The Drovers Arms

A Breakfast Rated Exceptional, Four Minutes from the Castle

Booking.com grades breakfasts, and its highest band is “exceptional”. Very few hotels anywhere reach it. The Drovers Arms is one that does, and across 283 reviews the hotel overall stands at 8.7 out of ten — the finest score of any long-established hotel in Carmarthen. If the first meal of the day is something you actually care about, that fact alone may decide where you sleep.

The building sits four minutes’ walk from Carmarthen Castle, right in the old town, and keeps free private parking of its own. Anyone who has tried to leave a car anywhere useful inside a medieval street plan will understand what that is worth. Rooms open at about £86.

Breakfast, since it is the headline

You can take it continental or fully cooked. Vegetarians and vegans get a real menu here, not an apologetic omelette. There are warm dishes, fresh pastries and juice, and the reviews return to the subject again and again — this is not a row of tired croissants dying under a lamp, and the score reflects it.

The rooms, and one honest warning

Each bedroom has its own bathroom with a bath or a shower, along with a desk, a wardrobe, a flat-screen television, free toiletries and tea-making things. The building is carpeted, heated and non-smoking from top to bottom.

The warning: there is no lift, and the upper floors are reached by stairs alone. If a staircase would be a difficulty, say so when you telephone and ask what can be offered lower down — better to have that conversation now than with a suitcase in the hall.

Downstairs

There is a bar, a shared lounge with a television in it, and outdoor seating for the evenings that allow such a thing. Housekeeping runs daily. It is an unshowy hotel that concentrates its effort on the parts guests actually touch — the bed, the breakfast, the welcome — rather than on a grand lobby nobody ever sits down in.

Carmarthen on foot

This is what the address is for. The castle is four minutes away. The covered market — genuinely among the best in Wales, and worth building a morning around — is a similar stroll. The Roman amphitheatre that supports the town’s claim to be the oldest in the country sits over on the far side of the centre. You can see the whole of Carmarthen without once starting the engine, which is exactly why free parking you never have to use is such a satisfying thing to own.

The market, and the day to do it

Carmarthen market has been going in one form or another for centuries, and it is still a working market rather than a heritage exercise — fishmongers, butchers, Welsh cakes, second-hand books, a cafe or two. It runs most days, but the general market on Wednesdays and Saturdays is when it fills up properly, and those are the mornings to plan around. Being four minutes from it, with the car left behind at the hotel, is the whole point of staying where you are staying.

Two castles on the water

If the one up the road has whetted the appetite, there are two more within easy reach and both are better sited. Llansteffan stands on a green headland right over the mouth of the Tywi, thirteen kilometres away, and you climb to it from the beach. Kidwelly, sixteen kilometres off, is the more complete — a proper concentric fortress with its gatehouse still intact — and it is one of the most underrated castles in the country. Cardiff Airport is 101 kilometres distant.

To sum up

Free private parking, WiFi at no charge, a bar, a shared lounge, an exceptional breakfast — and no lift. From about £86 a night. If you have come to see Carmarthen itself, and you would like the day to begin properly, book this one.