On the West coast of England lies a little land filled with prideful people, lush green mountains,  beautiful seashores, quaint pubs, and many natives who speak a unique language.
             Wales, an elongated country about the size of Maryland, is officially a part of Great Britain, but many of its approximate 3 million residents fiercely hold on to the idea that in reality they are a country unto themselves.
              Wales has its own parliament and governs itself in many ways, but its tax dollars are still grudgingly sent to London coffers.
               Despite the legal ties that still bind, Wales is much more than a British Isles stepchild.
               Wales has its own special charms that have remained basically hidden from much of world tourism.     
                Statistics show that more than 90 percent of  international visitors to Great Britain go to England, Ireland and Scotland -- skipping Wales.
                They just don't know what they are missing.
                Wales' hilly, rocky coastline offers about 750 miles of vistas of the oft-raging North Sea and quaint little seaport villages. Its inland areas provide eyepleasing sheep-laden green hillsides and forests, thatched cottages, B&Bs;, and tons of town and country pubs offering firesides, ale and hearty food.
                Most of the heaviest populated area of Wales is in the south one-third of the  country. Cardiff is the capital, with some 350,000 residents.   Several other South Wales cities range up to about 40,000.   Few mid-to-northern Wales towns exceed about 5,000 people.
                The charm of Wales is well-known to vacationing Britishers, who visit in throngs each year, availing themselves of the scenery, foods, hospitality and unique golf courses.
                But the rest of the world is just starting to catch up to this little gem of a land.
                 The world's golfing focus will be centered on Wales in 2010 when the Celtic Manor resort at Newport will host the semiannual Ryder Cup, pitting the best of America's professional golfers against the best pros from Europe.
                 Celtic Manor, a beautiful 5-star facility which sits majestically on a hill overlooking a bay, is Wales' largest resort-hotel complex with some 400 rooms and three 18-hole golf courses.   A 300-room expansion is to be built soon. The Wentworth Hills course, an American-style layout stretching to 7,400 yards, will be the Ryder site. Several holes are now being redesigned with grandstands to accommodate the 40,000 people expected to attend the event each day.  
                 Golf in Wales offers some interesting and fun challenges, with both links and parkland courses. The century-old Pennard Golf Course near Swansea, for example, runs about 6,250 yards along Three Cliffs Bay of the Gower Peninsula and is situated on public land overlooking the sea. That means residents have the right to let their cattle graze on the course and dozens of wild horses and ponies roam the fairways and rough, protected from bother. A low single-wire fence surrounds each green, keeping the animals away from putting surfaces. But golfers often have to shoo cattle and/or horses away from tees or their line of sight when hitting shots. Throw in some in-play Pennard Castle ruins, plenty of pot bunkers, heather and bracken, along with narrow fairways (resembling pastures in some respect, including the cow patties) and "links in the sky" Pennard is a relatively tough, but immensely interesting and enjoyable, course.
               Golf has become a major tourist attraction for Wales, with more than 200 courses (including about two dozen links courses).  Some of the most popular locales include Celtic Manor and Pennard, plus other well-regarded courses such as  Royal St. David's Golf Club of Harlech (including a modern 5-star St. David's Hotel with a to-die-for spa), Tenby Golf Club of Tenby (at 114, the oldest organized golf club in Wales) and Porthcawl Golf Club, along with such parkland (inland) courses as the Marriott Hotel-St. Pierre (built on the grounds of an ancient church complex) at Chepstow.
                        This land birthed such luminaries as singer Tom Jones, actors Anthony Hopkins and Richard Burton and legendary warrior Lawrence of Arabia (T. E. Lawrence).
                     Wales is something of a paradise for lovers of outdoor activities, with whitewater rafting, mountain climbing and biking-hiking, beach sports (including surfing) and hangliding.
           Wales abounds with accommodations, from modern hotels to private homes. Guest houses have moved with the times and now offer standards comparable to many hotels, while farmhouse accommodation is something of a Welsh specialty (and a great introduction to country life). On the self-catering front, Wales boasts possibly the finest choice in Britain, with everything from seafront apartments to deluxe country properties.
             English is the dominant language of Wales, but about 10-20 percent of the residents speak Welsh (most also speak English).  Cardiff, for example, has a Welsh-language TV station.   Some longtime Wales residents have been fighting a futile battle to have Welsh recognized as an official language and for placement of the country's flag logo (a red dragon on a green background, symbolic of the Wales red dragon defeating the English white dragon) on the British Union Jack flag.
             Public signs, including road signs, are displayed in both English and Welsh,  so there is never any confusion.   Unless, of course, you happen to run across the town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwlllantysiliogogogoch.  Not even the Welsh try to pronounce this one. They simply call it Llainfair.  This North Wales town with the 58-letter name is generally regarded as the longest town name in the world. The name means "St. Mary's Church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool of Llantysilio of the red cave." Maps and road signs call it
Llanfairpwllgwyngyll and for mail purposes it is also referred to as Llanfair PG. The town has several shops and a railway station (which displays the complete long version of the name. 
A story goes about two people visiting Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch and stopping at a fast food place for lunch. They argued about the pronunciation of the town and asked one of the restaurant's employees:  "Can you tell us, very slowly, the name of the place we're in?" and the worker replied:  "Burrr-gerrr-kinggg."
              If you would like to know more about this small town with the big name you can go to the website http://llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk/.
            The longest site name in the world is a Maori name for a hill in New Zealand (not a town) with 85 letters: TAUMATAWHAKATANGIHANGAKOAUAUOTAMATEATURIPUKAKAPIKI- MAUNGAHORONUKUPOKAIWHENUAKITANATAHU.  It is generally known simply as Taumata.
              There is also a 66-letter place name in Wales: GORSAFAWDDACHAIDRAIGODANHEDDOGLEDDOLONPENRHYNAREURDRAETHCEREDIGION, meaning "the Mawddach station and its dragon teeth at the Northern Penrhyn Road on the golden beach of Cardigan bay."

www.visitwales.com
www.tourism.wales.com
www.golf-in-wales.com

This story was published on 21 Nov 2002.