Croeso i Gymru — welcome to Wales. Say it out loud once and you’ll understand the country a little better. This is the heartland of the Welsh language, where the road signs come in two tongues and you’ll hear the old language spoken on the street, in the shops, in song.
North Wales packs an astonishing amount into a small space: breathtaking mountains, Victorian seaside towns, an expansive coastline, and — famously — more castles per square mile than anywhere else on the planet.
The iron ring
In the thirteenth century, Edward I tried to pin down the independence-minded Welsh with a chain of vast stone fortresses. We tour three of the greatest — Conwy, Caernarfon, and Beaumaris — each a UNESCO World Heritage Site, each wrapped around a storybook harbour town. They were built to intimidate. Eight hundred years later, they mostly just astonish.
Snowdonia by steam
You can drive through Eryri — Snowdonia — but you really ought to ride it. The vintage Ffestiniog Railway climbs from the coast into the mountains on tracks first laid to carry slate, and there’s no better seat in Wales than a carriage window as the peaks roll by.
An Italian village on a Welsh estuary
And then there’s Portmeirion: a pastel, Italianate fantasy village perched above a tidal estuary, built by one eccentric architect over half a century. It shouldn’t work. It absolutely does.
Our base: Llandudno
We settle in at Llandudno, the elegant Victorian resort whose surroundings so charmed a visiting Lewis Carroll that they found their way into Alice in Wonderland. The Great Orme rises straight out of the sea behind the town; the promenade curves away in front of it. Unpack once, and let North Wales come to you.
— Mike Healy, Celtic RnR Tours
