There are few things in life more joyful than wandering around a food festival on sunny summer’s day, drink on one hand, two hundred and twelfth free sample in the other. Why not arrange a holiday to coincide with one of the big South Wales food festivals?
Neath Food and Drink Festival
Situated just four miles from our holiday cottages, the Neath Food Festival takes place at the beginning of October and consists of an abundance of food stalls in and outside the charming Victorian market. There are plenty of South Wales specialities such as Welsh cakes, laver bread, cockles, sausages, faggots and peas on offer and local chefs from the best restaurants in the area hold demonstrations. If you can’t make the food festival, there’s always the Neath Market Faggot and Peas Competition every September. Faggots are a local speciality that had been served at Neath Market since the 1920’s and is still a favourite today.
Abergavenny Food Festival
Wales’s best known food festival and one of the biggest in the UK, Abergavenny Food Festival takes place in the third week of September. There are food tasting sessions, masterclasses by eminent chefs and over 170 different stalls to work you way around. You’ll think you’ve gone to free sample heaven.
Swansea Market Cockle Festival
Swansea Market Cockle Festival is held in October. The original market was built in 1897, under the largest structure of glass and wrought iron in the UK. It was destroyed during the Swansea Blitz in World War Two but rebuilg and is still one the biggest in best in the UK with over a hundred stalls where you can sample specialities of the area, including cockles and laverbread, the famous delicacy made from seaweed collected on the South Wales coast.
Great Welsh Beer and Cider Festival
This Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) event in early June each year at the Cardiff Arena. For a few glorious days it is transformed into an enormous pub serving beer from all of Wales’ 60 or so real ale breweries. There is much excitment when the Champion Beer of Wales is announced.
