Our plans for today were to start with a visit to Bodnant Garden. This huge garden was established in the 1870s and after being cared for by 5 generations of one family was handed over to the National Trust in 1949. There are 22,000 plants and a huge variety of species, in particular an enormous range of rhododendrons. They gardens are set around a lovely mansion and are arranged in a variety of terraces and spaces, with waterways, woods and meandering paths. I remember my parents photos from when they visited in the 1980s and knew I wanted to see it when we came to North Wales. As we weren’t going to get breakfast at our B & B we decided that we’d have a light snack in the Bodnant cafe which opened a half hour before the gardens. That meant we were one of the first people to walk into the gardens and felt like we had the huge space to ourselves for a while. We are a little late in the season to see the best of the rhododendrons but the rose terraces were stunning and the hydrangeas alongside the river were coming into bloom. It’s a beautiful place.
We spent all morning in the gardens but eventually found our way back to the exit and the car and set out to visit the nearby town of Conwy, and Conwy Castle. This castle is the third (and last) of Edward 1st castles in North Wales that we plan to visit. Like Caernarfon it is attached to the town via a set of encircling town walls, but these walls are far more complete ( in fact they’re the most complete medieaval town walls in Britain) Also, this is the best preserved of the four castles, the kings chapel still had some stained glass windows! Before visiting the castle we went for a walk around the town, up on the walls and along the waterfront where we came across the smallest town in Great Britain, only 72 inches wide!
After visit g the castle we grabbed a bit to eat in the cafe and I bought a welsh dragon Christmas decoration as a souvenir of our time in Wales . Then we drove back to Llandudno and drove out for a scenic drive around the “Great Orme”, which is a spectacular headland of limestone to the north-west of Llandudno. It is 3km long and
2 km wide, and rises to 207m at the summit and is covered mostly in grass and sheep! The summit has fantastic views out over the coastline and is a popular place for visitors who can get up there via a small tram, a cable car or by driving up via a toll road. It’s was pretty chilly when we got up there and the clouds had rolled in but the views were still striking.
it was late afternoon by now so we headed back to the B and B for a bit of a break before walking down into the town for dinner at The Snowdon pub. It was a lovely cozy pub and was full of people enjoying Friday evening drinks and dinner. Tomorrow we finally say goodbye to Wales and head back to England.
