Gaiman
The Most Welsh Town Of The Chubut Valley, Settled After The 1865 Welsh Colony In Patagonia, Known For Its Tea Houses And Chapels · Gaiman, Chubut
Gaiman is a small town in the lower Chubut valley where the Welsh settlers who landed in Patagonia in 1865, looking for a place to keep their language and faith, built their farms, chapels and schools, and where the heritage survives most visibly. Brick chapels stand among poplars along the irrigated valley, Welsh is still taught and spoken by some, and the Eisteddfod, the Welsh festival of music and poetry, continues in the region. What draws most visitors is afternoon tea: several Welsh tea houses serve a table of scones, breads, jams and the dense black fruit cake, torta galesa, with pots of tea, and one of them, Ty Te Caerdydd, was visited by Princess Diana in 1995. The town has a small regional museum in the old railway station, and a cemetery with Welsh inscriptions. Just outside town, the Bryn Gwyn palaeontological park has fossil-rich cliffs. It is a short trip from Trelew and an easy addition to a Valdes or Punta Tombo itinerary. For Welsh visitors it is a pilgrimage; for others, a pleasant afternoon.
Gaiman, Chubut, Gaiman, Chubut, U9105, Argentina
Tea houses open in the afternoons, with reduced days out of season; confirm. The museums keep daytime hours. The Eisteddfod festival is held in the region in spring.