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Had a bit of a tough week and looking to go away for the weekend. Been looking around for cheap accomodation and found a hotel in Merthyr Tydfil for £15 a night, more money for  :pint: Can anyone reccomend decent things to do around this place, aside from sheepshagging?

Please tell me you're joking.  (There's a reason they're charging £15/night.)

I think your options will be Spoons or masturbation, to be honest.

Have you ever been there before?  :sherlock:

Leave the town and head into the Brecons

Not been to South Wales before but it looks pretty scenic. Just need to get away and money is not something i can lavish around. So long as I get a bed for three nights £15 seemed exceptional value.

Click here (http://goo.gl/maps/0jIIq) for a pic of Wetherspoons.  Looks lovely.

I hadn't heard of Merthyr before or the Beacons, just took a random punt on the place. Need to get out of Calne because it's doing my head in.

there has to be some where better to go that's cheap

Merthyr isn't the place to go at all. Having been there quite a lot over the past 11 years with work I would stay somewhere else.

Huge unemployment and high numbers in poverty.

http://www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/strategy/financeandfunding/a0069058/tackling-in-work-poverty-in-wales

The Wethers seems alright from the pic, always decent place to chat to locals if your on your lonesome, but I dont think i'll be venturing into that studio bar opposite with the weed strewn frontage. Background scenery looks stunning. Shame megabus dont go direct but i got a fiver deal to Newport from Swindon which is a bargain

Merthyr is quality if you like mountain biking, camping, rock climbing or caving.

Cheers Jay, will try and take a wander up one of those hills. I like my boxing too and I understand the place has produced some great pugilists. Shame the place is impoverished but I find people in such places very approachable.

Think Calne, but much worse...I could imagine someone from Merthyr thinking of going to Calne for the weekend.

Reminds me of last year, around May time, before the riots, meeting 3 very fit sistas from Lewisham, who'd taken advantage of the cheap hotel rates in Swindon, for a weekend away...their stories of what life was like there, meant it was no surprise when it kicked off that summer. They thought Swindon a very nice place....I wouldn't go to Lewisham for the weekend.

PS Did see us beat Merthyr 5-1 in the Cup in 65...Keith East scored 4, fortunately it was at the CG.

I was in Portsmouth last week and nowhere can be as downtrodden as that shithole.

[url width=604 height=453]http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/131/351/eb6.jpg?1307463786[/url]

I was in Lewisham last year, on a late night bus and got talking to a chap with a pitbull who was absolutely fine, also got valuable directions off a few late night revellers there as to how to get back to Central London. I was pissed as a newt but so long as you respect people you bring out the best in them.

Not trolling Samdy, if you'd had the week I have anywhere would be better, sometimes the spontaneous decisions are the best ones

If you have an English accent, I'd be a bit wary. Went there for a wedding a while back and the only thing that stopped me getting my head staved in was the mass of Welsh blokes I was with.

Make sure you wear a Maggie thatcher mask on nights out

I am half Serbian which comes through in my accent, but given we drubbed them 6-1 that might get a rise out of them. In my experience good manners can diffuse almost any situation, but I will tread carefully.

Got my Arthur Scargill one if things get tense

For someone from Calne, who didn't know where the Brecon Beacons are, you seem to get around a fair bit  :hmmm:

I'm not the most geography literate it's true, are you suggesting this Brecon Beacon's is in my back yard? Don't understand your point.

Merthyr is so rough the rottweilers go around in twos.

Not sure we want to know about your student days...

Merthyr Tydfil? I'd rather go to Afghanistan

Its full of teenage mothers, single parent families and benefit claiming thatcher hating ex miners
Fuck that

I live in Croydon, and Merthyr Tydfil makes that place look like paradise

TBF give me Merthyr over Croydon any day...

I left my heart in Merthyr Tydfil

There's lots of interesting fungi around merthyr at this time of year I seem to remember....

I lived in Croydon for 8 years - it had its dodgier areas, mainly towards Thornton Heath but overall enjoyed living there.  Had about 30 decent pubs within 5-10 mins walk of my house.

Unless its taken an almighty turn for the worse since I left, there's no way I'd prefer Merthyr.
The Brecon Beacons are great but there's much better places to stay to access them than Merthyr.

Are you doing a tour of the grim parts of Britain, Dostoyevsky?

 :D Must be like the pits of hell then...

