South Wales & Bannau Brycheiniog

Three nights in South Wales, self-guided from a single base near Brecon, in the guest’s own car.

This is the southern half of the operator’s longer Welsh tour sold on its own, and the hotel does a good deal of the work: Llangoed Hall is a country house with a spa, individually styled rooms and a two-rosette restaurant that cooks from its own organic gardens.

Two full days are left free, with the road book covering Bannau Brycheiniog, where the Beacons rise in a long escarpment above the Usk valley, and the Cambrian Mountains behind them, the green hill country of Powys, the quiet Ceredigion coast, the Pembrokeshire coast path and its beaches, Swansea Bay, the Mumbles, and the Gower Peninsula, which in 1956 became the first place in Britain designated for the quality of its landscape. Welsh castles and gardens are scattered through all of it.

Three nights at Llangoed Hall, three breakfasts, three dinners including the welcome dinner, a road book with maps, drives and local attractions, a commemorative rally plate and hotel parking are all included; lunches and fuel are not. Four days from a single base with dinner included every night is a short break rather than a touring holiday, and the arithmetic is worth noting: dinner on all three nights makes this better value than it first looks against the shorter North Wales tour. Late spring to early autumn gives the best of the weather, and the Beacons and the Gower are both at their quietest midweek.