Abereiddi

Abereiddi is a beach, a car park, a ruined quarry village and one of the most photographed pieces of water in Wales. The Blue Lagoon is a slate quarry that was deliberately breached to let the sea in when the workings closed, leaving a deep, sheltered, startlingly blue-green pool connected to the ocean by a narrow channel. It became a venue for international cliff diving competitions, and on any summer day you will see coasteering groups traversing the walls and jumping from the marked ledges. If you are not with a guided group, treat the jumps with respect: depths vary with the tide and the rock is slate.

The beach beside it is dark grey rather than golden — crushed slate and shale — and it is a good place to find graptolite fossils in the loose flat stones. Above the shore stand the roofless shells of the quarry workers' cottages, abandoned after a storm in 1910, and the tramway that ran the slate to Porthgain. The Coast Path north to Porthgain, via the sandy cove of Traeth Llyfn, is one of the best short walks in the national park.

There is no village left to speak of: no shop, no pub, a single car park that fills by mid-morning in August, and portable facilities in season only. Come for the swimming, the walking and the industrial archaeology, and expect to drive for everything else — St Davids and Whitesands are fifteen to twenty minutes, Porthgain five.

A handful of houses sit above the bay with sea views and the Coast Path from the door; they are scarce and book well ahead. Most visitors stay in Croesgoch, Llanrhian or Trefin a few minutes inland, where cottages and farm conversions come with parking and gardens, or on one of the campsites along this stretch of coast.

Reached by lanes from the A487 at Croesgoch, signposted Abereiddi. The road ends at the beach car park, which is small and fills early in summer.