While staying on the outskirts of Bangor to visit the nearby Snowdonia National Park in North Wales, we decided to take a day out from our National Park activities to instead drive across the Menai Strait to the Isle of Anglesey.
Having never visited this part of Wales before, we’d done a bit of research on places to visit on the island and had a long list of stops which we knew we couldn’t possibly get through in one day. Without an exact itinerary, we drove across the Britannia Bridge into Anglesey to see where the day would take us. We’d certainly chosen the right day as the sun was shining and the sky overhead was bright blue!
Our first stop was our one definite ‘must do’ photo opportunity of the day in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch!! This town has the longest place name in the World and after parking up at the train station we had a lot of fun trying to pronounce it using the helpful phonetically written out signs dotted around to help us. After a quick look around the souvenir store next door, it was back in the car to decide where to head to next.
With it still being early, we decided to drive right across to the west side of the island to try and beat the crowds at South Stack Lighthouse, just outside of the town of Holyhead. Managing to grab a parking space on the second closest car park, we were glad we’d decided to make this our next stop as we watched cars who’d followed us have to circle the car park and leave to park further out. As expected, the carpark wasn’t cheap so we paid the lowest rate which allowed us an hour’s stay. We didn’t plan to go into the lighthouse or even into the visitors’ centre so we figured this would be enough time to walk to a lighthouse viewpoint and back.
We followed a a path out from the back of the car park turning right towards the lighthouse. Soon we were on the Anglesey coast path enjoying pretty coastal views down towards the lighthouse. We spent a while taking photos, enjoying the scenery and wandering along the various paths to get different views. Then, with a bit of time on our parking ticket still left, we retraced our steps and then followed the coast path in the other direction for a while for more beautiful views.
Next we drove the short distance back towards Holyhead to Breakwater Country Park. From here, it was possible to access the coast path again and we followed it in the direction of Holyhead, the marina there soon coming into view. With the sun still shining down on us, the views along the coast path were really beautiful and when we turned back, we realised we’d inadvertently walked a lot further than we’d thought we had! Back at the country park, we grabbed our picnic lunch from the car and sat out on a bench overlooking a pretty duck-filled pond to eat it.
Deciding not to stop in Holyhead itself, we continued north-east next following the coast to the next bay, Cemaes Bay. Unfortunately, with it now being the busiest part of the day and with everyone making the most of the sunshine and rushing to the beaches, we were unable to find a parking spot so had to drive on.
The same happened at the next spot, Bull Bay where all the on-road parking spots were taken and car parks full. Wondering if this was going to be the case for the rest of the day now, we continued our drive. Spotting a large lay-by area at the top of the hill just outside of Bull Bay, we decided to pull in to look at the map and decide where to head next. We were excited to find an ice cream stand in the lay-by so we bought an ice cream each and sat enjoying the view for a while.
We decided to try one more of the places we had listed along this stretch of coast, the next town along, Almwych, and this time we were lucky. Here we found a much quieter (and free!) car park by the port.
Following the road out of the car park alongside the port and past the Copper Kingdom attraction, we picked up the coast path by the cliff top Y llofft Cafe and began to walk in the direction of Point Lynas. The views, with the sun shining down on the glistening, clear blue sea and the wild flowers blooming, were stunning. Not having time to walk all the way to Point Lynas and back, we turned around after a while and retraced our steps back to Almwych Port.
It was now late afternoon and we needed to start to make our way back towards the town of Menai Bridge where we had a dinner reservation booked at a US-style BBQ restaurant. We had time for one more stop and decided to make our way towards Beaumaris. Instead of stopping in the town itself, we chose instead to make another coastal stop at Llandona Beach.
Following the signposts and sat nav directions we found ourselves on a narrow, winding road with a rather steep descent down to the beach. Hoping we wouldn’t meet a car driving towards us in the other direction, we slowly made our way down eventually reaching a flatter road leading to the car park. Arriving late enough that parking charges no longer applied, we parked up and made our way through the dunes onto the pretty stretch of sand.
After a stroll along the beach, we made our way back to the car and back up the steep hill to drive to Menai Bridge for dinner before making our way back across the bridge to the mainland.
It had been a whistle-stop tour of the Isle of Anglesey but we’d really enjoyed our day and I’d definitely like to return and explore more!
Miss Travels 