Daily Mail's Ben Taylor takes a trip down Memory Lane on Gower...
Pobbles and Three Cliffs Bays
"They say you should never go back. But as we gazed at the morning mists covering the magnificent Three Cliffs Bay on a quite perfect Sunday morning, it was hard to agree.
As a child, the Gower Peninsula was my home but by the age of nine we had moved across the border to England and those endless summers spent on its famed beaches faded like the black and white photos taken all those years ago.
So it was with an air of keen anticipation that I returned with my partner for a weekend break to seek out the old and embrace the new.
The beaches were the easy part. On Sunday, we parked early at
Oxwich and started walking. There was barely a soul to be seen.
We were alone with our chatter and drank in the outstanding views. The sea lapped the crescent of sand in an almost apologetic fashion, as if it was anxious not to disturb the peace.
Oystercatchers swooped in the sunshine and dunes hid the odd couple enjoying a quiet flask of tea, but the soundtrack to the morning continued to be the comforting squelch of our shoes on the fresh sand.
In 2007, Oxwich was voted the most beautiful beach in Britain. It runs for two-and-a-half miles and, at low tide, walkers can plough on to Three Cliffs, perhaps the quintessential image of Gower, which became Britain's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1956.
Full marks for the South Wales seaside, then, kept just as I remembered it - even down to the ramshackle stone beach hut in the car park.
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You won't find 'family friendly' theme parks, burger bars or even many coffee shops on Gower. It's an oasis of calm and occasional mystery – witness the 'standing stones' - but canny locals urge you to come out of season, thus avoiding the summer car crawl in and out of Swansea.
And as we began the steady haul back up the M4 towards London, I realised my childhood memory bank had been pleasantly replenished."
Read Ben Taylor's full article at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2152728/Gower-Peninsula-Wales-Revisiting-childhood-charms-Welsh-winner.html
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Rediscovering the childhood charms of the glorious Gower Peninsula 