Walk the Great Glasshouse and its Mediterranean planting

Walk the double walled garden and the Regency lakes

The National Botanic Garden of Wales opened on 24 May 2000 on the old Middleton estate, and its centrepiece is Norman Foster's Great Glasshouse — billed as the largest single-span glasshouse in the world, about 99m by 55m — holding the plants of the Mediterranean climates. Carmarthen, a few miles west, has the remains of a Roman amphitheatre and one of the oldest markets in Wales.

Carmarthen and the National Botanic Garden of Wales

Llandeilo and Carmarthen

Fishguard

Nine nights in a loop from Fishguard: Cardigan Bay's dolphins, the steam railway to Devil's Bridge, red kites and dark skies in the Elan Valley, then Pen y Fan and the waterfalls of Bannau Brycheiniog.

Mid Wales and the Beacons from Fishguard

Walk up to Dinefwr Castle on its bluff above the Tywi

Walk the deer park below the castle tower

Go through Newton House and its Edwardian rooms

Walk into Llandeilo and over the Tywi bridge

Dinefwr was the chief seat of the dynasty that ruled Deheubarth, held by Hywel Dda and rebuilt, it is thought, by Rhys ap Gruffydd, who ruled from 1155 to 1197. A narrow spiral stair climbs its tower for the view over the deer park to the north and the Tywi valley to the south, and Newton House was built beside it in 1660, when the old keep was turned into a summer house.

Llandeilo and Dinefwr: The Seat of the Lord Rhys

Visit the Boathouse where Thomas lived and worked

Look into the writing shed on the cliff path

Find Thomas's grave in St Martin's churchyard

Dylan Thomas lived at Laugharne from 1949 until his death in 1953 and called it a 'timeless, mild, beguiling island of a town'; it is generally taken as the model for Llareggub in Under Milk Wood. The Boathouse above the estuary is now a museum, with his writing shed on the cliff path beside it, and the castle stands over the water, with the garden gazebo beside it where Thomas also wrote.

Laugharne: Dylan Thomas's Boathouse and Llareggub

Walk Rhossili Bay, on the Gower Peninsula — the first area in the UK designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, in 1956 — and cross the tidal causeway to Worm's Head at low tide

Walk to Three Cliffs Bay and up to the ruins of Pennard Castle

Surf at Llangennith Beach on the west coast

Visit Arthur's Stone, the Neolithic burial chamber on Cefn Bryn

Gower was the first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the UK, designated in 1956. At its western tip Rhossili Bay runs north below Rhossili Down, and at the bay's southern end Worm's Head is two tidal islands, the Outer Head 56m high and the Inner Head 47m, reached across a causeway at low tide. Along the south coast Three Cliffs Bay lies below the ruins of Pennard Castle, and on the ridge of Cefn Bryn stands Arthur's Stone, a Neolithic burial chamber.

Gower: Rhossili, Worm's Head and Three Cliffs

See Adelina Patti's castle, now a hotel, from the country park

Walk up the valley to the show caves at Dan yr Ogof

The soprano Adelina Patti bought Craig y Nos in 1878 and built a private theatre inside it, with an auditorium floor that could be raised level to turn it into a ballroom. The country park around it runs along the Tawe under the Beacons, and the Dan yr Ogof caves are just up the valley road.

Craig y Nos: The Opera Singer's Castle in the Swansea Valley

Ride White's Level, the 15.5km trail at Afan Forest Park

Ride the Skyline trail, the park's 46km trail

Ride the Penhydd Trail, now 14.4km, voted 'the trail to ride before you die' by What Mountain Bike magazine in 2004

Visit the South Wales Miners' Museum at the Forest Park Centre

The mountain-bike trails at Afan Forest Park are among the best known in Britain: the Penhydd, now 14.4km, was voted 'the trail to ride before you die' by What Mountain Bike magazine in 2004, and the Skyline runs 46km round the valley rim. The Forest Park Centre holds the South Wales Miners' Museum, a reminder of what the valley was before the trees.

Afan Forest Park: The Trail to Ride Before You Die

Walk the Four Waterfalls Trail on the River Mellte and Afon Hepste at Ystradfellte, including Sgwd yr Eira, where a path leads behind the falls

Visit Henrhyd Falls, the 27m waterfall that is the tallest in South Wales, the entrance to the Batcave in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

See Porth yr Ogof, the cave where the Afon Mellte disappears underground

Around Ystradfellte the rivers of the southern Brecon Beacons drop through wooded gorges in a string of falls. The Four Waterfalls Trail follows the Mellte and the Hepste, and at Sgwd yr Eira the path goes behind the falling water. Nearby, Porth yr Ogof is the cave where the Mellte disappears underground, and Henrhyd Falls, 27m, the tallest waterfall in south Wales, was the entrance to the Batcave in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises (2012).

Waterfall Country: Sgwd yr Eira and Henrhyd Falls

Take a boat from New Quay to look for bottlenose dolphins

Watch from the pier or the headland for dolphins close inshore

Walk the painted Georgian streets around Aberaeron's harbour

Eat honey ice cream on the quay at Aberaeron

Cardigan Bay holds the largest resident population of bottlenose dolphins in Britain, and boats run out of New Quay's harbour to look for them; Dylan Thomas lived here during the war and the town is one of the sources of Under Milk Wood. Up the coast, Aberaeron was laid out as a planned Georgian harbour town, its houses painted in blocks of colour around the basin.

New Quay and Aberaeron: Dolphins and a Georgian Harbour

See the Last Invasion Tapestry in Fishguard town hall

Stand in the Royal Oak, where the surrender was negotiated

Find Jemima Nicholas's memorial stone in St Mary's churchyard

Walk down to Lower Town harbour below the bridge

On 22 February 1797 a French force landed near Fishguard — the most recent landing on British soil by a hostile foreign power — and two days later, after surrender talks at the Royal Oak in the square, laid down their arms on Goodwick Sands. Jemima Nicholas, who is said to have rounded up a dozen of them with a pitchfork, has a memorial stone in St Mary's churchyard, and a tapestry made in 1997 for the bicentenary tells the whole story in the town hall.