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More About Lodges and Log Cabins on the North Wales Coast

West of that, Bangor sits on the Menai Strait. That is the narrow channel between the mainland and Anglesey, and Caernarfon is fifteen minutes south. Behind Bangor the Carneddau rise straight off the coast, the northernmost high ground of Eryri (Snowdonia).

At the eastern end the country changes again. Caerwys sits back in the hills behind Prestatyn. It looks like a village, but Edward I gave it a town charter in 1290, with the same standing as Conwy and Ruthin.

Caerwys is a curiosity. An eisteddfod is a Welsh contest of poetry and music, and this is where the modern one began. Henry VIII called one at Caerwys in 1523, to set down the rules of Welsh verse. Its streets still run in the grid they were laid out in, which is why somewhere this small still looks like a town.

The Carneddau behind Penmaenmawr, Llanfairfechan and Bangor were grazed and quarried long before anyone came here for a week away. The Clwydian range at the other end carries a line of hillforts along its top. Penycloddiau and Moel Arthur are two of them, each a ring of earth banks you can walk round.

From Bangor the Ogwen valley is about twenty minutes by road. Llyn Ogwen is the lake at the top of it, with the mountain of Tryfan rising straight off the roadside. You can put in a full day on the ridges either side and still get back to the sea by evening.

Zip World’s Velocity still runs from the old slate quarry at Penrhyn, ten minutes inland from Bangor, on what it calls the fastest zip line in the world. The A55 runs past the quarry and on along the coast, so a morning on the hill and an afternoon by the sea is an easy day.

From Bangor that road puts Chester and its Roman walls about an hour east, and Holyhead and the Irish ferries about forty minutes west. It is dual carriageway most of the way, which is what makes either of them a day out rather than a trek.

At Prestatyn the Offa’s Dyke Path reaches the sea after 177 miles up from Chepstow. It follows the earth bank that Offa, an eighth-century king of middle England, threw up along the Welsh border. Walk the last mile of that path and you turn straight onto the beach.

At the Conwy end it is the valley that draws people. Rowen and Trefriw sit on the quiet western side of the river, with lanes rather than main roads. Conwy, its castle and its walls are ten minutes down the valley.