Ride the Vale of Rheidol Railway up from Aberystwyth

Look down at the three stacked bridges over the Mynach

Walk the Jacob's Ladder steps down into the gorge

Take the short Punchbowl and Three Bridges walk down to the Devil's Punchbowl

At Devil's Bridge the Mynach drops through a gorge to meet the Rheidol, and three bridges stand stacked one above another, built hundreds of years apart. The Vale of Rheidol Railway, narrow gauge and steam-hauled, climbs twelve miles up from Aberystwyth to the station above the falls.

Devil's Bridge: Three Bridges on Top of Each Other

Aberystwyth

From Bannau Brycheiniog to Cadair Idris: Pen y Fan and the dark skies, the bookshops of Hay and the Gospel Pass, red kites over the Elan Valley, and the mountain bike trails of Coed y Brenin.

Mid Wales: The Beacons to Cadair Idris

Aberystwyth and Devil's Bridge

Fishguard

Nine nights in a loop from Fishguard: Cardigan Bay's dolphins, the steam railway to Devil's Bridge, red kites and dark skies in the Elan Valley, then Pen y Fan and the waterfalls of Bannau Brycheiniog.

Mid Wales and the Beacons from Fishguard

Ride the cliff railway up Constitution Hill

Look through the camera obscura at the top

Walk the promenade and kick the bar at the north end

See the manuscripts at the National Library of Wales

The Aberystwyth Cliff Railway opened on 1 August 1896 and runs 237 metres up Constitution Hill — the second longest funicular in the British Isles after Lynton and Lynmouth — to a camera obscura, a 1985 rebuild of the one the Victorian developers put up. Below it the promenade runs south past the pier to the castle ruins; at its north end, under the hill, students still kick the bar, and the National Library of Wales stands on the hill above the town.

Aberystwyth: The Cliff Railway and the Camera Obscura

Cycle the Elan Valley Trail from Rhayader, or drive the valley road, past Caban-coch, Garreg-ddu, Pen-y-garreg and Craig-goch

Walk out on the Claerwen dam, opened by Elizabeth II in 1952

Find out how the water reaches Birmingham: 73 miles by gravity, dropping 52 metres, in a day and a half to two days

Stay out after dark beside one of the reservoirs and find the Milky Way

The Elan Valley is where Birmingham's water comes from. The Birmingham Corporation Water Act of 1892 let the city buy the whole catchment; thousands of navvies and their families lived in a village of wooden huts, where Elan Village stands now, while the first four dams went up at the turn of the century, and the fifth, Claerwen, was opened by Elizabeth II in 1952, one of her first official engagements as queen. The water still runs to Frankley Reservoir in Birmingham by gravity alone — the Elan aqueduct drops 52 metres over 73 miles, at a gradient of 1 in 2,300, and the water takes a day and a half to two days to arrive. The valley covers 70 square miles of lake and hill west of Rhayader, and since 2015 it has been an International Dark Sky Park.

The Elan Valley: Birmingham's Reservoirs Under a Dark Sky

Sit in a hide for the afternoon kite feed

Count how many kites come in and look for a pale leucistic bird

Walk the farm trail up the hill behind the feeding ground

Walk into Rhayader, the market town on the upper Wye

By the 20th century the red kite was down to a handful of breeding pairs in mid Wales — every red kite in Britain today descends from that remnant or from later reintroductions. Gigrin Farm at Rhayader is where the local farmer began putting out meat for them, and it is now one of the best places in the country to see them: hundreds come in at feeding time each afternoon. About one in a hundred Welsh chicks hatches as a rare white leucistic bird, so it is worth watching for a pale one in the crowd.

Gigrin Farm: Hundreds of Red Kites at Feeding Time

Visit the Owain Glyndŵr Centre in the Parliament House, whose exhibition opens on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays

Come on a Wednesday for the market granted by Edward I's charter of 1291

Find the Royal House on the corner of the Garsiwn, where tradition says Dafydd Gam was held for trying to kill Glyndŵr

Stand under the clock tower at the crossroads, raised for Viscount Castlereagh's coming of age in 1873

Go round the galleries of MOMA Machynlleth beside the Tabernacle

Machynlleth, a market town in the Dyfi valley, was the seat of Owain Glyndŵr's Welsh parliament in 1404, and on that strength it calls itself the ancient capital of Wales, though it has never been officially recognised as one. Edward I's charter of 1291 granted it a market every Wednesday 'for ever', and the Wednesday market still runs. The Royal House on the corner of the Garsiwn is one of its medieval houses; tradition says Dafydd Gam was held there from 1404 to 1412 for trying to kill Glyndŵr, and that Charles I stayed in 1643. The clock tower at the crossroads, 23.7m high, was paid for by the townspeople to mark the coming of age of Viscount Castlereagh, heir of the Londonderrys of Plas Machynlleth, in 1873. Laura Ashley opened her first shop here in 1961, and MOMA Machynlleth shows modern art in and beside a converted Wesleyan chapel. North of the town the Centre for Alternative Technology, opened in 1973 in the Llwyngwern slate quarry, now opens only to booked groups, courses and events.

Machynlleth: Glyndŵr's Parliament Town

Walk Rock Park and find the old pump room and chalybeate spring

Walk round the ornamental lake made in the 1870s

Look at the Victorian ironwork and verandas along the streets

Visit the Radnorshire Museum for the story of the spa

Llandrindod grew into a spa town in the 19th century around springs whose healing qualities had drawn visitors since the mid-18th. In the season, between May and mid-September, people took the waters at the pump rooms in Rock Park and at the Pump House Hotel with orchestras playing, and an ornamental lake was made out of marshland in the early 1870s.

Llandrindod Wells: Taking the Waters in Mid Wales

Climb Cadair Idris (Penygadair, 893m) above Dolgellau by the Minffordd Path

Look into Llyn Cau, the glacial cirque lake below the summit crags

Look out from the summit over Cardigan Bay and the Mawddach estuary; legend says anyone who spends a night up here comes down a poet or a madman

Cadair Idris rises above Dolgellau at the southern edge of Eryri, and its summit, Penygadair, is 893m. The Minffordd Path climbs past Llyn Cau, a glacial lake in the cirque below the summit crags, and the top looks out over Cardigan Bay and the Mawddach estuary. Legend says anyone who spends a night on the summit comes down a poet or a madman.