North Wales from Holyhead

Editor's note

Three nights around Beaumaris, Conwy and Llandudno. Walk the walls of Beaumaris Castle, begun by Edward I in 1295 and never finished, then find the water-pumping treadmill in the gaol of 1829. Boats circle Puffin Island from Beaumaris between Easter and October, past more than 750 cormorants, puffins and the ruins of a 12th-century monastery. In Conwy, the castle and town walls went up together between 1283 and 1289 and still stand almost whole; look for the smallest house in Great Britain on the quay. Ride the Great Orme Tramway, and catch Bodnant's Laburnum Arch, the longest in the UK, in flower in May or June.

Editor's note

Two nights in Eryri. Snowdon, Yr Wyddfa, is the highest mountain in Wales at 1,085m, and the Miners' Track from Pen-y-Pass is the gentlest of its six main routes: 6.6km with 726m of climbing, over the 1853 causeway across Llyn Llydaw and past the old copper mine to Glaslyn. At the top, the toposcope in Hafod Eryri names 100 places in view. Tryfan, above the Ogwen valley, has no walking route to its summit. The north ridge from the A5 is a scramble with hands on rock the whole way up to Adam and Eve, the two 3m monoliths on top.

Editor's note

One night between Portmeirion and Harlech. Clough Williams-Ellis built Portmeirion on the Dwyryd estuary between 1925 and 1975; walk through it, find where Noël Coward wrote Blithe Spirit and the places used as the Village in The Prisoner, then go down to the estuary. Edward I built Harlech Castle on a rock near the Irish Sea so it could be supplied by water under siege. Walk down the Way from the Sea, the water gate and steps that kept it fed in 1294–95. Its siege of 1461 to 1468 inspired 'Men of Harlech', and the sea has since pulled back to leave a beach below.

Editor's note

One last night at Aberdaron, the final village on the Llŷn Peninsula, before heading back to Holyhead. Medieval pilgrims gathered here for the dangerous crossing to Bardsey and ate first at Y Gegin Fawr, the pilgrims' kitchen. St Hywyn's Church stands on the shore, built in 1137 and called the Cathedral of Llŷn; the poet R. S. Thomas was its vicar from 1967 to 1978. Walk a stretch of the Llŷn Coastal Path, climb Mynydd Mawr above the village, or go east to the four-mile beach at Porth Neigwl, Hell's Mouth.