Perched on the rocky fringe of western Europe, Wales packs a lot of physical beauty into its small mass of land: its mountain ranges, lush valleys, ragged coastline, old-fashioned market towns and ancient castles all invite long and repeated visits. The culture, too, is compelling, whether in its Welsh- or English-language manifestations, its Celtic or its industrial traditions, its ancient cornerstones of belief or its contemporary chutzpah. Wales often gets short shrift in comparison to its Celtic cousins of Ireland and Scotland. Neither so internationally renowned nor so romantically perceived, the country is usually defined by its male voice choirs and tightly packed pit villages. But there’s far more to the place than the hackneyed stereotypes and, at its best, Wales is the most beguiling part of the British Isles. Even its comparative anonymity serves it well: where the tourist pound has swept away some of the more gritty aspects of local life in parts of Ireland and Scotland, reducing ancient cultures to misty Celtic pastiche, Wales remains brittle and brutal enough to be real, and diverse enough to remain endlessly fascinating.
Recent years have seen a huge and dizzying upsurge in Welsh self-confidence, a commodity no longer so dependent upon comparison with its big and powerful neighbour of England. Popular culture – especially music and film – has contributed much to this revival, as has the arrival of a National Assembly in 1999, the first all-Wales tier of government for six hundred years. After centuries of enforced subjugation, the national spirit is undergoing a remarkable renaissance. The ancient symbol of the country, y ddraig goch or the red dragon, seen fluttering on flags everywhere in Wales, is waking up from what seems like a very long slumber.
As soon as you cross the border from England into Wales, the differences in appearance, attitude and culture between the two countries are immediately obvious. Wales shares many physical and emotional similarities with the other Celtic lands – Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, Brittany, and even Asturias and Galicia in northwest Spain. A rocky and mountainous landscape, whose colours are predominantly grey and green, a thinly scattered, largely rural population, a culture rooted deeply in folklore and legend and the survival of a distinct, ancient language are all hallmarks of Wales and its sister countries. To visitors, it is the Welsh language, the strongest survivor of the Celtic tongues, that most obviously marks out the country with tongue-twisting village names and vast bilingual signposts. Everyone in Wales speaks English, but a quarter of the population also speaks Welsh: TV and radio stations broadcast in it, all children learn it at school, restaurant menus are increasingly bilingual and visitors too are encouraged to try speaking at least a fragment of the rich, earthy tones of one of Europe’s oldest living languages.
After Wales’ seven-hundred-year subjugation at the hands of its far larger and more powerful neighbour, many Welsh nationalists call for, if not outright divorce from England, at least a trial separation. The mutual antipathy is almost all good-natured, but often the greatest offence to Welsh people is when those very obvious differences are blatantly disregarded or patronized. Avoid referring to England when you really mean Britain or the United Kingdom, and don’t say English when you mean Welsh: it is like calling a Kiwi an Aussie or a Canadian an American (probably worse).
Although it is the wealth of places to visit – prehistoric sites, crumbling castles and wild landscapes – that brings tourists here in the first place, they often leave championing contemporary Wales. The cities and university towns throughout the country are buzzing with an understated youthful confidence and sense of cultural optimism, while a generation or two of “New Age” migrants has brought a curious cosmopolitanism to the small market towns of mid-Wales and the west. Although conservative and traditional forces still sporadically clash with these more liberal and anarchic strands of thought, there’s an unquestionable feeling that Wales is big enough, both physically and emotionally, to embrace such diverse influences. Perhaps most importantly of all, Welsh culture is underpinned by an iconoclastic democracy that contrasts starkly with the establishment-obsessed class divisions of England. The Welsh character is famously endowed with a musicality, lyricism, introspection and sentimentality that produces far better bards and singers than it does lords and masters. And Welsh culture is undeniably inclusive: anything from a sing-song in the pub to the grandiose theatricality of an eisteddfod involves everyone – including any visitor eager to learn and join in.
