Gwynedd
GWYNEDD sits at the heart of north-west Wales, where mountains plunge to wide sandy bays and heritage runs as deep as the slate seams beneath your feet. Much of the county is covered by Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park, Wales’s largest, home to Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) and Llyn Tegid, the country’s biggest natural lake – so you’re never far from a skyline of jagged ridges, mirror-calm waters and winding valley lanes.
This is a proudly Welsh-speaking place: Gwynedd has the highest proportion of Welsh speakers in Wales (64.4 per cent at the 2021 Census), and you’ll hear the language in cafés, on mountain trails and at local markets. It lends everyday life here a distinctive rhythm – one of the county’s most compelling charms for visitors.
History lovers are spoiled. Caernarfon and Harlech form half of the UNESCO-listed ‘Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd’, masterpieces of medieval military architecture that still dominate their waterfront settings. Climb a tower, walk the walls and you’ll see why this quartet (completed in the late 13th and early 14th Centuries) is considered among Europe’s finest.
Gwynedd is also the cradle of a more recent UNESCO story: The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales, inscribed in 2021. From Blaenau Ffestiniog to Bethesda, the re-imagined quarries, tramways and workers’ rows tell how this landscape once “roofed the world”. Start with the National Slate Museum in Llanberis, set in the Dinorwig quarry workshops, then fan out to explore the six character areas that make up the designation.
If you prefer your heritage moving, climb aboard one of the world’s great narrow-gauge networks: the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways. Steam from Porthmadog through the Vale of Ffestiniog to slate-scarred mountainsides, or from Caernarfon beneath Eryri’s peaks – all on beautifully restored lines with storybook stations.
The county’s coast is just as beguiling. The Llŷn Peninsula, much of it a protected Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, unspools a necklace of beaches, fishing villages and dolphin-dotted headlands. Base yourself in Abersoch for watersports and family-friendly sands, detour to wide-open Black Rock Sands at Morfa Bychan, and walk sections of the Wales Coast Path for big-sky views all the way to Bardsey Sound.
Iconic day-outs come thick and fast. Ride the rack-and-pinion Snowdon Mountain Railway from Llanberis to the summit of Yr Wyddfa (on operating days), or wander the pastel arcades and Italianate piazzas of Portmeirion, a coastal village like nowhere else in Britain. Thrill-seekers can launch themselves on Velocity at Zip World Penrhyn Quarry – billed as the world’s fastest zip line – with sweeping views across Eryri.
Away from the headlines, towns such as Dolgellau, Porthmadog and Pwllheli brim with independent shops and cafés, while Bangor – Wales’s oldest city and home to an 1880s university – adds youthful energy and arts venues. Mountain bikers flock to Coed y Brenin’s purpose-built trails; walkers can stitch together castle-to-coast days on quiet rights-of-way.
Gwynedd blends big-ticket sights with everyday authenticity. In a single weekend you can hike a national park giant, castle-hop between UNESCO icons, steam through slate country, paddle off a golden beach and order your cawl or paned in Welsh. It’s Wales concentrated – wild, cultured and wonderfully welcoming.
AROUND WALES – A REGIONAL GUIDE
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