Cathedral overkill

While my pilgrimage is not about the cathedral, it is central to life in St Davids and very much part of my childhood.

This is my favourite view of the cathedral.  Most visitors walk this way but they are focused on the gateway through the city wall and fail to see the nestled building with Carn Llidi in the background.

So let's follow them through the castellated gateway.

Look right and the cathedral lies before us.  We don't follow the general movement down the many steps, or linger lazily at the top to just take an iconic photo, but do  linger to read this notice

and consider what rare opportunities life in St Davids could bring.

I have found a faint path along the wall that takes us to this new beehive installation.

Bees have become a bit of a thing at the cathedral, especially in the gift shop.  It was St David's fellow monk Aidan who kept the bees.

We are at the back of the cathedral so let's keep walking around to the northside.

Cross the bridge you can see over the River Alun.  Pass the gorgeous little shop you see on the left of the picture

but pause to look down the river to where the previous photo was taken,

stopping to appreciate the purple stone in the path and cathedral.  Follow the path past the houses of the cathedral luminaries.  You are still on cathedral ground.

And now look back to see the cathedral beyond the ruins of the Bishops Palace.  I have waxed lyrical in posts from my previous visits about our freedom to play here as children.  I won't bang on now but know that excitement surges through me even now looking at the photo!

As an adult, I venture beyond the palace and explore outside the wall.

It is a sacred and mystical space.  Surely Merlin walks here.

Continuing on, we join a road and cross the Alun again.

Follow the road right around and enter the cathedral grounds again, this time through the western gate

with my favourite view of Bishops Palace on the left.

This time we emerge just above the newish bridge over the Alun.  Once there was no bridge here and a  thrill for us as children was to be daringly driven through the ford, especially if this involved splashing people carefully picking their way over stepping stones.  No such fun now.

You've done the circuit and wish so much you could be there for the Cathedral at Night, but you'll be in London that night.  You can't have everything.

But you can live á la Saint David.