8 great sights in Northern Wales

After a wonderful trip around Ireland, we took the car ferry with our motorhome Vtee, back to Wales. We landed in Holyhead, which gave us access to the Island of Anglesey, at the northernmost corner of Wales.

  

Beautiful Beaumaris

Not long after driving off the ferry, we passed the town with longest place name in Europe. What a mouthful: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Then we headed to the beautiful town of Beaumaris to see Beaumaris Castle. 

Beaumaris is a small, quaint village set on the waterfront. Fortunately, it has a very large grassed space for parking, so we had no problems parking our big motorhome, Vtee.

The Castle is a UNESCO World Heritage site as part of the Castles and Town Walls of Edward I in Gwynedd.

Marg outside Beaumaris Castle (UNESCO)

It is reached by a bridge over a moat, and is very impressive with most of its walls and turrets intact. It had an outer wall and inner fortifications, and you could see how hard it would have been to attack.

We spent quite a bit of time wandering around the castle, and being amazed at how they were able to build such impressive walls so long ago.

Leaving there, we headed to mainland Wales via the Menai Strait and the historic and small Menai suspension bridge. 

Historic and skinny Menai Bridge

That bridge was such a tight fit for our big motorhome – we had to put Vtee’s wing mirrors in to get through, and drive very, very slowly! Luckily the tailing traffic was tolerant.

Our next stop was Caernarfon. It is a medieval fortress with remarkably intact walls that surround the town of Caernarfon. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We had to cross a very narrow bridge to get there, and eventually found a carpark some distance from town. Then we walked back, and through some huge gates into the town and the castle. 

Caernarfon Castle (UNESCO)

Caernarfon Castle was the place of the investiture of Edward, Prince of Wales in 1911, then Charles, Prince of Wales in 1986. It has the impressive King’s Gate and lots of towers, with the most spectacular one being the Eagle Tower with three turrets.

You can walk around on top of and inside the walls, and up and down the turrets which allow great views of the town. We had great fun there.

Llanberis 

After two castles we moved on to Llanberis, a small village on the side of Lake Llyn Padarn. Llanberis gives access to Mount Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales (1085 m). We were going there to book tickets on the little train that goes up to the Snowdon summit.

Notwithstanding the huge number of tourists there, we managed to book tickets for late afternoon the next day, then went searching for a campsite for the night.

We had heard that some pubs would allow you to stay in their car park for free, as long as you bought something at their pub, so we went looking.

At about 6 miles out of Llanberis, we found the tiny Penbont Inn.

Penbont Inn-our campsite

The owner was happy for us to stay in her carpark, so we got settled, then hit the old and tired, but quaint pub for pizza and beer. 

What a fabulous place. The locals were really friendly, and they had the final of the world cup cricket on the big screen at one end of the bar, and the Wimbledon tennis men’s final at the other end. Which way to turn!

We decided on the cricket with New Zealand playing England, and what a nail-biting finish. Poor New Zealand. The locals didn’t seem overly patriotic regarding the English success, and it was all great fun.

We stayed for quite a few beers in the end!

Leigh at Criccieth Castle

We hadn’t known how widely Welsh was spoken until we realised we couldn’t understand a word the patrons were saying. It was great to hear the national language spoken instead of English. We had noticed this in Ireland too.

The next morning, we moved on to see Criccieth Castle on the Llyn Peninsula. 

We found a nice parking spot on the Criccieth waterfront, ate our picnic lunch in the sun there, then walked up to the Castle.

Criccieth viewed from the Castle

It’s set on a rocky headland between two beaches with fabulous views over the town and the wide sweep of Cardigan Bay.

The castle is a ruin, but there is enough left to imagine what it must have been like; and what an amazing position it’s in with its great views.

Driving back toward Llanberis, we went through many small towns and villages. We particularly liked Beddgelert. This is a very pretty little stone-built village with a river running through the middle. 

Leigh in Beddgelert

The river is crossed by a lovely old stone bridge decked out with flower baskets.

While the resident population is tiny (455 people), there were plenty of tourists exploring the quaint shops and old church.

After a nice break and an ice-cream there, we headed on along the very narrow and winding road that is Llanberis Pass. It took us around Mount Snowdon, and through some stunning, rugged and rocky landscapes. 

Llanberis pass scenery

Along the route, we passed a huge number of walkers using the many tracks that criss-cross the Snowdonia National Park; and even passed a few intrepid cyclists.

