smelt and coal business sparse),
traces of its memory are scattered about Mumbles Head
Beach. Between the beach’s multi-colored mussels
and winkles are bits of sand-tumbled smelt.
About
twenty miles north of Mumbles Head is another piece
of Swansea history, but this account is not of industrial
significance, but of literary. The Dylan Thomas Center
houses the world’s largest exhibition of the Swansea-born
poet’s work, along with handwritten letters, childhood
sketches, and family photographs. Thomas wrote of Swansea
on several occasions, calling her “the most romantic
town I know . . . an ugly, lovely town . . . crawling,
sprawling, slummed, unplanned, jerry-villa’ed,
and smug-suburbed by the side of a long and splendid
curving shore.” Thomas frequented Swansea’s
beaches, including Mumbles Head, but his favorite attraction
was inarguably the line of local pubs which run through
the center of the city.
Pub
life is busy but friendly in Swansea, excitedly buzzing
like a grade school playground. Locals bounce from place
to place, sharing stories over pints and welcoming visitors
into pint houses off of cobblestone roads. The atmosphere
is provincial and warm, and there is hardly a pub or
restaurant that doesn’t boast an impressive sea
of hillside view.
If
a day in Swansea allows time after rock collecting at
the beach and a few pints at a pub, a rent-a-bike trek
along a seaside trail.
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