Anglesey & the North Coast
Majestic Caernarfon Castle was built by Edward I between 1283 and 1330 as a military stronghold, seat of government and royal palace. Designed and mainly…
Must-see attractions in Anglesey & the North Coast
Anglesey & the North Coast
Caernarfon is more complete, Harlech more dramatically positioned and Beaumaris more technically perfect, yet out of the four castles that compose the…
Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
Beaumaris is the last and most technically perfect of the ring of great castles built by Edward I of England to consolidate his Welsh conquests. Started…
Llandudno
Sitting unobtrusively near the top of the Great Orme is the largest prehistoric mine ever discovered. Nearly paved over for a car park, this site of…
Anglesey & the North Coast
Laid out in 1875 and painstakingly landscaped over 150 years, Bodnant is one of Wales’ most beautiful gardens. Lord Aberconway of the McLaren family …
Llandudno
From sea level it's difficult to gauge the sheer scale of the limestone chunk known as the Great Orme (Y Gogarth), yet it's 2 miles in circumference and…
South Stack Cliffs RSPB Reserve
Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
Two miles west of Holyhead, the sea vents its fury against the vertiginous South Stack Cliffs, an important Royal Society for the Protection of Birds …
Anglesey & the North Coast
Funded by the vast profits from the slate mine of Caribbean sugar-plantation owner and anti-abolitionist Baron Penrhyn, and extended and embellished by…
Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
Plas Newydd (New House) was the grand manor of the marquesses of Anglesey. Surrounded by tranquil gardens and pastures, with fine prospects across the…
Barclodiad y Gawres Burial Mound
Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
Squatting on a headland above gorgeous Trecastle Bay, 2 miles south of the village, Barclodiad y Gawres (the Giantess' Apronful) is the largest neolithic…
Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
This excellent aquarium introduces you to the denizens of the local waters: from lobster and cuckoo wrasse to tiny brine shrimp and Picasso-painting-like…
Anglesey & the North Coast
On the west side of the vast Bodnant Estate, a collection of lavishly restored 18th-century farm buildings now operates as Bodnant Welsh Food. One of the…
Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
The rocky islet of South Stack (Ynys Lawd) has a gloriously end-of-the-earth feel, with waves crashing around the base of the cliffs and guillemots and…
Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
The linchpin of Anglesey's visual-arts scene, the 'Anglesey Gallery' features temporary art exhibitions; a History Gallery exploring the island's past and…
Anglesey & the North Coast
The title 'Storiel', a portmanteau of the Welsh words for 'story' and 'gallery', signals the combined historical and artistic focus of this well-curated…
Anglesey & the North Coast
Completed in 1585 for merchant and courtier Robert Wynn, Plas Mawr is one of Britain's finest surviving Elizabethan town houses. The tall, whitewashed…
Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
There are neolithic burial mounds scattered all around Wales, but many have been completely stripped of their earthen covering by over-enthusiastic…
Anglesey & the North Coast
Founded in 1881, given the royal imprimatur by Queen Victoria in 1882, and still going strong, the Cambrian runs a full calendar of exhibitions by its…
Anglesey & the North Coast
Christmas for twitchers, this Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) sanctuary on the lovely Conwy estuary is home to lapwings, sedge warblers,…
Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
Sometime before 3000 BC the local people raised Lligwy's 25-tonne capstone into place, forming a stone chamber that they covered with an earthen mound…
Anglesey & the North Coast
The survival of most of its 1300m-long town wall, built concurrently with the castle, makes Conwy one of the UK’s prime medieval sites. The wall was…
Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
After the tearoom pleasantness of Beaumaris, Penmon, 4 miles north, provides a glimpse of Anglesey's long spiritual significance. An early Celtic…
Anglesey & the North Coast
More formally known as the Cathedral Church of St Deiniol, this building occupies one of the oldest ecclesiastical sites in Britain, dating from AD 525,…
Anglesey & the North Coast
Just east of the town centre, these low stone foundations represent the westernmost legionary fort of the Roman Empire. The fort dates back to AD 77, when…
Anglesey & the North Coast
Given the large expanse of tidal mudflats here (a paradise for wading birds), it's surprising that the Victorians chose this site to build Britain's ninth…
Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
In the 4th century, during the relative stability of the lengthy Roman occupation, local farmers built a small fortified settlement here consisting of…
Anglesey & the North Coast
Strewn with rare plants, follies, sculptures and fountains, these historic gardens once formed part of the estate of the Lords Newborough. While the grand…
Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
Anglesey's treacherous east coast has claimed numerous ships over the centuries, perhaps most famously the Royal Charter in 1859, which took 460 lives and…
Llandudno
A trip to Llandudno isn’t complete until you’ve strolled along the Victorian pier, eating ice cream and shooing away seagulls. At 670m, it's Wales'…
Anglesey & the North Coast
Timber-and-plaster Aberconwy House is the town's oldest, built as one of 20 merchants' houses when the town was fortified around 1300. Over the years it…
National Beekeeping Centre Wales
Anglesey & the North Coast
This nonprofit organisation is dedicated to encouraging people to take up beekeeping. Its corner of the Bodnant Welsh Food complex has interesting…
Llandudno
Llandudno's iconic 2-mile promenade is one of its distinctive sights. It was here that Queen Victoria herself watched Professor Codman’s Punch & Judy Show…
Llandudno
A sensitively restored, heritage-listed 1901 terracotta-and-brick exterior hides the sharply angled innards of North Wales’ leading contemporary art…
Anglesey & the North Coast
Dolphins and porpoises can sometimes be spotted from this long, sandy, rock-fringed Blue Flag beach, 6 miles southwest of Caernarfon. The flatness of the…
Llandudno
Head to the top of the Great Orme without breaking a sweat in an original 1902 tramcar. It's one of only three cable-operated trams in the world (the…
Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
This small, volunteer-run museum is the best way to learn more about the feats of Victorian engineering that lie behind the iconic bridges connecting…
Llandudno
Starting by the pier, this one-way, 4-mile narrow road loops anticlockwise around the Great Orme, with immense sea vistas opening up on your right-hand…
Anglesey & the North Coast
Built in 1307 at the same time that the castle was going up, this pretty Gothic church once ministered to the castle's garrison. Built directly into the…
Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
The Beaumaris Court, opposite the castle, was an instrument of justice dispensed by the English between 1614 and 1971, with Welsh-speaking defendants at a…
Anglesey & the North Coast
Conwy's High St heads through this gate in the medieval wall to the quayside. Its twin towers and portcullis allowed it to command access from the town to…
