Cilgerran

Cilgerran's castle is the reason to come: two great round towers on a rocky spur high above a wooded bend in the Teifi, in a position so theatrical that Turner painted it and generations of Romantic tourists came up the river by boat to gawp. It is compact, in the care of Cadw, and the view down into the gorge from the walls is the best thing about it. The village behind is a long single street of houses, a couple of pubs and a church, with a proper year-round community rather than a holiday-let monoculture.

The river is the other half of the story. The Teifi was fished from coracles here for centuries — single-person basket-and-hide boats worked in pairs with a net between them — and coracle races on the river in high summer are a long-standing local tradition. Below the village, the Teifi Marshes nature reserve and the Welsh Wildlife Centre offer easy trails, hides, otters, water buffalo grazing the fen and a good café; it is one of the most reliably enjoyable rainy-day options in this corner of the county.

As a base, Cilgerran is inland and proud of it. There is no beach — Poppit Sands is fifteen minutes, Newport Sands twenty-five — and the coast requires a drive every time. What you get instead is lower prices, woodland and river walks from the door, Cardigan's shops and restaurants five minutes away, and the Preselis half an hour south. Village parking is limited and the main street is narrow.

Village cottages and terraces give pubs, the castle and the riverside walks on foot, and are usually better value than equivalent coastal properties. In the surrounding lanes, farmhouses and barn conversions add gardens, hot tubs and space for groups, with Cardigan and the Teifi valley close by.

Signposted from the A478 south of Cardigan and from the A484 near Llechryd. No station; Cardigan is the nearest town, and the West Wales line stations at Clunderwen and Carmarthen are a considerable drive.