Romantic Weekend Breaks in Pembrokeshire: The Considered Guide

The Pembrokeshire weekend for two is not a four-poster and a rose petal on the bed. It's a small place, a short walk, an early dark and a fire that actually draws.

Which means the cottage does more work here than the destination does, and the season matters more than either.

Go in the off-season

October to March is the better half of the year for this, and it isn't a consolation prize.

The light is low all day rather than for twenty minutes. The Coast Path is empty. Weather comes in off the Atlantic and you can sit and watch it from indoors, which is one of the genuinely good things about this coast. Rates fall a long way from the August numbers, and a cottage that's out of reach in July is affordable in November.

The trade is short days and shorter opening hours. Sunset in December is before four. Half the cafés are shut. Plan one thing per day and let the rest be the fire.

Where

Solva is the obvious answer and deserves it: a deep tidal inlet, pastel houses along the harbour, galleries, two pubs, and the Gribin ridge running out above the water for the last hour of light. Supply is small. Book early or go midweek.

Little Haven is three streets and a sea wall on the south corner of St Brides Bay, facing west. It's the sunset village, and the pub above the slipway knows it.

Dale has water on three sides, an anchorage full of masts, and one seafront pub. Quiet in a way that suits two people and would bore four.

Porthgain is a stone harbour with brick hoppers standing over it, a pub from 1743 and a seafood kitchen forty metres away. Walk in along the cliff from Abereiddi, about 45 minutes, and eat at the end of it.

St Davids splits the difference. The cathedral sits in a hollow below the city, and evensong in a mostly empty nave in January is worth arranging the weekend around. There are more places to eat here per resident than anywhere else in the county.

For a different register entirely, the Gwaun Valley and the Preseli foothills trade harbours for deep lanes, wood smoke and properly dark night skies. That's the choice if the plan is a fire, a bottle and no one else at all.

The cottage, for two

One bedroom. Bigger cottages leave two people rattling around in them and cost more to heat.

Then: a log burner or open fire that's actually usable, with fuel included or a shop nearby that sells it; a bath as well as a shower; somewhere to sit outside even in winter; and either a real view or proper seclusion. Both is rare and priced accordingly.

A hot tub is a bonus rather than the point. A pub you can walk to in ten minutes is closer to the point.

Dinner

Book before you travel. The good rooms in Pembrokeshire are small — often fewer than ten tables — and out of season they may only open Thursday to Sunday. Ringing on the day and taking what's left is how people end up disappointed.

Kitchens close early. Most village pubs stop serving food between eight and nine, and earlier in winter. If you want a late dinner, this is the wrong county.

Narberth is the food town and worth basing near if eating well is the priority. Otherwise the harbour pubs do the second night perfectly well, and chips on the harbour wall at Tenby with the tide coming in has never let anyone down.

Two walks for the last hour of light

The Gribin at Solva — twenty minutes up, and the whole inlet below you. And Dinas Island, which isn't an island, for a three-mile circuit with the north coast on one side and the Preselis behind.

See romantic places to stay or the pubs worth planning a walk around.