Snowdonia & North Wales

Llanddewi Brefi
We headed out early Saturday and after a couple hours drive and passing 22 places that began with Llan we arrived at Llanddewi Brefi. Little Britain fans may be familiar with Daffyd, the only gay in the village. Poor Llanddewi Brefi apparently has its road signs stolen on a very regualr basis - but we were lucky, the road signs were there!
Snowdon
By the time we arrived at Llanberis and I could finally get mobile reception and found out that The Mighty Pies had won!! LLanberis was now about the 35th Llan.. place we had passed or seen - what is it with the Welsh? It would be like naming places in Melbourne with the prefix Melb or Vic, imagine that! (Llan means church.) Llanberis is at the base of Mt. Snowdon (Wales highest mountain, 1113 m)and this is where Hilary and his team did their training for Everest. We intended to catch the Mountain Railway to the summit, but unfortunately we couldn't get a ticket - apparently you need to book ahead!! So we had lunch and went for a walk to the waterfall.
From Llanberis, we back-tracked to Beddgelert (means Gelert's grave). Beddgelert is a pretty little village in Snowdonia, who's claim to fame is the grave of a dog! I think we must be getting desperate for things to see!! Apparently Prince Llewelyn, a 13th century prince, killed his faithful dog, Gelert, cause he saw blood all over the dog's mouth and believed that it had savaged his baby son, when Gelert had in fact killed a wolf that had attacked the infant. Others believe that it was an 19th century hotelier's invention to boost tourist numbers!
Caernarfon
After leaving Beedgelert and almost circumnavigating Snowdon, we headed to Caernarfon. Caernarfon is on the Menai Strait, which separates North of Wales from Anglesey and about 10 miles from Mt. Snowdon. There is a grand medieval castle and a walled city situated on the Menai strait.
LLanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
From Caernarfon we crossed the Menai Strait and first stopped at Britain's longest named place, LLanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which means "St. Mary's Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel near a Rapid Whirpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the Red Cave". Once again it was a 19th century tourist idea and it still works!
Menai Bridge and Beaumaris
From Llanfair PG, we headed along the shoreline towards Beaumaris, which is a lovely seaside resort town with an old castle. Beaumaris sits at the other end of the Menai strait from Caernarfon. Next we crossed the Menai Bridge and had a quick look at Bangor before headed to our accommodation at Conwy.
Conwy
We stayed at the Youth Hostel and arrived about 6 pm. After settling in we walked into the city - once again a walled city with a glorious castle. We had fish and chips for dinner on the wharf just near the castle and then headed back for an early night.
Llandudno
After brekky on Sunday morning we headed to Llandudno (I think the "llan" count was up to 46 at this point) a few miles from Conwy. Llandudno is your classic British seaside resort. It has a lovely promenade along the beach, hotels lining the promenade, a pier with amusements, a cable car and tramway up the near mountain (the Great Orme) and water on both sides of the town.
The average age of the people we saw there was about 75, so I think it might be one of God's waiting rooms. We drove up to the Great Orme summit, but there was a sea mist blocking most of the views. After spending a couple of hours or so in Llandudno, we drove along the coastline of North Wales and then headed to Llangollen (another Llan!).
Llangollen
Llangollen is a lovely little town which has a canal designed by the 18th century engineer Thomas Telford. Telford's masterpiece is the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, about 316 m long, which carrys the canal 48 metres above the River Dee. An amazing engineering feat! While we were there at least 10 canal boats crossed the aqueduct. Llangollen itself was very busy today and there were hundred's of motorcyclists.
Shrewsbury
Our last stop was Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury's claim to fame is that it is the birthplace of Charles Darwin - so there were many references to Darwin. It has a nice little castle and an Abbey and has a lot of Tudor style buildings.

So we almost did a whole lap of Wales on the weekend and were blessed with very nice weather, about 20 C and very little wind (except from Kristin!!). All the photos have been posted on the Web Albums.

cheers!
PS the final "llan" count was 54!