Home to the highest mountain in Wales, Britain’s second tallest mountain and tremendous National Park offering views across the sea to Ireland. This is to Wales what the Lake District to England. Welcome to Snowdonia.

The next stop in our recent UK road trip was Snowdonia National Park in North Wales. Just 69 miles coming from Liverpool via A55 starting North passing through Colwyn Bay to head South towards Bets-y-Coed appreciating the scenic drive. We arrived around lunch time. Our first little break was at Swallow Falls Waterfall (the highest continuous waterfall in Wales) and Caen’n y Coed (National Forest). 

Falls
Continuous waterfall

We did some trekking before the sunset and cautious about it we continued our journey to Capel Curig where we parked not too far from Plas y Brenin and walked for some minutes to appreciate a side view of the Snowdon and Glyder Fawr mountains.

Snowdon
Snowdon side view

After that we headed to Betws-y-Coed, an interesting village in the Cornwy valley in Caernarfonshire close to the Gwydir Forest, named for prayers in the forest.

Betws-y-Coed
Betws-y-Coed means prayerhouse-in-the-woods

Betws-y-Coed is truly a stunning woodland place at the foot of the mountains. Some people call it the Gateway to Snowdonia as they have easy access to great walks, bike trails and climbing paths. I’d recommend parking by St. Mary’s Church, a Victorian church built around 1870 in the centre of the village as it’s a great spot to start the walk as we did. From here, we headed to Point-y-Pair bridge, an historical location in the town with few coffee shops around to take a break and appreciate the exceptional area.

Betws-y-Coed
Close to Pont-y-Pair bridge

It was interesting that few times we tried to have coffee or buy some stuff at Spar (small supermarket) but none took any cards, so we realised we needed to withdraw some cash. In case you plan your visit, it would be a wise choice to carry some cash as ATMs are not everywhere and the very few ones would charge a commission per withdrawal. Parking areas are definitely getting way better and most of them take debit and credit cards instead of the traditional coins.

City Centre
Town Centre just steps away from the bridge to enjoy a cup of tea or coffee

At the end we were a bit in a rush to drive to our next destination as it was getting dark and the weather was not on our side, hence couldn’t invest the time we would have loved in here, although it was undoubtedly a remarkable place with some memorable views.