Welcome back! Following our rendezvous with the sea in the beautiful city of Llandudno on Saturday, the next day we set out at about 10am from our home and reached Llandwyn island located in Anglesey at about 12:30pm. It took us a little longer to reach here as it’s a little far from Manchester compared to Llandudno.
Llanddwyn is not quite an island because it is attached
to the mainland at all but the highest tides. It provides excellent views of
Snowdonia and the Lleyn Peninsula and is part of the Newborough Warren National
Nature Reserve.
Once at the parking lot, you need to get ready to
make your way up to the Tŵr Mawr Lighthouse. I would strongly advise
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Destination One: St. Dwynwen
The name Llanddwyn means "The church of St.
Dwynwen". She is the Welsh patron saint of lovers, making her the Welsh
equivalent of St. Valentine. Her feast day, 25 January, is often celebrated by
the Welsh with cards and flowers, just as is 14 February for St. Valentine.
While making your way up to the beautiful lighthouse, which is going to be our
next stop for the day, you come across the ruins of Dwynwen's chapel. To read
about the history of how Dwynwen who lived during the 5th century AD and was
one of 24 daughters of St. Brychan, a Welsh prince of Brycheiniog (Brecon) came
to be known as the patron saint of lovers visit this link. Visitors would leave
offerings at her shrine, and so popular was this place of pilgrimage that it
became the richest in the area during Tudor times. This funded a substantial
chapel that was built in the 16th century on the site of Dwynwen's original
chapel.
Destination Two: The Tŵr Mawr Lighthouse
Just a little off the ruins of the old chapel the Tŵr
Mawr lighthouse charms
your eyes! Tŵr Mawr which means "great tower" in Welsh,
is located on the Llanddwyn Island which
is situated near the southern entrance to the Menai Strait. As a result, it
became important as shipping of slate from the ports of Bangor, Caernarfon and
Felinhelli increased. another more effective lighthouse, Tŵr Mawr, which was
modelled on the windmills of
Anglesey, was built nearby in 1845. If you are a nature lover like
us then you are surely going to be wowed by the sites and sounds that this
location offers. We spent a large part of our day trip here, exploring the
area, taking pictures to our heart's content and just simply sighing over the
sheer majestic beauty of the sea views that greet you when you climb up to the
lighthouses based platform. I for once was absolutely charmed by this place.
Travel checks:
The trek up to this place is not tedious, we had a small child with us on the
trip and he was able to do it easily, but we would suggest wearing comfy shoes and
clothes, also do not forget to carry your glasses! The windy beach that greets
you ahead of the hill trek, believe me, you will come back and thank us later
for this!
Destination Four: The
Llanddwyn beach
Having soaked in the natural marvel that the geology
of the Llanddwyn island, we made our trek back to the beach which in our
attempt to first cover the previously mentioned locations had not dwelled upon.
So when we had first arrived on the each that day, it was cloudy so we were
not able to enjoy the true beauty of the sea, added to that the maddening sea
breeze made us concentrate much more on keeping from sand going into our eyes, nose
and ears! But when we came back, the sun had finally decided to shine brightly
upon us and the day changed into a gorgeous sunny one, the sea turning into its
beautiful reflective turquoise self. Llanddwyn beach is located at the southwestern
tip of Anglesey.
The beach it is imperative to mention is a coarse one with beautiful stone
pebbles bathing and gleaming in the clear waters of the beautiful serene seaside. We strolled lazily around the shore,
throwing pebbles into the water and getting hypnotized by the sound of the
gentle waves rolling onto the pebbled beach accompanied by the regular
cacophony of the seagulls. The beach was very less crowded making it a quite
serene and calming experience for the soul.
Travel Checks:
In case you are a water sports lover then this is the perfect place to try out
windsurfing. We did watch some people playing the sport that day as well. Check
out the rules and companies that offer the services in the link here.
Destination Five: The Menai Suspension Bridge
Having explored the Isle of Anglesey to our heart's
content we started our journey back towards Manchester, however, we still had
one last stop on our bucket list for the day. The Menai Suspension
Bridge (Welsh: Pont y Borth, Pont Grog y Borth) is
a suspension bridge spanning the Menai Strait between
the island of Anglesey and
the mainland of Wales.
Designed by Thomas Telford and completed in 1826, it
was the world's first major suspension bridge. We had to drive and walk a
little bit to find the perfect point from where we could capture the bridge in
its full glory. However, we did not drive across it as it was not en route to our
travel path back to Manchester. We completed our two days of back to back
rendezvous with Wales after bidding adieu to the majestic Menai suspension bridge.
Find all postcodes for the tourist spots and parking for this day trip in the table below:
|
Place
of interest |
Post
Code |
|
The
Llanddwyn beach |
LL61
6SG |
|
The
Llanddwyn beach (Car Park) |
LL61
6SG |
|
The Menai
Suspension Bridge (nearest parking spot) |
LL59
5AS |
To read our blog about our day trip to Llandudno click on this link here
Visit our Facebook Page, Follow us on Instagram, to see more such wonderful pictorial memories from our trips.
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