Swansea Hotels

Book into a Swansea hotel to explore homeboy Dylan Thomas’s “ugly, lovely town” where the nightlife rocks, the revamped waterfront artfully echoes the past and Wales’s greatest poet is celebrated.

Swansea neighbourhoods

Wales’s second city revolves around the centre, where shoppers congregate at the two huge malls, the country’s largest indoor market and the waterfront. From your Swansea hotel you’ll find the renovated warehouse that is the National Waterfront Museum and a huge leisure centre in the renovated Maritime Quarter. Intrinsic to Swansea life is Mumbles just along Swansea Bay, home to the wealthy Welsh with boutiques, upmarket restaurants and delis. Just off the River Tawe to the east of the city is Parc Tawe shopping and leisure centre and the huge greenhouse pyramid that is Plantasia.

Shopping in Swansea

You can spend a whole day just getting through the stalls of the overwhelming indoor market behind the Quadrant Shopping Centre. Keep your energy levels up with a carton of cockles straight from the Gower sands or a dish of freshly harvested ebony laverbread. High-street brands by the dozen await you at St David’s and the Quadrant shopping centres. For seriously classy purchases, take the bus along the bay to Mumbles, stopping at Joe’s Ice Cream which is worth the queues.

Eating and drinking in Swansea

Swansea restaurants use the region’s natural assets to produce local spectaculars like Llanrhidian salt marsh lamb, Welsh black beef or Gower cockles and laverbread, an edible seaweed. And Swansea does posh, as they say – you may find Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas dining next to you at Patricks on the Mumbles Road or Gallini’s in Fishmarket Quay. Sink a quiet pint in the Maritime Quarter, perfect for drinks at dusk. Nighttime Swansea sees the party hot up around Wind Street, High Street and the Kingsway where pubs and bars have sprung up in the old nickel and coal exporting offices.

Culture and nightlife in Swansea

The Grand Theatre has been entertaining the locals since Laurel and Hardy giggled across the stage. These days, Noddy will be thrilling the kids one day and Frankie Boyle causing outrage the next. The waterfront Dylan Thomas Theatre mixes celebrations of the Welsh greats with more commercial Disney-esque shows. The Guildhall’s grand Brangwyn Hall hosts musical concerts as diverse as the West Glamorgan Youth Orchestra and the Indian Mela celebrations.

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