Ar wyliau yn yr Gogledd - Mehefin 2025

We have just had a lovely week on holiday in North Wales. We stayed in a holiday cottage near our favourite beach, Dinas Dinlle (which my Cymraeg twtor, Lynne. described as "Gothic") and had some fun revisiting some favourite places and discovering new things. 

One of those new things was climbing the hill fort at the southern end of Dinas Dinlle. 

But the main thing was just walking the length of the beach, and occasionally having a sit and being lulled by the waves. 

We weren't far from Caernarfon Airport (originally an RAF base in World War 2 and the place where the Mountain Rescue Service was founded) but it was too windy all week for us to take a sightseeing flight. Next time!

There are a couple more blog posts to follow, but in the meantime, here are some of the places we visited:

Bangor Pier is no longer Pier of the Year, but we had great views down the Menai Strait all the way over to the Great Orme.

The FAW were promoting the Women's European Championships with a giant inflatable shirt outside Caernarfon Castle, so we went along and had a photo with it. 

I was quite pleased to have a few opportunities to practice my Cymraeg. I feel hesitant sometimes, but everyone I spoke to was very supportive and encouraging. 

We went to Y Galeri in Caernarfon to watch Elio, the latest Pixar film. I went in knowing very little about the film, but enjoyed it. The central message about a little boy wanting to be anywhere but on Earth was poignant, and then when he gets his wish and meets aliens, he has to decide where he wants to be. 

We also had a couple of trips to Anglesey, including to Oriel Mon, outside Llangefni. 

I wasn't too fussed on the main exhibition, which featured work by Leonard McComb even though it included a big shiny bronze statue. 

However, the themed exhibition of Anglesey Windmills was very good, with the two paintings by Kyffin Williams really anchoring the displays. 

And I thought this political artwork made a good point.

After Oriel Mon we had a short stop in Beaumaris for ice creams. We bought them just in time for a rain squall to break over us so ended up eating them in the car as the rain battered down. That made it feel like a proper North Wales holiday!

And so, after a very lovely week, we bade farewell to Dinas Dinlle.

Wythnos mewn Gogledd (a week in the North)

Last week, Cathy and I had a lovely week in North Wales. We were based in Caernarfon, right next to the castle. 

When I say, next to the castle, this was the view from the table where we had breakfast each morning.

Of course we did have a look around the castle. There were some displays relating to the investiture of Charles as the Prince of Wales in 1969. That was suddenly very relevant as we were in the national week of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II, which meant Charles was now King. I predict a lot of those displays will be updated soon.

In the meantime, the flags were flying at half mast. I noticed the Welsh flag was flying slightly higher than the Union flag. 

The large round dais was installed in 1969 for the Investiture. 

Caernarfon castle has lots of corridors, walkways and winding stairs to explore.

That wasn't the only castle we visited. We also went to Conwy, which I don't remember doing before. We climbed every tower in the castle and enjoyed great views of the estuary and the town.

What else is North Wales famous for? Well, it also has mountains. We were able to see the Snowdon horseshoe while we ate a picnic lunch one day, although Snowdon itself was being shy and hiding in the cloud.

It's also famous for trains. We were staying very near the Northern terminus of the Welsh Highland Railway and saw the engine steaming up on a few mornings. 

The loco on the Welsh Highland Railway was built in Belgium and used in South Africa before ending up in Wales. However, the diddy steam engine used on the Llanberis Lake Railway was used in the slate quarries during its working life. It's about the size of a Landrover and just too cute! 

The engine was steaming up outside the shed, next to a blue diesel locomotive that also had some personality. 

We saw the Snowdon Mountain Railway train depart from Llanberis as well, but that was being pushed up the mountain by a diesel engine rather than the steam engine, so I'm not including a photo of that.

We decided to have a day on Anglesey - here's a picture of Anglesey and Puffin Island taken on the way back from Conwy.

Our first stop on Anglesey was Oriel Mon, a great little art gallery and museum which houses an exhibition in honour of Welsh artist Kyffin Williams. There's a statue outside - time for a celebrity selfie!

Oriel Mon also has a selection of artworks by Charles Tunnicliffe, a wildlife artist whose work featured on everything from nature books to those collectible cards that used to be in boxes of tea. 

We drove around the island looking at a few beaches before ending up in Beaumaris for a short look around the town. We did Beaumaris castle on a previous trip and we were a bit castled out after Conwy and Caernarfon so we didn't visit it again this time. 

On the final day of our holiday we went into Bangor and visited Bangor Pier which has just won 'Pier of the Year'. Walking out on the pier took us about halfway back to Anglesey. 

The views along the Menai Strait were fantastic, but our favourite discovery was Dinas Dinlle beach, which we went back to a few times during the course of the week. The views here down to the sharp coastal mountains of the Northern edge of the Llyn Peninsular and out to the horizon beyond the Western edge of Anglesey are all captured in this panoramic shot. 

Dinas Dinlle is a rocky beach with an astounding array of different pebbles. (Some of them might have travelled home with us!) We drove the long way back into Caernarfon, along the edge of the tidal reaches of the Menai Strait covered in flocks of birds including egrets, sandpipers, oystercatchers, herons and curlews. 

It was a very full week, with castles, steam trains, mountains and beaches, and yet it feels like there was still a lot more to see. Maybe next time!