A dog friendly short break to Tenby

My husband, Hetty and I recently went on a dog friendly short break to Tenby in Pembrokeshire, West Wales. Tenby is somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit, but have never been before. My daughter was on a little holiday with her friends following her A Levels. With neither of our sons at home, it made sense for my husband and I to go away, so I suggested Tenby.

We were just visiting Tuesday to Friday and didn’t want to do a lot. Just go for walks and runs and go out to eat. We parked the car in a long stay car park for £15 for three days and we didn’t move it.

We stayed in a small dog friendly Airbnb flat right in the centre of Tenby, a stone’s throw from the sea. Being slightly out of season, Tenby was full of couples a bit older than us with their dogs, as well as a few families with pre-school children.

Hetty is very much a home dog. She loves to just play in the garden at home and then lie around and go to sleep. She was unsettled when we first arrived in our little flat. She followed us around incessantly and barked at every noise from outside (and there was quite a lot of noise). She has a bedtime routine at home, which we followed in Tenby. But she wouldn’t settle and kept barking. In the end, she had to sleep in the (very small) bed with us. This has never happened at home.

For a dog used to a garden and an open door, it could have been challenging that she couldn’t just go out for a wee and had to be taken out on a lead. We possibly took her outside more than we needed to, to be on the safe side, but she was fine with it.

Within 24 hours of arriving, Hetty saw the little flat as ‘home’ and literally dragged us back there and up the stairs, as she knew exactly where she was.

Tenby is a beautiful town with its famous colourful buildings all along the seafront. There are also flowers everywhere – both wildflowers and flowers planted in pots outside buildings and along railings. But my very favourite part of the town is Castle Hill – with its ruined castle remains, statue of Prince Albert, cannons and views across the town and the beaches and right out to sea. Dogs can easily do this short walk up from the town, as long as they stay on a lead.

The town centre is pedestrianised 11am until 5pm from 1st July until 13th September. This is great for families, with or without dogs, as well as older people and people with disabilities.

Tenby is a very dog friendly town – with dogs allowed in nearly all the shops, cafes, restaurants and pubs. There are lots of places to eat out, although as a vegetarian, I was surprised at the shortage of vegetarian and vegan options, so we did need to check menus quite thoroughly! When I first became a vegetarian in the early 90s, the only ‘option’ was often vegetarian lasagne, which was the only choice on the menu in a lot of places in Tenby.

The town’s award-winning chip shop had only one vegetarian/ vegan item on the menu – vegan curry sauce with rice. No, thanks! I want chips when I go to a chip shop and I’ll go and get a proper curry elsewhere.

This is where we ate (these places had at least two or three vegetarian or vegan options):

Billycan – burgers, steaks and seafood in massive portions! You know I like large portions, but I couldn’t finish my meal at Billycan.

Salty’s – a large restaurant and bar on South Beach with big windows extending all the way along. A bit pricey, but very nice food and the view is stunning.

Umi – a very nice Japanese restaurant in the centre of town. You need to book!

Harbwr Brewery – good pub food and craft beers brewed on site, with a large and very pleasant beer garden.

The beach closest to the town centre – the North Beach – isn’t open to dogs between 1st May and 30th September every year. But the South Beach, which is pretty close to the town centre, is open to dogs all year round. It is a very long beach with plenty of space for dogs to run free and play.

At low tide, you can walk across the beach to St Catherine’s Island, which has a partly ruined fortress on top. The fortress has had a chequered history and was actually used as a zoo for a few years until it was abandoned in 1978, when it fell into disrepair. It is £5 to get onto the island and into the fortress. The steps are very uneven, but dogs on leads are allowed and it is interesting with great views over Tenby.

I’m pleased to say that Tenby is the nicest holiday town I’ve visited in the UK, with the exception of Padstow. (Regular readers will know we’ve visited Padstow in Cornwall every single year since my eldest was born and we are all obsessed with it.) We will definitely be visiting again!