Holiday rentals in Hay-on-Wye

Famed for its annual literary festival, this quirky rural community straddling the border of England and Wales is known as the Town of Books. Its historic buildings house no fewer than 20 bookshops, which isn’t bad for a population of 1,500. It’s also brimming with markets, which operate three days a week. Thursday is the main event, when produce and craft stalls congregate around the 19th-century clock tower, spilling out into the square and beyond. Its location at the northeastern tip of the Brecon Beacons mountain range provides stunning scenery, from rolling farmland to the rocky peaks of the Black Mountains. The River Wye, which winds through the town, is popular for canoeing, while the possibilities for walkers are endless, not least because the Offa’s Dyke path, which follows a 1,200-year-old earthwork between England and Wales, runs through here.

One of the reasons Wales is so beautifully green and lush is the vast amounts of rain that tends to fall here, especially inland. A heavy downpour can last all day, and if you’re unlucky, all week. So make sure you have warm clothing and waterproof outer layers; it’s worth investing in rain pants, and a large golfing umbrella is handy too. The weather can be biting cold in winter, with average highs between 44 and 49 degrees Fahrenheit, rising to the 50s and 60s in spring and fall. Summers are fresh and pleasant, peaking, on average, at around 70 degrees, an ideal time to stay in a local cottage.

Richard Booth’s Bookshop

This former firehouse at 44 Lion Street is the bookstore that started it all. Booth opened it in 1961, selling secondhand books he’d bought on consignment from the United States. His three-story reading utopia is stacked floor to ceiling with volumes and has its own café and independent cinema.

Hay Castle

Built by the Normans in the 11th century, the large stone edifice that looms in the middle of the town was expanded into a Jacobean manor some 600 years later, and by the 1800s was in use as a vicarage. The grounds that surround its now dilapidated ruins are still open, and house Hay’s most beloved honesty bookstalls, which run on an honor system, allowing you to take a book and leave your money in a box.

Black Mountains

The lush green hills to the south of Hay are not remotely as forbidding as they sound; framed with hedgerows, woods, and rocky peaks, they sum up the soothing beauty of the British Isles. A walk along their ridges at Hay Bluff, Twmpa, or Black Hill offers stunning views of the Wye Valley.