TRAVEL around North Wales
Our holidays in 1998, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008 were in Llandudno, and there are a lot of
things to see and do, with plenty to explore.
We enjoy walking around the road which encircles the Great Orme; climbing up the Great Orme (several paths) and walking around the top; walking along the West Shore path to Conwy; walking along the Pier; walking, walking, walking... don't go for the beach it is full of huge boulders as a modern flood defence.
Conwy is worth a visit for its castle and a walk around the town walls. Towards the east of Llandudno there is good walking around the countryside and past the Little Orme is a beautiful Angel Bay and then a walk to Rhos.
Unfortunately most of the relevant web sites fail to offer
text navigation, relying on image only or even javascript.
Helpful note- it is best to ignore the Welsh Tourist Board star gradings for accommodation- they have little resemblance to the comfort and quality you are likely to find. It looks as if they use a standard tick box form (fridge- tick) and an oddly balanced way of adding them all up. I disagree strongly with their ideas of welcome, comfort and quality!
We had a short stay in one of the nicest bestest guest houses we have stayed in. Again I disagree with the Welsh Tourist Board gradings - this one, The Melbourne, Rhyl deserves five stars.
Whilst at Rhyl (Sun Centre- closed. Sky Tower- Closed. Land Train- not running. and so on...). We enjoyed walking around Denbigh with its splendid castle.
Rhyl is mostly very run down, apart from the sea front, which has in the last decade been badly redeveloped (underground paddling pool?) with the sea invisible from the marine road, and not easy to get to from the marine walk, which is reached with difficulty due to a long prison like concrete wall... but we did not find Rhyl quite the ghetto that some web comments indicate. We did find a very nice Welsh shop, with Welsh books and music - Siop y Morfa, where we learned about a pleasant local walk...
We had a pleasant walk along the River Clwyd from Rhyl to Rhuddlan, where the church was closed, and the castle was closed. We did however climb the motte - Twthill Motte.
Try a side trip to England- a train to Shrewsbury then to Ludlow, a splendid market town full of ancient buildings, you can climb the Church Tower and the Castle Keep. The castle is in private ownership but usually open.
The Mabinogion is THE classic ancient Welsh collection of stories. 585k text file from Gutenberg.
For the overseas Welsh communities, there are specific sections dealing with the Welsh in Ohio, USA-from archive.org- with English summaries of some Welsh documents, and in Patagonia. (from archive.org)
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