A week of small inns along the north Pembrokeshire coast

The dispatch begins, as the route does, in a village that is not on most maps — a row of whitewashed houses, a chapel, a shop that opens when it can. We had planned to start further west, but the bus that was meant to take us there had stopped running for the winter without anyone updating the timetable, and so we walked the first stretch instead. It turned out to be the best part.

The north Pembrokeshire coast has a peculiar quality in shoulder season. The path is empty by ten in the morning. The kitchens at the small inns are open but quiet. The light is unreliable, which is part of the appeal: you cannot plan your photographs, and so you mostly stop trying to take them.

"The kitchens at this time of year cook for whoever happens to be there — which mostly means cooking for the innkeeper's family, and squeezing in one or two guests at the end of the long table."

This dispatch sets out a seven-day inn-to-inn route, with notes on which crossings are tide-dependent and which days the bus we mentioned does, in fact, run. We have kept names of the smaller inns to a short list at the end; please be kind to the village shop. It is also the post office, and on Tuesdays, the bar.