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 side. There are few places to pull over along the loop, but you can take the branch road that heads up to the Great Orme summit a quarter of the way along.
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
22.78 MILES
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…
3.42 MILES
Caernarfon is more complete, Harlech more dramatically positioned and Beaumaris more technically perfect, yet out of the four castles that compose the…
11.72 MILES
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…
0.78 MILES
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…
6.69 MILES
Laid out in 1875 and painstakingly landscaped over 150 years, Bodnant is one of Wales’ most beautiful gardens. Lord Aberconway of the McLaren family …
1.3 MILES
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…
13.16 MILES
Funded by the vast profits from the slate mine of Caribbean sugar-plantation owner and anti-abolitionist Baron Penrhyn, and extended and embellished by…
18.21 MILES
Plas Newydd (New House) was the grand manor of the marquesses of Anglesey. Surrounded by tranquil gardens and pastures, with fine prospects across the…
Nearby Llandudno attractions
0.03 MILES
Britain's longest cable car runs a mile from the Happy Valley Gardens above the pier and, if it's not too windy, whisks passengers up to the summit of the…
0.09 MILES
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'…
0.33 MILES
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…
0.34 MILES
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…
0.58 MILES
A sensitively restored, heritage-listed 1901 terracotta-and-brick exterior hides the sharply angled innards of North Wales’ leading contemporary art…
6. Great Orme Bronze Age Mines
0.78 MILES
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…
0.85 MILES
The summit complex isn't the most aesthetically sensitive addition to the Great Orme landscape, but it has picnic tables, a cafe and a gift shop.
0.98 MILES
When the main beach gets too frantic, go west to this considerably less built-up Blue Flag beach on Conwy Bay. The views over Anglesey and the mountains…