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Anglesey & the North Coast
This compact region can be boiled down to two essential things: castles and coast. Yes, there are look-at-me castles all over Wales, but few attract more admiring stares than the glamorous trio of Caernarfon, Conwy and Beaumaris, which is why they're recognised as World Heritage Sites today. As for the coast, there's a reason that Llandudno has been crowned 'the Queen of Welsh Resorts'. Its genteel appeal stands in stark contrast to the altogether more wild edges of the Isle of Anglesey, where the echoes of the ancients can be heard in the waves that batter South Stack and the breezes that eddy around clifftop barrows.
Beyond the sands and stones, this part of Wales offers rich opportunity for surfing, sailing, windsurfing, kayaking, kitesurfing, powerboating, paddleboarding, walking and birdwatching. You certainly won't be bored.
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Top attractions
These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Anglesey & the North Coast.
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Caernarfon Castle
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 supervised by Master James of St George, from Savoy, its brief and scale were extraordinary. Today it remains one of the most complete and impressive castles in Britain – you can walk on and through the interconnected walls and towers gathered around the central green, most of which are well preserved but empty.
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Conwy Castle
Caernarfon is more complete, Harlech more dramatically positioned and Beaumaris more technically perfect, yet out of the four castles that compose the Unesco World Heritage Site, Conwy is the prettiest to gaze upon. Exploring the castle's nooks and crannies makes for a superb, living-history visit, but best of all, head to the battlements for panoramic views and an overview of Conwy's majestic complexity. Its role – to overawe and dominate the recently subjugated Welsh – couldn't be clearer.
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Beaumaris Castle
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 in 1295, but never completed as fully designed, it enjoys World Heritage status. With its pleasing symmetry, water-filled moat, succession of four concentric 'walls within walls' and stout towers and gatehouse, it’s what every sandcastle maker unknowingly aspires to.
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Great Orme Bronze Age Mines
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 tremendous historical importance has been developed as a must-see attraction, with a visitor centre and the chance to explore portions of the 5 miles of tunnels dug over centuries in search of copper. What is truly astounding is that 4000 years ago the tools used to excavate this maze were just stones and bones.
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Bodnant Garden
Laid out in 1875 and painstakingly landscaped over 150 years, Bodnant is one of Wales’ most beautiful gardens. Lord Aberconway of the McLaren family (which once lived in the gracious late-18th-century pile at the heart of Bodnant) bequeathed the lush 32-hectare property to the National Trust in 1949. Formal Italianate terraces overlook the River Conwy and Snowdonia's Carneddau Mountains, and rectangular ponds creep down from the house into the orderly disorder of a picturesque wooded valley and wild garden.
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Great Orme
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 207m in height. Named after a Norse word for 'worm' or 'sea serpent', this gentle giant looms benevolently over Llandudno. Designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), the headland is home to a cornucopia of flowers, endemic butterflies and sea birds, and a herd of around 150 wild Kashmir mountain goats.
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South Stack Cliffs RSPB Reserve
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 (RSPB) reserve where up to 9000 seabirds nest. Between May and June guillemots, razorbills and 15 loved-up puffin couples congregate here, while choughs, fulmars, peregrine falcons and numerous other species may be spotted throughout the year. You can get information, hire binoculars, and pre-book guided walks at the visitor centre.
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Penrhyn Castle
Funded by the vast profits from the slate mine of Caribbean sugar-plantation owner and anti-abolitionist Baron Penrhyn, and extended and embellished by his great-great-nephew, this immense 19th-century neo-Norman folly is both tasteless and spectacular. Flanked by a Victorian walled garden, the creeper-clad stone walls of the Norman 'fortress' embower the neo-Gothic hall with its darkly extravagant rooms, complete with intricately carved ceilings, stained-glass windows, opulent furniture and even early flushing toilets. 'Early birds' can book free castle tours (10.30am to noon).
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Plas Newydd
Plas Newydd (New House) was the grand manor of the marquesses of Anglesey. Surrounded by tranquil gardens and pastures, with fine prospects across the Menai Strait to Snowdonia, the building has parts dating from the early 15th century, but most of today's Gothic masterpiece took shape in the 18th century. Inside, the walls are hung with gilt-framed portraits of worthy ancestors of the Paget family (William Paget was secretary of state to Henry VIII), who owned the house until 1976.