Eventually, we arrived back in Llanberis to explore the village, before our train trip up Mount Snowdon.

The Snowdon Mountain Railway is Britain’s only rack-and-pinion railway, and its trains have been taking visitors to the summit of Mt Snowdon since 1896. 

Snowdon Mountain Railway train

The little train carries only 60 passengers. 

The track is very steep and it climbs up through lots of bushy areas, before heading higher and higher into the rugged rocky landscape.

We could see many walkers on the tracks going up and around the side of the mountain - many struggling.

We felt very happy with our decision to take the train up instead of walking the very steep incline.

The Mountain Railway Train, atop Mount Snowdon

The scenery was lovely.  We saw villages nestled in the valley, lots of rocks, and very rugged-looking sheep grazing on the meagre grass.

Every so often, our train would slow with much blowing of the horn to scare the sheep off the track.

At some of the small stations along the way, we passed other trains going down. After about 45 minutes of steady climbing, we reached the summit of Snowdon and its visitor centre.

From there, we were able to climb to the top of a stone outcrop which placed us at 1085 metres above sea level.

Marg at the top of Mount Snowdon

There was a spectacular view of the ancient mountains, thrust upwards by volcanic forces 450 million years ago.

After half an hour at the top we began our descent. It felt as if we were going off the edge of the mountain as we wound our way down the steep track.

It was a fabulous trip, and gave us great views of Snowdon and the surrounding countryside.

We decided to go back to our pub carpark that night, and were welcomed back as though we were old friends. Such friendly people.

Quarried slate on show at the National Slate Museum

After a quiet night, we drove into Llanberis to visit the National Slate Museum which tells the fascinating history of the area, and describes the hard existence of slate mine workers.

The buildings there once housed the industrial engineering workshops for the former Dinorwig slate quarry. At its peak, it employed over 3,000 men but the workshops closed in 1969 and became a Slate museum.

Moving on we headed north to Conwy, a walled town with a magnificent medieval castle built by Edward I between 1283 and 1289. It has been restored so that you can walk a complete circuit around the battlement walls and view its great towers.

The awesome Conwy Castle

There are gateways in the walls, that enable traffic to get in and out. We got a really close look at one of them as we went through looking for the signposted carpark. 

We had to fold the wing mirrors in, hold our breath, and creep through an archway with barely centimetres to spare on either side. It was tight but we had seen another big van go through, so we took our time and didn’t worry about the traffic waiting on each side!

The locals must be used to it because when we got to the carpark, they had a dedicated area for motorhomes to park.

Conwy Castle inside

It was worth the squeeze as we really enjoyed the castle. Conwy town is still protected by an unbroken 1.3 km ring of fortress walls which are really impressive. 

There is a fabulous view out over the mountains of Snowdonia in the distance, and below are the narrow streets of Conwy and the harbour.

Driving on, we went through Llanrwst, another small and quaint town. 

Ancient one-way humped bridge and oncoming blue car

Llanrwst has a really narrow bridge with a big hump in it at the town entrance. There were traffic lights on our side, and the lights turned green for us so we drove on over the bridge. 

But, we got to the top of the hump, to meet a little blue car coming the other way.

The driver's face was picture as she saw our bulk coming towards her. Luckily she was able to back up and we got over ok. It turns out that for some reason, there are no traffic lights on the other side!!

Swallow Falls Hotel campsite in Betws-y-Coed

Our next stop was Betws-y-Coed, another small, and very pretty but touristy town. As with other towns in the area, all the buildings were constructed from the beautiful local stone.

We found another pub, the Swallow Falls Hotel, where we stayed for the night.

Leaving Betws-y-Coed the next morning, we stopped at Pontcysylite Aqueduct and Canal, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Marg on the Pontcysylite Aqueduct (UNESCO)

The aqueduct was built in 1795-1805 to enable boats to get from the Llangollen Canal, across the valley of the River Dee. 

It is an amazing feat of engineering. It is a water-filled trough just 5 feet 3 inches deep and 11 feet wide, perched 126 feet above the valley floor.

We walked along the tow path to watch some narrow canal boats navigate the aqueduct. It was a really unusual feeling being that high above the ground, while watching boats glide through the water.

Pontcysylite Aqueduct (UNESCO)

This was our last stop in Wales. We thought Northern Wales was lovely with so many pretty towns and villages.

Now, we are headed through more small towns towards Chester in England.

This is part of a bigger blog on our travels around England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Belgium and Luxembourg. The first blog is called "Off to do the UK in a motorhome".