UK Tourist & Leisure Attractions - Snowdonia

Poor Belinda almost got clouted by a golf ball due to Mike's poor aim!  Criccieth Castle is in the background on the other side of the beach which we headed to after a lovely pub lunch and a look round the Criccieth gift shops of course!

What a messy eater!  It was a lovely warm day at Criccieth on the Lleyn Peninsula; on the way up to Criccieth Castle we found an ice cream shop so couldn't resist.  Now is that a second ice he's got there or is it Belinda's?

Another picture in the bag.  Here's the view from Criccieth Castle, we could see all of Criccieth beach and town, and way in the distance we could spot Snowdon which we were off to climb the next day.

There were lots of little creatures in the Criccieth beach rock pools, left behind by the receding tide.  Still, at least it's more interesting on the beach (and cheaper) than the gift shops!

The main reason for visiting Snowdonia again was to climb up Snowdon; the worry was the foot and mouth situation at the time, but fortunately all the notices said it was open for walking.  So off we set taking the 'easy' path from Llanberis.

Now Mike's thinking that maybe climbing Snowdon was not such a good idea after all!  He lost his Pedometer on the track soon after starting and then the weather turned pretty nasty.  Hmmm - never mind, the only way is up, baby!

The last bit to the top of Snowdon was a real struggle, with the horizontal rain, biting gale and soaked to the skin despite our waterproofs.  At least there was a cafe (and gift shop!) on top to refresh in.  See our video clip of our efforts!

We wimped out and come back down on the Snowdon Mountain Railway. The journey took about an hour, the lower we got the better the weather became. Belinda had sufficiently recovered by the bottom to visit, yes, the gift shop!

The local pub near our Snowdonia holiday cottage turned out not to do food, despite their website indicating otherwise, so we knocked up some sausage, beans and chips - and another opportunity to try our hand at cleaning the saucepan!

The next day we visited Llandudno on the North Wales coast and walked out along the pier after enjoying lunch in a lovely pizza restaurant.  We also toured the shops and saw the donkey rides on the beach, amongst other things.

Here's Mike looking out over Llandudno from the Great Orme.  Unfortunatly the Skyway cable car was closed for repair as was the putting green next door, however we had a good walk to the Supermarket on the other side of town to get some food for the evening's meal.

On the last day of our holiday we decided to do another walk around Snowdonia, choosing the Miners Track from Pen-y-pass which took us past some spectacular scenery and lakes.  With no Pedometer, Mike was unable to report how far they'd walked every 10 steps!

On every holiday Mike finds a dry stone wall to try to kick down, in action here on the Miners Trail walk in Snowdonia.  Maybe it's the vandal in him or something in his beer, but he never succeeds of course.  Perhaps he needs to stay in more.

In the lounge of the Snowdonia cottage watching TV in the evening.  We never did get the fire going despite it seeming chilly and despite it being mid-summer!  Guess we're used to our warmer southern climes rather than the cooler Snowdonia climate.

On the holiday cottage doorstep on the day of departure.  We were woken early when the TV downstairs switched itself on at 5am and ignored it for a while thinking it was coming from next door!  Anyway, after packing our stuff it was time to head home after a lovely week in Snowdonia.

Belinda's got Mike well trained for these holidays, it was lucky he had his scrambled eggs for breakfast or he wouldn't have the energy to lift the cases to the car.  See our UK tourist links page for relevant links to Snowdonia websites and the video clips page for some videos!