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Anglesey & the North Coast

This compact region can be boiled down to two essential things: castles and coast. Yes, there are look-at-me castles all over Wales, but few attract more admiring stares than the glamorous trio of Caernarfon, Conwy and Beaumaris, which is why they're recognised as World Heritage Sites today. As for the coast, there's a reason that Llandudno has been crowned 'the Queen of Welsh Resorts'. Its genteel appeal stands in stark contrast to the altogether more wild edges of the Isle of Anglesey, where the echoes of the ancients can be heard in the waves that batter South Stack and the breezes that eddy around clifftop barrows.

Attractions

Must-see attractions

Caernarfon Castle
Anglesey & the North Coast
Majestic Caernarfon Castle was built by Edward I between 1283 and 1330 as a military stronghold, seat of government and royal palace. Designed and mainly…
Conwy Castle
Anglesey & the North Coast
Caernarfon is more complete, Harlech more dramatically positioned and Beaumaris more technically perfect, yet out of the four castles that compose the…
Bodnant Garden
Anglesey & the North Coast
Laid out in 1875 and painstakingly landscaped over 150 years, Bodnant is one of Wales’ most beautiful gardens. Lord Aberconway of the McLaren family …
Penrhyn Castle
Anglesey & the North Coast
Funded by the vast profits from the slate mine of Caribbean sugar-plantation owner and anti-abolitionist Baron Penrhyn, and extended and embellished by…
Bodnant Welsh Food
Anglesey & the North Coast
On the west side of the vast Bodnant Estate, a collection of lavishly restored 18th-century farm buildings now operates as Bodnant Welsh Food. One of the…
Storiel
Anglesey & the North Coast
The title 'Storiel', a portmanteau of the Welsh words for 'story' and 'gallery', signals the combined historical and artistic focus of this well-curated…
Plas Mawr
Anglesey & the North Coast
Completed in 1585 for merchant and courtier Robert Wynn, Plas Mawr is one of Britain's finest surviving Elizabethan town houses. The tall, whitewashed…
Royal Cambrian Academy
Anglesey & the North Coast
Founded in 1881, given the royal imprimatur by Queen Victoria in 1882, and still going strong, the Cambrian runs a full calendar of exhibitions by its…