Dylan Thomas called SWANSEA (Abertawe) - his birthplace - an "ugly, lovely town", an epithet which poet Paul Durcan updated to "pretty, shitty city". Both ring true. Large, sprawling and boisterous, it is the second city of Wales, with around 200,000 people, and has great aspirations to be the first; it's certainly far more Welsh than Cardiff. The city centre was massively rebuilt after devastating bomb attacks in World War II, and a jumble of tower blocks ... [More]