Britain’s Smallest City—Half as Good as Rome

We’ve settled into our latest home base, the city of Saint Davids. In addition to being another charming Welsh location it has two distinctions:

• It is the smallest city in Great Britain by population and land area
• It is “half as good as Rome” and they have shirts to prove it.

In Great Britain you have to be officially recognized as a city. Saint Davids is the home of a cathedral dedicated to the patron saint of Wales. It has also long been a pilgrimage site. It has long been considered a city due to the cathedral and its historical significance, but the original charters have been lost. The late Queen Elizabeth II gave it official city status in 1994.

And “Half as good as Rome?” Pilgrimages to Rome, the Holy Land, Santiago de Compostella, and other places have a long history. In the 12th Century the Pope made an official declaration that two pilgrimages to Saint Davids equals one to Rome. Must have been some local lobbying going on to get that designation.

We hiked one trail from Half-as-Good-as-Rome yesterday. It went by a chapel dedicated to Saint David’s mother, Saint Non (saintliness runs in the family) and along the coast to a small village where we struggled to find a good pub not too overcrowded on Fathers Day. Evidently celebrating the holiday here is a recent tradition, although I have it on good authority that they have had fathers here for a long time.