Barry

Café Pilgrimages and Seaside Fun

Marco's Café sits on Barry Island's seafront, a working stop for tea and other food and a familiar blue-fronted landmark for Gavin & Stacey fans. It appeared in the show's first episode, and Stacey worked there in series three. Fans can follow the filming trail from the café to the arcade associated with Nessa. The connection reached beyond the screen in 2019, when Ruth Jones, who plays Nessa, switched on Barry's Christmas lights.

Whitmore Bay does most of the work of holding your attention. It is a wide crescent of golden sand backed by a promenade, with a seasonal lifeguard service. Barry Island Pleasure Park stands behind the beach; the island gained a switchback ride in 1897, and the fairground moved to its present site in 1923. Finnegans Inn faces the fairground across the road and serves battered fish and chips, burgers and grills, with a seating area that welcomes dogs.

Coast Paths and Pints

The coast rewards walking. From the pebbles at Cold Knap, follow the Wales Coast Path west along the cliffs through Cliffwood and down the Golden Stairs into Porthkerry Country Park. Legend puts pirate treasure beneath the stairs. The park has 220 acres of woodland and meadow, a pebble beach and a Victorian railway viaduct crossing the valley. The tide can come in surprisingly quickly.

For food and a pint away from the front, the Tynewydd Inn is one of the better-known kitchens, doing burgers and steaks alongside the usual classics, with a beer garden and dogs welcome throughout. The Ship keeps a British menu, ales and cocktails; the Master Mariner takes well-behaved dogs in the bar; Cwm Talwg, the community local, puts out treats and water for them.

Saints, Docks and Steam

The Church of St Cadoc stands at the junction of Coldbrook Road West and Brock Street, a Grade II* building with a saddleback west tower and trefoil windows at belfry level. There has been a church on the site since the twelfth century. The town takes its name from Saint Baruc, a disciple of Cadoc who drowned in the Bristol Channel returning to Flat Holm to fetch a book Cadoc had forgotten; his ruined chapel survives on Friars Road.

Barry Island was separated from the mainland until dock construction created a causeway in the 1880s. The docks opened in 1889, and Barry became the world's largest coal-exporting port by 1913. Later, Woodham Brothers' scrapyard became an unlikely source of preserved steam engines: 213 of the 297 withdrawn locomotives sent there were rescued for the railway preservation movement.

Four Stations and a Final Tea

Four rail stations serve the town — Barry, Barry Docks, Barry Island and Cadoxton — on the line from Cardiff, nine miles up the coast. Together they make the seafront, coast path and old town easy to combine in one visit.