Gwynedd, Wales
The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
—Bible, Psalm 34:18
At the tip of the Llŷn Peninsula in North Wales lies a desolate, windswept island a mile long and 0.6 miles across that becomes virtually unreachable in treacherous sea currents. Nevertheless, it served as a sacred haven for devoutly religious monks and persecuted Christians during the fifth century. Legend holds that the island is also the burial site of King Arthur. All that remains of the thirteenth-century monastery and gardens built by Saint Cadfan are the ruins, a tower, and a knobby old Bardsey apple tree that some say the monks planted.
If you are brokenhearted and want to keep a memory alive or see new beginnings from loss or departure, visit Bardsey Island. Summer is best. Catch a ferry or a boat from Porth Meudwy or the main market town Pwllheli (market day is Wednesday) on mainland Wales, where the Cambrian Railway from Shrewsbury in Shropshire, England, clacks past the scenic Cambrian Mountains and the coast to its terminus. You can’t bring your dogs or other pets, swimming in the sea is not recommended, and visitors are encouraged to enjoy the wildlife but not disturb it.
Stay in a farmhouse and give the site time to reinvigorate your spirit as you pray and reflect on how death and destruction can give rise to regeneration and renewal in the cycles of nature and also in human civilization.
The Book of Llandaff, assembled in the mid-1200s, noted Bardsey Island as a burial site for twenty thousand “holy confessors and martyrs” and called it the “Rome of Britain” for its sanctity and dignity.