Blogs from Betws-y-Coed, Conwy, Wales, United Kingdom, Europe

Hello from Wales Another few days have passed since the last blog and we are now in North Wales in a lovely little village set in the mountains near Snowdonia so it is quite cold and very rainy!! We arrived yesterday afternoon after a lovely couple of days in the Peak District, Derbyshire in a village called Asford-in - water, beautiful countryside, not that we have seen any that isn't, we even did a 18 mile push bike ride along an old dis-used railway line to blow a few cobwebs away and hopefully shed a few extra pounds!! We met up with Katherine and Bryan yesterday at Betwsy and because of the rain we found ourselves at the nearest pub catching up on what we had been doing over the last week over a few ales ... read more

The following day was mainly a driving day. We headed into Wales and this meant we would get a break from heritage sites – our card was only for England and we were too tight to pay to see anything else. Not too tight, though, to try and avoid the toll bridge from Cornwall to Wales – we're talking an extra 4 hours on the trip. We were in Wales. Not a lot different to England, this southern part – pretty country, lots of pubs called the Red Lion - save that the BBC Cymru station was in Welsh – truly a wacky language. Somebody needs to donate these people some vowels. We made our way to the coast and found ourselves in the tiny town of Newgale. The name was appropriate – the wind was ... read more

I'm not in Betws-y-coed, but close by - the Tyn-y-coed in Capel Curig. Have just added a map to this entry. Wish there was a way to highlight the bits that are driving as opposed to the bits that are hiking. Guess I'll have to leave that to your powers of deduction, if there's no road, it's probably hiking ;-) So, the day dawned with patchy sunshine and cloud dangling on the hills at about 1800ft. Every summit on today's trek is above 2000ft so there's likely to be some navigation in cloud. But I set off with confidence high that the forecast will be right and the clouds will either lift or burn off by midday. 9am start from Bethania and I'm following the trail known as the Watkin path - a "round the back" ... read more

To get to Capel Curig, it took a full days travel on the train and a short bus ride from Betws-y-Coed. The weather wasn't the best so we decided to go on one of the shorter local walks that took about 3 hours. This went in a big circle around our hostel and we knew that there were exits along the way so we could bail if the weather turned really bad. It started to drizzel about half way round but we completed the walk as we knew that the hostel had a drying room, we didn't really get that wet. We enquired what else there was to do and there was the Snowdon railway that takes you up Mt Snowdon, but because of the weather, we were told the on thing you saw was fog ... read more

All plans execute as planed. Right? 2009, Oct 19th and 20th Well, I had planned to pick up the Dee Way in Chester and follow it to Bala. Oddly enough though I can’t seem to find anyone who knows anything about the Dee Way path. Nothing in the various tourists information centers nor could I find any markers on the Dee river or Canals. I guess this is the difference between a national trail and a more regional one that is fairly new. With no real way to identify how to proceed and having no fixed plans I decided to travel to the Snowdonia region of Northern Wales. Betws-y-Coed to be specific. Betws-y-Coed is a beautiful outdoorsman and walkers delight. Dozens of walks all of which are near the town itself most of which are easy ... read more

...and we were off for another browse, this time to Wales - North Wales, UK! For some reason, we all have always been a fan of Last Minute adventures and planning for this trip was no different any of the previous ones. Alike, previous trips I was struggling to get good deals for accomodation and transportation.. Without going off the tangent, we decided to explore North Wales during Christmas vacation this year (2008), 'Decision was made 5 days prior to travel' without realizing this year's Christmas break is of 4 days at a stretch and it could be difficult to make arrangements (as, obviously, it was). However, as some wise person has said "Where there's a Will, there's a Way" and we found our way out. My previous experience with travelling and bookings lit a spark ... read more