Emyr Griffith is a Welshman with a long history as a travel professional. Years ago his American colleagues asked him for a list of country house hotels in Wales, when good hotels there were few and far between.
Wales has come a long way since then. Now it has luxury accommodations that are as good those you'll find anywhere else in Britain, he says.
Griffith publishes a directory of hotels called "Welsh Rarebits," listing what he considers the best country house hotels in Wales. They are spread across the width and breadth of the country, tucked into a scenic valley here, a charming village there.
High on Griffith's list of criteria to be included is personalized service. Many of the Welsh Rarebits hotels, while not exactly mom and pop operations, are run by couples who oversee every detail. "I like to stay in places with character which are run by people who really care," he says.
Many of them are small and independently owned.
Here are brief profiles of some I stayed in during a weeklong visit to Wales.
The West Arms Hotel is tucked into rolling hills in an out-of-the-way town called Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog. It's in the neighborhood of one of the locations used in the movie "The Englishman Who Went Up the Hill and Came Down a Mountain."
Getting to the village is the Welsh version of going over the river and through the woods.
We left the security of a two-lane road to follow what our driver referred to as a "track," a narrow slice of winding pavement hemmed in on both sides by hedgerows that were higher than our van.
Some hedgerows, it seems, have pedigrees that date back generations when farmers started seedlings along a fence line. Thriving in such an environment, they grew with the vigor of Jack's beanstalk until they, themselves, became the fence.
They could easily overtake these country lanes, like a jungle obscuring ancient ruins, were it not for a machine that resembles a tractor with a vertical lawnmower-like attachment. It crawls along the roads, backing up traffic behind it, keeping things in trim.
The pastoral setting of farm fields and hedgerows seems appropriate for the 400-year-old building that houses the West Arms Hotel. Like wrinkles on a face, the building's low ceilings, steep stairways and not-quite-plumb walls hint at its age. But renovations added modern amenities, including central heating and bathrooms in every guest room.
I climb a narrow staircase to my second-floor room, where I open the window to let in fresh air and the sound of the nearby creek. My accommodations are cozy and comfortable.
Dinner was tasty slices of melon with walnuts and cheese for starters, pork with phyllo dough for the main course and a dessert of crme br$le. The pork was delicious, but I regretted not ordering the lamb, about which other diners were ecstatic.
The hotel's main floor pub, buzzing with conversation, contrasts with the quiet of the countryside. The pub attracts farmers from all around, making it easy for visitors to mingle with locals.
Sion Edwards grew up in the area. Tall and muscular, he works as the hotel's barman, but he's training to be a bricklayer. Although living in this agricultural outpost has its disadvantages — it's five miles to the nearest grocery store, and Sion and his friends must travel to the town of Oswestry 11 miles away just to go "drinking and clubbing" — he vows he'll never leave. "I won't move from here," he said. "You've got your freedom here. I like to walk. There are not many places as nice as this."
Over the mountains from the West Arms is the village of Llandrillo. It's the heart of the Edeyrnion Valley, where the River Dee threads through a patchwork of green that extends as far as you can see. The town, by contrast, is a study in gray: gray stone buildings, gray slate roofs and gray paved roads.
It is far enough off the beaten path that a green grocer comes by twice a week in his walk-in van full of produce and meat. He does a brisk business, mostly with elderly people who can't make the 35-mile drive to the nearest supermarket.
Tyddyn Llan Country House is on the outskirts of town. Owners Peter and Bridget Kindred converted it into a country hotel with expansive gardens and interior decor worthy of a movie set.
Peter's present occupation isn't a far cry from his previous one: a set producer for the BBC where one of his projects was the British comedy "Fawlty Towers." It, too, was a country hotel owned and operated by a married couple. Fortunately, the similarities end there.
Kindred stumbled upon this house when he was scouting for BBC locations. It was a fixer-upper of stately proportions. It now has elegant guest rooms with views of the countryside. The kitchen produces some of the best meals in Wales.
Kindred doesn't wear his sense of humor on his sleeve. He wears it around his neck — a bowtie with pigs on it that guests sent him by post.
But there is a serious side to him. He paints handsome still-lifes and landscapes, some of which hang on the walls in the dining room.
The key to your guest room at Penmaenuchaf Hall comes attached to a hand-carved love spoon. It is a befitting introduction to the most romantic hotel I stayed in during my weeklong visit to Wales. (It is Welsh tradition for a young man to give a love spoon to the girl he intends to marry.)
Penmaenuchaf Hall sits on 21 acres of wooded and landscaped grounds overlooking an estuary. Dating back to the 1860s, it began life as a manor house for a wealthy cotton baron. It was completely refurbished into a hotel by the present owners, Mark Watson and Lorraine Fielding, but it still has its slate floors, oak paneling and a marble fireplace.
It is everything you expect a manor house to be. The fireplace in the entryway has a real log fire. The sitting room is comfortable and cozy. The building is a puzzle of stairways and hallways.
My room, called the Reynolds Williams, is elegantly furnished with a two-poster bed and a sitting area near the windows that looked over the treetops to the estuary. The ample-sized bathroom had something I am unaccustomed to — a heated towel rack.
We gathered in the sitting room for drinks prior to dinner and then went into what I would call the great hall, a mammoth space with a wall of windows and a view of the garden that was put to good use as the dining room.
The hotel's cachet is not lost on the rich and famous. Entertainer Tom Jones and actress Miranda Richardson are among the celebrities who have stayed there.
But one of its main virtues is its location in the foothills of the Cader Idris mountains near Snowdonia National Park. It's also near coastal towns of North Wales.
Emyr Griffith also publishes a booklet that lists small hotels, inns, farms and guest houses that are a little easier on the pocket book. The booklet is called "Wales, Great Little Places." Sygun Fawr Country House Hotel is one of Griffith's "great little places." It, too, was originally a Welsh manor house. Its rooms are more modest than those of the Welsh Rarebits hotels, but they are comfortable.
The inn is near trailheads in Snowdonia National Park and in the spring and early summer, the mountain behind the hotel is ablaze with wild rhododendrons in bloom. Although I didn't stay overnight here, I wish I had. The hillside of blooming rhododendrons is a hard vista to top.
Kathryn Clayton visited Wales two years ago as a guest of the British Tourist Authority and the Wales Tourist Board. E-mail: kclayton@desnews.com