Must say, I have been to Wales twice and both experiences have convinced me that I never want to go back there again.

bollocks, Wales is lovely

Been delivering today in Wales........the Carmarthen to Cardigan road was fun....mini landslides and flooding.
Back there again tomorow.....stunning area of Wales.........Merthyr itself is awfull but the surrounding areas are very nice indeed.

To be fair, the bits I saw were towns/cities, which probably gives an inproportionate opinion of the place. Maybe I should have said, I never want to go back to places I have already visited.

which towns/cities?

Wrexham and Newport.

Although, I have to say on the way to Wrexham, it was very pretty.

My mum lives in Newport
Area she lives is ok, rest of the city is a fucking dive

Only really saw the town centre, it wasn't great.

both dives although Newport gave us GLC

SW Wales is beautiful...once you get past Swansea.

Yes, been down to the Gower a few times, lovely scenery

Some great roads going up through the Brecons. Shame they're spoiled by tractors, lorries and the such.

Wales is a lovely principality with very friendly people on the whole.

Wesh birds are a quality lay and very easy. Bag on though.

I'm not sure why you didn't choose Shrewsbury for a weekend away in Wales though  ;)

I can concur with this

All I can think right now is Ruth Maddox

*Edit*

Ha ha..... and look what I just found

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49503162461@N01/2194795/

At least in Afghanistan you get a decent Ferris Wheel and amusement park (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080603/text/80603w0007.htm) ... paid for by us:

[url width=900 height=675]http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t289/ghanimah/BolanPark.jpg[/url]

"In 1992 whilst testing a new angina treatment in Merthyr Tydfil, researchers discovered that the new drug had erection stimulated side effects for some of the healthy volunteers in the trial studies. This discovery would go on to form the basis for Viagra " See even Places like Merthyr have their uses  :)

Full of big pricks you mean Notts ;D

yup!

I quite like proper old towns like Merthyr, agree about keeping your head down at times but a lot of older locals are too thick in the skin to be intimidated by the occasional non Welshman. This is interesting: In 96 Merthyr was rated as the third worst place to live in Britain after areas in London but in 97 it was rated only the fifth worst place in Britain, things are looking up.  ;)

I'd say that's jumping from the frying pan into the fire :doh:

Theyre football team went bust too..
seem to remember they used to be high fliers in the conference

Merthyr took a few hot head supporters when they played Chippenham a couple of seasons ago which if i remember rightly ended in a few arrests, pretty unheard of in this level of football.

Went out with the nymphomaniac daughter of a chip shop owner from Merthyr when I lived down the road in Pontypridd for 3 years.

Merthyr was rough as buggery back in the late 80's, and English people weren't welcome for the most part, although the nightclub used to get coachloads of brummies coming down on a Saturday night for cheap beer and easy birds.

I drive that road quite a lot, great fun in good weather.

Another classic Town End Thread.  You honestly couldn't make it up.  :)

Threads like this keep me coming back. Classic bollocks.

This is a version of " Merthyr, the good the bad and the ugly"  :)

two points, two flats and a packet of gravel please....

I want to take my car to the Gurnos estate and see how long the wheels last!

The Bulls Head :D

lovely road in the summer but depressing in winter when it's pissing with rain, which to be fair is nearly every fucking day. The water fall on the way to Newcastle Emlyn is where the Timote advert was filmed in the 80's or was it the 90's?

Laura Ashley and one of The Lostprophets come from Merthyr. From what I remember of the place its grottier than Port Talbot, not quite as smelly though

http://www.housepricesuk.org.uk/cheapest_property.htm (http://www.housepricesuk.org.uk/cheapest_property.htm)

cheapest average house prices in the UK!

If money has been an issue you could have saved a heap on petrol and bridge tolls and had a weekend in Trowbridge instead.

Their fanzine used to be called Dial M for Merthyr. That's my contribution to the subject.

I shareed a student house with a girl from Merthyr. She was a bit mad/scary.

I never ventured into Merthyr in any sense of the word.

Did you rut her batch

The families who have been living there for many generations are known as "Merthyrs Originals"

I'd go to Port Tabolt if I were you.  :D

Merthyr spent 10 seasons in the FL....like us joining in 20/21.   It was the Great Depression of the 20's and ensuing General Srike which fucked them up....They tried to get back in post WWII....but didn't find favour with the other league clubs, although in 52 they did poll more than Headington.

I wouldn't wwish that on anyone.