North Wales: Castles, the Llŷn and Eryri

Editor's note

Two nights at Conwy, where Edward I built the castle and town walls together between 1283 and 1289. Walk the walls right round the medieval town, tour Plas Mawr, the Elizabethan townhouse of 1576, and find the smallest house in Great Britain on the quay, 1.8m wide. At Llandudno, ride the Great Orme Tramway, opened in 1902 and 1903 and still running its original cars, and walk the 700m pier of 1877, the longest in Wales. Above the Conwy valley, Bodnant Garden covers 80 acres of terraces, woodland and the Dell; its Laburnum Arch, the longest in the UK, flowers in May and June.

Editor's note

Two nights for Caernarfon and Anglesey. Edward I began Caernarfon Castle in 1283, and its banded walls and polygonal towers recall the walls of Constantinople; inside are the Eagle Tower and the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum, and the Princes of Wales were invested here in 1911 and 1969. Beaumaris, begun in 1295 and never finished, sets a moated outer ward round an inner ward of six great towers, and the town gaol of 1829 has one of the last working penal treadmills in Britain. Boats from Beaumaris circle Puffin Island between Easter and October, past more than 750 cormorants, puffins and the ruins of a 12th-century monastery.

Editor's note

Three nights at the end of the Llŷn. Medieval pilgrims ate at Y Gegin Fawr in Aberdaron before the crossing to Bardsey, and St Hywyn's Church on the shore dates from 1137. Walk the coast path, climb Mynydd Mawr and walk the four-mile beach at Porth Neigwl, Hell's Mouth. Boats cross from Porth Meudwy to Ynys Enlli from March to October when the weather allows: find the abbey ruins and the lighthouse, look for Manx shearwaters and choughs, and stay after dark for the Milky Way; the nights are darkest at the end of the season. Criccieth Castle, begun in the 1230s, stands on a headland between two beaches.

Editor's note

Two nights for Portmeirion and Harlech. Clough Williams-Ellis built Portmeirion on the Dwyryd estuary between 1925 and 1975; Noël Coward wrote Blithe Spirit here, and in the 1960s it was 'the Village' in The Prisoner. Edward I built Harlech Castle on a rock close to the Irish Sea, with a water gate and steps to the shore so it could be supplied under siege. Walk down the Way from the Sea. The siege of 1461 to 1468 is remembered in 'Men of Harlech'. At Barmouth, walk the footway across the railway bridge over the Mawddach, then follow the Mawddach Trail, nine flat miles to Dolgellau.

Editor's note

Two nights in Eryri. Drive the Llanberis Pass from Capel Curig over Pen-y-Pass, 359m up, between the Snowdon massif and the Glyderau; the crags on either side made it one of the birthplaces of British rock climbing. From Pen-y-Pass, the Miners' Track is the gentlest of the six main routes up Snowdon: 6.6km with 726m of climbing, over the causeway on Llyn Llydaw and past the old copper mine to Glaslyn and the 1,085m summit. Tryfan's north ridge, from the A5 in the Ogwen valley, has no walking route to the top: you use your hands the whole way to Adam and Eve, the two monoliths on the summit.