A Rainy Week in Pembrokeshire: The Day-by-Day Version

Roughly 150 rain days a year here, and the forecast rarely commits. What you usually get is not a week of rain but a week of showers with gaps, which changes the plan entirely: you want short outings you can start at an hour's notice, not one big day out.

Here's how to structure a wet week. Read it alongside Pembrokeshire in the rain for the full list of indoor options.

The three rules

Base somewhere you can walk out of. Tenby, Narberth, Solva, St Davids and Newport all have somewhere to go on foot when you can't face the car. A remote cottage is a different holiday in bad weather.

Don't drive across the county on a wet day. The Cleddau bridge is the only estuary crossing, the lanes are slow, and spray on a single carriageway behind a lorry is a miserable hour.

Distinguish rain from wind. Rain on the Coast Path is fine. A gale on an unfenced clifftop is not, and that's the forecast line that should change your plan.

Day 1 — arrive, and go low

Wooded and sheltered beats coastal. Colby Woodland Garden near Amroth is valleys and trees and takes rain well. So does the walk around the Bosherston lily ponds, which is water either way.

Day 2 — a big castle

Pembroke Castle has enough roofed interior — the Great Keep, the towers, the cavern beneath — to stay largely dry, and it is far better with nobody in it. Manorbier Castle is smaller and stranger. Carew is more exposed, so save it for a brighter morning.

Day 3 — Narberth

If it's set in all day, go to Narberth. Independent shops, delis, galleries and a good cluster of places to eat within a few hundred metres. It's the one town here where drifting between shops and coffee genuinely works as a day.

Day 4 — the coast at its best

Counterintuitive, but true. A big southwesterly makes the Green Bridge of Wales and Stack Rocks properly dramatic — Atlantic swell straight into limestone. Two conditions: Castlemartin is a live firing range and the road is shut when it's firing, so check the times; and in a real gale, stay off the clifftop and pick somewhere else.

Alternatives in the same spirit: the Blue Lagoon at Abereiddi, which looks better under cloud, and Newgale when the swell is up. Watch the storm from the car park, not the shingle bank.

Day 5 — museums and small places

They're small, cheap and mostly volunteer-run: Tenby Museum on Castle Hill is the pick, and Scolton Manor north of Haverfordwest gives you a house, a country park and a covered day. Check current opening before you drive — winter hours here are unpredictable.

Day 6 — the family fallback

Folly Farm is the best wet-weather value in the county: indoor vintage funfair, animal barns and undercover play, and it absorbs an entire day. Note that Oakwood is not a rainy-day answer — it's an outdoor theme park and rides close in bad weather.

Day 7 — the pub afternoon

The honest answer. Thick walls, a fire, a long lunch, weather coming across the water outside. The harbour and tidal pubs are the ones to pick — see pubs across the county. Kitchens in the villages stop serving early, often between 8 and 9pm, and out of season plenty open only Thursday to Sunday. Ring first.

Two practical notes

Dogs: beach restrictions still apply 1 May to 30 September, rain or not.

And check practical information for opening seasons — a lot of Pembrokeshire simply shuts between November and Easter.