Dinas Cross

Dinas Cross strings along the A487 between Fishguard and Newport, an ordinary Welsh-speaking village that happens to sit at the neck of one of the best short walks on the north coast. Dinas Island is not an island — it is a blunt headland cut off from the mainland by a glacial channel — and the circuit around it, from Pwllgwaelod on the west side over the 142-metre summit of Pen y Fan and down to Cwm-yr-Eglwys on the east, takes a couple of hours and delivers cliffs, seabirds, seals below in autumn and views to Fishguard Bay and Cardigan Bay.

The two coves at either end are the reason to base yourself here. Pwllgwaelod is a small sandy beach with a car park and a pub on the shore; Cwm-yr-Eglwys is a tiny sheltered inlet, sandy at low tide, beside the ruined church of St Brynach, whose tower and west wall are all that survived the great storm of October 1859 that wrecked ships all along this coast. A flat path across the neck of the headland connects the two in fifteen minutes, so you can pick whichever side is out of the wind.

The village itself is spread out along the main road and has a shop and a couple of pubs but no centre in the picture-postcard sense, and traffic is constant in summer. Newport is five minutes east for restaurants and Newport Sands, Fishguard ten minutes west, Pentre Ifan and the Preselis fifteen. Parking at both coves is very limited and fills early in August.

Cottages down the lanes towards Cwm-yr-Eglwys and Pwllgwaelod are the pick — quiet, close to the water and away from the main road. Properties in the village give shop-and-pub convenience but sit on the A487, so check which side of the house the bedrooms are on. Larger farm conversions inland add space and views over Newport Bay.

On the A487 between Fishguard and Newport; the coves are down narrow dead-end lanes with small car parks. Fishguard Harbour station at Goodwick is about ten minutes by car.