Scramble the north ridge from the A5 in the Ogwen valley

Reach Siôn a Siân — Adam and Eve — the two 3m monoliths on the summit

Walk on into the Glyderau above the valley

Start from Ogwen Cottage at the head of Llyn Ogwen

Tryfan stands over the Ogwen valley as a pointed wall of rugged crag, one of the most recognisable mountains in Britain and, at 917.5m, the fifteenth highest in Wales. It is part of the Glyderau, and the usual way up is the north ridge, a continuous scramble starting near the A5 about a mile east of Idwal Cottage. There is no walking route to the top: every way up ends in a scramble.

Tryfan and the Glyderau: The Scramble Up the North Ridge

Eryri

Holyhead

A week in a loop from Holyhead: Edward I's castles at Beaumaris, Conwy and Harlech, Snowdon by the Miners' Track, Portmeirion on the Dwyryd, and Aberdaron, the pilgrims' village at the end of Llŷn.

North Wales from Holyhead

Eleven nights from Conwy to Betws-y-Coed: Edward I's castles at Conwy, Caernarfon, Beaumaris and Harlech, the boat to Ynys Enlli off the tip of the Llŷn, Portmeirion, then Snowdon by the Miners' Track and the scramble up Tryfan.

North Wales: Castles, the Llŷn and Eryri

Climb Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa, 1,085m), the highest mountain in Wales, by the Miners' Track from Pen-y-Pass — 6.6km with 726m of ascent, the gentlest of the six main routes

Cross the causeway over Llyn Llydaw, built in 1853, and pass the derelict copper-mine buildings on the way to Glaslyn

Find the brass toposcope on the summit pillar, which names 100 places you can see on a clear day

See the Snowdon Mountain Railway, opened in 1896 and running 4.75 miles from Llanberis to the summit, from the top

Snowdon — Yr Wyddfa — is the highest mountain in Wales at 1,085m and the busiest in Britain: 543,541 people walked up it in 2022. The Miners' Track from Pen-y-Pass is the gentlest of the six main routes, 6.6km with 726m of climbing, crossing the causeway over Llyn Llydaw built in 1853 and passing the ruins of the copper mine on the way up to Glaslyn. On top is Hafod Eryri, the summit building opened in 2009, and the end of the Snowdon Mountain Railway, opened in 1896, which climbs 4.75 miles from Llanberis. One legend puts the giant Rhita, killed by King Arthur, under the summit cairn.

Snowdon: The Miners' Track to Yr Wyddfa

Drive the pass from Capel Curig over Pen-y-Pass to Llanberis

Stop at Pen-y-Pass, 359m up, where the old hotel is now a youth hostel

Look up at Dinas y Gromlech and find the line of Cenotaph Corner

Walk by Llyn Padarn at Llanberis at the bottom

The A4086 climbs through the Llanberis Pass between the Snowdon massif on one side and the Glyderau on the other, topping out at 359m at Pen-y-Pass, where the old hotel is now a youth hostel. The valley is narrow, straight and steep-sided, and the crags on either side of the road, among them Dinas y Gromlech with the line of Cenotaph Corner, have made it one of the most popular climbing areas in Britain. Below it the Nant Peris valley drops past the village of Nant Peris to Llanberis and the two lakes, Llyn Peris and Llyn Padarn.

The Llanberis Pass: Between Snowdon and the Glyderau

Tour Caernarfon Castle, begun in 1283 by Edward I, with its polygonal towers and banded stone walls said to echo the walls of Constantinople, and its Eagle Tower

Stand where the Princes of Wales were invested in 1911 and 1969

Visit the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum inside the castle

Walk Caernarfon's town walls, part of the UNESCO 'Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd' listed in 1986

Edward I began Caernarfon Castle in 1283, and the Statute of Rhuddlan made the town the administrative centre of the new county of Gwynedd the next year. The link with the Roman past was deliberate: the Roman fort of Segontium is nearby, and the banded walls and polygonal towers recall the walls of Constantinople. By tradition Edward II was born here on 25 April 1284, and the castle held the investitures of the Prince of Wales in 1911 and 1969. The town walls around it are part of the same World Heritage Site.

Caernarfon: The Castle That Recalls Constantinople

Ride Velocity at Zip World Penrhyn Quarry, four parallel lines just over a mile long with speeds of 100mph and more, billed as the world's fastest zip line and the longest in the UK

Look down into the terraces of Penrhyn Quarry from the top station

Walk into Bethesda, the quarry town below

Penrhyn above Bethesda was the world's largest slate quarry at the end of the 19th century, worked by nearly 3,000 quarrymen; the main pit is nearly 1.6km long and 370m deep, and it is still Britain's largest slate quarry. Zip World strung four parallel lines the length of it, ridden face down over the quarry lake.

Zip World Penrhyn: Velocity Over the Quarry

Go underground on the deep mine tour at Llechwedd

Walk through the old mining chambers 500ft underground

Look up at the tips that surround the town

Ride the Ffestiniog Railway that carried the slate to Porthmadog

The slate landscape of north-west Wales became a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 July 2021. At Blaenau Ffestiniog the slate was mined rather than quarried, and the Oakeley mine here became the largest underground slate mine in the world; Llechwedd runs tours down into the caverns, and the town still sits under grey tips on every side.

Blaenau Ffestiniog: The Slate Landscape That Roofed the World

Walk the walls of Beaumaris Castle, begun in 1295 and never finished

Trace the concentric plan: the moated outer ward and the inner ward inside it

Go through Beaumaris Gaol, built in 1829, and find its treadmill

Walk out on Beaumaris Pier over the Menai Strait

See Thomas Telford's Menai Suspension Bridge of 1826 from the Anglesey Coastal Path below it

Edward I began Beaumaris in 1295, once he had put down the rising of Madog ap Llywelyn, with James of St George directing the work, and it was never finished. The historian Arnold Taylor called it Britain's most perfect example of symmetrical concentric planning: a moated outer ward with twelve towers and two gatehouses around an inner ward with six great towers and two D-shaped gatehouses. It is part of a World Heritage Site. In the town, the gaol built in 1829 has one of the last working penal treadmills in Britain, which pumped water up to the cells, and along the Menai Strait is Thomas Telford's suspension bridge of 1826, one of the first major suspension bridges in the world.

Beaumaris: Edward I's Unfinished Castle and the Gaol

Walk up past the old copper and slate workings on the north-east slopes

Reach the summit cairn above Coniston Water

Look down into the Coppermines valley behind the fell

The Old Man rises straight out of Coniston village to 802 metres, with well-marked paths that make it a popular climb. Its north-east slopes are a working record of eight hundred years of copper and slate mining, and the abandoned levels, quarries and spoil tips are as much the point of the walk as the summit. The rock changes as you go: volcanic tuffs across the top, sandstones on the southern slopes.

The Old Man of Coniston: Copper, Slate and a Summit Over the Lake

Go up onto Striding Edge and traverse the arête

Walk the summit plateau between Lower Man and the top of Striding Edge

Start and finish at Glenridding on Ullswater

Helvellyn is the third-highest point in England, and easier to reach than the two above it, which is why it was one of the earliest fells to become popular with walkers. The east face holds three deep glacial coves and two knife-edged ridges — Striding Edge and Swirral Edge — with Red Tarn in the cove between them. The artist Charles Gough died on Striding Edge in 1805 and is better remembered for that than for anything he painted.