If you have followed my travel blogs for even a short time you know that I have an obsession about packing light, which includes my sketching kit. This Daily Humor from the New Yorker made me smile.

We took a small-group day-tour to get out and see some of the countryside of Wales. The first stop was Pembroke Castle, built in 1093 in response to Norman invasions. It has had quite a varied and involved history. We were fascinated by some of its occupants, Henry VII being one of the more famous.

We stopped in the town of Tenby for lunch. Tricia and I ate at the Life Boat Tavern, plenty of deep fried pub grub, and some entertaining photos hanging over the urinal.

Our last stop on the tour was at Laugharne, located at the mouth of the River Coran. It is one of the places where Dylan Thomas lived, and it has a castle. The tide was out leaving sketchable boats.

Back in Cardiff we headed to the lounge at Pasture, read more about it in my last blog: Music, monastery, castle, and smoky food.

We grazed through a few small plates, each one a delight. My favorite was roasted cauliflower in a whisky BBQ sauce; it beat any Buffalo Wings I have ever had, without the need for meat – sorry about that Buffalo Wild Wings.

Thursday was laundry day, one of the benefits of packing light is doing laundry at a local laundromat. It really is quite good to do a non-tourist thing. We walked for about 15 minutes to a less than fancy part of town. There was a friendly attendent who helped us with the washers and dryers, we had a pleasant chat and he, like so many others recommended St Fagan’s historical park – we determined to go on Friday.

After laundry what could be better than more good food. Next to Pasture is Parallel, operated by the same folks, so with anticipation we made our way there. It is quite a small place, with the chefs cooking just feet away. What they do is to take anything that is extra from the main restaurant, Pasture, and turn it into a daily changing menu of small plates, and oh my but they do it well.

One of the standout features of Parallel and Pasture is the staff, every interaction was a delight, I wrote about Bella in my last blog. At Parallel we were spoiled by Lilly and Harrison, at the end, they brought a plate with gold dusted chocolates, I did a couple of quick sketchs as a thank you.

We did go to St Fagan’s (Sain Fagan’s in Welsh) and it was so interesting, watch for more about it on Tricia’s site in the coming weeks. It rained most of the time we were there which did not dampen our spirits, but we were pretty cold, wet, and hungry by the time we got off the bus back in Cardiff central, so we stopped at the first pub we came to. We are so sorry we did not discover it earlier as it was a great place. I had Nacho Dirty Fries, how good is that? It is a good thing we walked over four miles that day.

Leaving Cardiff we took a train to Exeter where we rented a car for a few days in Cornwall, we stayed in Penzance. We had to see Lands End, and St. Ives – I still have a hard time thinking of England as having beaches, but they do. It was quite crowded but worth it.

We spent the afternoon relaxing in the garden of our AirBnB.

Our last stop in Cornwall was at Rick Stien’s restaurant in Padstow. We discovered him on his food-travel shows on British TV. The food was amazing, he loves seafood so we were quite pleased.

After lunch we headed to Exeter where we had tickets for a train the next morning that took us to London where we switched to the Eurostar for a trip under the Chunnel and to Paris.

We are in Paris at an apartment in the 15th until the first of July. Tricia needs surgery on her eye, pretty stressful stuff, but we trust and pray that it all goes smoothly and safely. Any thoughts and prayers you want to send her way will be most appreciated.

I hope you are traveling, eating, and sketching. I always love to her from you.