A meander around Hay-on-Wye
Surely number one on any book-lovers bucket list, Hay on Wye is a charming little town on the Welsh Borders. Here's our guide to our favourite places to visit, including a gorgeous swim spot in the River Wye.
Despite its compact size, Hay on Wye isn't a place you can dash about in an hour.
This charming book town – the word's first book town, in fact – is a place where you need to switch to slow mode. Mooching mode.
With its 26 independent and secondhand book shops, art galleries, craft shops and cafes in a warren of tiny streets, Hay is a place to escape from the outside world and immerse yourself in old, dusty tomes, good food and Welsh craft.
We love this quirky little town, especially when seeing it through the eyes of our guests staying at our retreat Ebba, just six miles away. Here, we've curated our favourite places to eat, our favourite shops and an idyllic wild swimming spot just a short walk from the town centre.
Breakfast picnic and a river swim
Start your day by choosing some pastries for breakfast from Katy's Pop-up Bakery on Lion Street. This sweet little bakery is open twice a week (Thursday and Saturday mornings) and it serves delicious coffee, too.
Take your pastries and coffee on a short walk west of the town along the river path to The Warren. This beauty spot is a designated bathing area of the Wye, with shallow stretches for paddling and deeper pools upstream for a proper swim.
Lunch in a castle
After your morning swim, call in at the medieval Hay Castle for lunch (their quiches are divine) and a browse of their art exhibition. They're currently hosting an exhibition celebrating 20th century Welsh artists until September 2025.
Afterwards, a long afternoon of browsing beckons. The Old Electric Shop is an eclectic bazaar of vintage clothes, artisan gifts and coffee-table books. They also serve great cake and coffee, too.
Bartrum's is the stationery shop of dreams, stocked with fondlesome notebooks and luxury pens.
Books, books and more books
Then, of course, there are the bookshops. We love Murder & Mayhem for its creaky warren of crime and horror fiction, Green Ink Booksellers for its beautifully curated rare books, and the brilliantly named Gay on Wye for its wide selection of LGBTQ+ titles. Richard Booth's Bookshop is also a must – hard to miss with its elaborate store front. Richard Booth, renowned eccentric and self-proclaimed 'King of Hay', opened the first bookshop in Hay in the early 1970s
As the evening draws in...
If you've worked up an appetite for dinner, we recommend Chapters, an intimate restaurant in a converted church on Lion Street. With its seasonal menu and locally-sourced produce (much of it from its own kitchen garden), the restaurant has a Michelin Green Star for its sustainable and ethical standards.
And if you're looking for entertainment after dinner, The Globe hosts regular gigs and open mic nights, and you can catch an evening flick at Richard Booth's Bookshop Cinema. For a nightcap, call in at the Blue Boar – a favourite among Hay locals.
We hope our guide makes for a memorable day out in this quirky little town in the Welsh Borders.
Our new lakeside cabin, Ebba, is just a 15 minute drive from Hay on Wye. Find out more here.