North Wales from Rhyl

Rhyl is a better base for exploring North Wales than it's usually given credit for. The A55 expressway runs right through the town, the railway connects east and west, and within an hour's drive you have castles, mountains, some of the finest beaches in Britain, and enough to fill a fortnight. This is a guide to what's around you.

The North Wales Coast

Head west from Rhyl along the A55 and the coast road and the character changes steadily. Colwyn Bay, eight miles west, has a redeveloped seafront at Porth Eirias with a watersports centre and improving beach. Beyond that, Llandudno — the grande dame of Welsh resorts — sits at the foot of the Great Orme headland with its Victorian promenade largely intact, a pier, two beaches, and a significantly more developed restaurant and hotel offer than Rhyl. If you want to see what a North Wales resort looks like when it kept its Victorian architecture and held its visitor numbers, Llandudno is the answer. Allow a full day.

Conwy, fifteen miles west, is one of the great medieval towns of Britain: a thirteenth-century town wall still intact, one of Edward I's finest castles sitting above the estuary, and a historic quayside with the smallest house in Britain on it. The castle is a World Heritage Site and deserves two to three hours. The town itself — compact, walkable, with good independent shops and cafés — is an excellent half-day. Most visitors to Rhyl don't go. They should.

Caernarfon, forty miles west, is the centrepiece of the Edwardian castle network — the most impressive of the lot, enormous and largely intact, the site of the investiture of the Prince of Wales. The town has a complex relationship with Welsh identity and a working-class pride that isn't unlike Rhyl's own. Worth combining with Llanberis and Snowdon on a full-day western excursion.

Anglesey sits across the Menai Strait from Caernarfon, reached by the Britannia or Menai suspension bridges. It is a different world: low, agricultural, sparsely populated, with a coastline that includes some of the finest beaches in Britain — Newborough Warren, Llanddwyn Island, the Silver Bay area around Rhosneigr. The island town of Beaumaris has one of the most perfect medieval castles in Europe (concentric, moated, never finished) and a charming Georgian high street. Holyhead, on the western tip of the island, is the ferry port for Dublin — less scenic but with the dramatic spectacle of the Irish ferry coming and going. Allow a full day for Anglesey; two days if you want to do it properly.

Inland: The Vale of Clwyd and Beyond

Drive south from Rhyl and you enter the Vale of Clwyd, one of the loveliest inland valleys in North Wales. St Asaph, five miles south, is the smallest city in the UK by population, its thirteenth-century cathedral containing the oldest Welsh-language Bible in existence. Denbigh, ten miles south, has a spectacular ruined hilltop castle and a characterful market town that retains more independent traders than most. Ruthin, fifteen miles south, is a well-preserved medieval market town with a hotel in the old gaol, a farmers' market, and a relaxed, prosperous feel very different from the coast.

Llangollen, thirty miles south-east, is one of the most dramatic small towns in Wales: the River Dee rushing through it, the ruins of Castell Dinas Brân on the hill above, the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) carrying the Llangollen Canal across the valley nineteen metres up. The International Eisteddfod brings performers from around the world each July. Wrexham, further east, is the largest town in North Wales and has reinvented itself around football — Wrexham AFC's rise under Hollywood ownership has brought unexpected international attention to a town that had been largely invisible to outsiders for decades.

Snowdonia

The Snowdonia National Park begins around twenty miles south-west of Rhyl. Betws-y-Coed is the most popular gateway: a Victorian tourist village at the confluence of three rivers, with good walking, a famous waterfall (Swallow Falls), and a concentration of outdoor gear shops. It gets very busy in summer; arrive early. Llanberis, at the foot of Snowdon, is where the Snowdon Mountain Railway departs for the summit — a Victorian rack-and-pinion railway that is one of the classic experiences of Wales; book well in advance for summer weekends.

Harlech, on the western edge of Snowdonia, has a castle so dramatically situated above its beach that it barely seems real. The approach from the coast road — the castle suddenly appearing above you against the Snowdonian sky — is one of the great views of Wales. Porthmadog, just north, is the home of the Ffestiniog Railway and the nearby Portmeirion — the Italianate village built by Clough Williams-Ellis from 1925 that served as the filming location for The Prisoner. The combination makes for a genuinely unusual day out. Beddgelert, in the heart of the mountains, is one of the prettiest villages in Wales, with the legend of Gelert the hound and walking in every direction.

Further: Mid and South Wales

If you're making a longer trip of it: Aberystwyth, on the Cardigan Bay coast, is a university town with a Victorian pier, a cliff railway, the National Library of Wales, and some of the best fish and chips on the west coast. It's about 90 minutes from Rhyl and worth it as a long day out if the weather is kind. Barmouth, halfway down the coast, has a magnificent estuary setting and a long beach that's less visited than Rhyl but every bit as good on a fine day.

Cardiff and Swansea are within reach for those making a longer Wales trip — both around three hours from Rhyl. Cardiff has transformed itself into a genuine European capital; Swansea is Dylan Thomas's city, with a Marina and the Gower Peninsula beyond it offering some of the finest coastal scenery in Britain.

Chester

Don't overlook Chester, forty minutes east. It is technically in England but it is the historic capital of the region: Roman walls intact, a cathedral, the famous two-tiered black-and-white Rows shopping galleries, a racecourse on the Dee meadows, and a well-preserved city centre that rewards a full day's exploration. Many visitors to Rhyl pass through Chester on the way and don't stop. Stop.

Getting Around