Carmarthen (Welsh: Caerfyrddin) claims, with a straight face, to be the oldest town in Wales. The Romans built the fort of Moridunum here in around AD 75, the bishopric of St David's ran most of the medieval Welsh church from a priory just outside town, and the local market — held in essentially the same square since the 13th century — is still the biggest in west Wales. None of this makes Carmarthen pretty: the town centre is a workmanlike grid of plain Georgian and Victorian buildings, with a ruined castle on one side and the silty estuary of the Tywi on the other. But it is a good base.
The town sits at the head of the Tywi estuary, the point where the river ceases to be tidal and the inland country of mid-Wales begins. The Carmarthen Castle ruin — fragmentary but with a 14th-century gatehouse — looks down over the river from the western edge of the old town. The Carmarthen Market inside the Victorian halls is one of the genuine highlights: butchers, bakers, second-hand book stalls, and a Friday farmers' section that draws producers from across the county. St Peter's Church, the medieval parish church, sits at the top of King Street and contains the alabaster tomb of General Sir Thomas Picton, the Carmarthenshire general who died at Waterloo.
A short walk east along the river leads to the site of Carmarthen Priory, where the Black Book of Carmarthen — the oldest manuscript in the Welsh language — was compiled around 1250. The associated Merlin's Oak, an ancient tree said by local legend to be tied to the fate of the town, finally collapsed in the 1970s and a fragment is preserved in the museum. Around the corner is the Roman amphitheatre of Moridunum, the only visible Roman site in Wales west of Caerleon.
Carmarthen makes a sensible base for exploring south-west Wales. Laugharne, Dylan Thomas's town, is 15 minutes south; the Pembrokeshire Coast starts an hour to the west; the National Botanic Garden of Wales is a 25-minute drive east; and the great Iron Age and medieval hillforts of the Tywi valley line the road inland to Llandeilo and beyond.
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