St Davids Cathedral Festival

St Davids Cathedral is a twelfth-century building set below ground level in a valley, with an oak ceiling, a floor that visibly slopes and stone that turns purple in low light. Fill it with an orchestra and you understand why this festival has been going for decades.

The programme runs across roughly a week and mixes orchestral concerts, choral works, chamber recitals and organ music, with smaller daytime events. Performers are a mix of visiting professional ensembles and the cathedral's own musicians.

The building as a venue. The acoustic is long and generous, which suits choral and large orchestral writing and is less kind to anything that depends on rapid detail. Sightlines from the nave are good; seats behind the crossing are cheaper for a reason. It gets cold in there even in June — take a layer.

Where to stay. St Davids is the smallest city in Britain and has a limited number of beds. Festival week and the spring bank holiday overlap, so rooms and cottages go months in advance. Staying at Solva, Whitesands or out towards Porthgain and driving in is a reasonable plan; parking in the city is in the main car park at the top of the hill.

Around the concerts. This is the best week of the year to be on this peninsula anyway — thrift on the cliffs, St Davids Head at its best, boats running to Ramsey. Do the coast in the day and the cathedral in the evening.

Dates move slightly year to year; check the cathedral's own listings.