Off to Abersoch!

It's been a long time coming but finally our holiday is upon us and we're off to North Wales. We'd been thinking of renting a cottage again since last year when we'd enjoyed a great week in Northumberland, and considered a number of different parts of the country before settling on Abersoch on the North Wales coast. We picked Abersoch because we knew of several people who'd been there over the years, all of whom had enthused over the scenery, beaches, pubs and restaurants and weather, yet this whole area of Wales was new territory to us.

Our cottage was much more modern-looking than the farm cottage we stayed in last year, and we were looking forward to seeing it for the first time. We'd seen a couple of photos on the web, but it was only a couple of weeks ago that we discovered that some colleagues of ours from work had stayed in the exact same cottage only a few months ago! This gave some reassurance that it was just what we wanted, although the tales about the stony track leading to it gave us just a little apprehension until we could see it for ourselves.

The grey cloud which had gradually blotted out the sun over the last couple of days at home seemed to be refusing to budge as we headed along the A55 coast road towards Conway, but then quite suddenly blue sky started to appear, and by the time we'd reached the outskirts of Bangor the sun was shining gloriously. With shades on and music playing we crossed the Llyn peninsula and down to Pwllheli and then on to Abersoch and our cottage.

The house was everything we wanted and more besides, absolutely wonderful - but more about this later in the week. For now, we wanted to explore the harbour and beach and enjoy the sunshine. Soch means 'estuary' in Welsh, so Abersoch lies at the estuary of the Aber, and here the harbour area holds many fishing and sailing boats. Around the headland is the main beach, which was still fairly busy even this late in the year. There was plenty of time for an ice cream in the sun before heading back for our first meal in our temporary Welsh home.