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

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 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

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

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

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

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

Tour the Marble Hall and state rooms at Holkham

Walk through the pines onto Holkham beach

Walk the beach-hut line and the harbour at Wells-next-the-Sea

Cycle the estate park and look for the deer

Holkham Hall was built for Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, to a design by William Kent with Lord Burlington's hand in it — one of the strictest Palladian houses in England, and closer to Palladio's own ideas than most. In front of it the pines and dunes give onto Holkham beach, miles of sand at low tide, and the sand runs east to Wells beach, with its line of beach huts under the pines, and on to the harbour town of Wells-next-the-Sea, about two miles from Holkham.

Holkham and Wells: The Palladian House and the Pinewood Beach

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.