Abertawe Audio Tour: Mount Pleasant: Castles

Explore Abertawe at your own pace

A battered castle rises above the city centre, its stone arches guarding secrets of forgotten battles and midnight plots. Just beyond, an old cinema with a Romanesque grin hides reels of scandalous films and tales of survival through Swansea's darkest nights. Around the corner, the bold façade of Glynn Vivian Art Gallery glows with a century of artistic rebellion.

Take this self-guided audio tour to unlock stories that most visitors rush past-tales lurking in alleyways, painted on brickwork, and whispered in gallery halls.

Who risked everything in a desperate siege beneath the shadows of Swansea Castle? What legendary artwork vanished from Glynn Vivian's walls without a trace? And what infamous film caused such uproar at Castle Cinema that officials banned it outright?

Photo: Ifeoluwa B., Unsplash

Tour details

• Duration: 1 hour 23 minutes, entirely at your own pace
• Distance: around 3.5 km (2.2 miles)
• Stops: 13 landmarks, including Swansea Castle, Castle Cinema, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery
• Audio: up to 33 minutes of narration
• Starts at: Swansea Castle

Map data by Mapbox and OpenStreetMap contributors

How it works

• Book here and a redemption code arrives by email within minutes.
• Download the free AudaTours app on your phone and enter the code.
• Download the tour once and the whole thing works offline.
• Walk to the first stop and press play. The audio for each landmark starts automatically as you approach it, so your phone can stay in your pocket.

There is no fixed date and no start time. The date you pick at checkout does not matter, and the tour stays on your phone permanently, so you can use it whenever you next visit and walk it again as often as you like.

What is included

• Professionally narrated audio that plays automatically at each stop
• An interactive map showing the walking route between landmarks
• Full offline access once downloaded, so you need no data or signal
• Freedom to start, pause and resume whenever you like
• Lifetime access - your code never expires

Where you will stop

• Swansea Castle
• Castle Cinema
• Glynn Vivian Art Gallery
• Parc Tawe
• Weaver building
• Swansea Museum
• National Waterfront Museum
• LC, Swansea
• Swansea Minster
• Swansea Market
• Swansea Mosque
• Castle, Swansea
• Vetch Field

Image: AudaTours

What is AudaTours?

AudaTours turns a walk through a city into a story. Our guides bring landmarks to life with the history, the scandals and the detail you would never get from a plaque.

• Immersive: real stories about the places in front of you, not a dry commentary
• Offline: download once and use it with no data, anywhere
• At your own pace: start, pause and resume whenever you want
• Accurate: every story is built from verified historical sources and checked before release

Good to know

• This is a self-guided audio tour on your own phone. There is no in-person guide.
• It does not include entry to any building or site along the route.
• The landmarks on the tour are not affiliated with AudaTours.
• You need a smartphone with Android 7.0 or later, or iOS 16 or later.
• Bring headphones and start with a charged phone.

Who it suits

Solo travellers, couples, families and small groups who would rather explore on their own schedule than follow a guide and a fixed departure time. It suits a first visit, and it suits anyone who has already seen the famous sights and wants to know what actually happened in them.

Image credits

Photos: Sloman (Wikimedia Commons, public domain); Ifeoluwa B. (Unsplash).