My Weekend Away in Snowdonia, Wales

I don’t usually steer off course this much and do travel posts but I thought it might make a nice change from talking about books 24/7! In March my boyfriend Conor and I went away to Wales for a long weekend, neither of us had been before and we stayed in a beautiful little cottage in the middle of the mountains in Snowdonia. We visited a few different places and I took tons of photos which I’d love to share with you all. After a extremely long 5 hour drive, a couple of stops and a few wrong turns we finally made it to our cottage and I was stunned by the view right outside our front door.

On Saturday we went for a hike near the cottage to find a waterfall which the owners left directions to. This wasn’t a huge success as firstly, we got lost and went the wrong way and didn’t anticipate how muddy and swampy the mountains were going to be so my lovely, white, clean converse came back black and muddy and I could wring my socks out with swamp water. Anyway, we finally found the waterfall which was lovely and pretty but not in a great viewpoint from where we were so we couldn’t get any decent photos. Due to the surroundings and the fact there wasn’t a soul in sight, we did feel like we were in a bit of a ‘Walking Dead’ situation so we started talking like Rick and shouting, ‘Carl!’ every ten minutes. Saturday afternoon we made our way to a lovely little seaside town called Rhos-on-Sea and did some shopping (I did some shopping and accidentally bought everything), had a walk along the beach and got an ice-cream. We came across an old second-hand book shop as well and obviously, I couldn’t refuse.

Sunday we went to Welsh Mountain Zoo which was a bizarre shaped zoo that was on a hilltop overlooking the town. We watched a sea lion talk and saw a group of penguins go for a walk across a field. Which was without a doubt one of the weirdest sights I’ve ever seen! But it was a good day out as I love going to the zoo anyway.

We packed and was ready to go on Sunday night so Monday we could get up early and do the last bit of exploring. We went to a tiny little village called Portmeirion situated on the coast of Snowdonia. In one of the leaflets in the cottage it said, ‘ a fairy tale village resort with colourful cottages, shops and cafes’ but I wasn’t expecting anything like this! It was like we had been dropped onto the set of a Disney film! It was the cutest little village I have ever seen, all the buildings were pink or blue or yellow. There were only 3 or 4 shops, a café and a hotel and the village actually had a barrier you had to be sent through to get in. It was right on the coast and had some strange decorations such as a gold Buddha and what looked like an old Roman bath. It truly was one of the strangest experiences but it was such a magical little place, I didn’t want to leave!

It was a really lovely weekend and although you’d imagine a remote cottage in the middle of nowhere to be relaxing it wasn’t, I was exhausted by the end of it! We got a lot done and did lots of exploring of the local areas so it was a good type of exhausted. We took lots of photos and I bought plenty of souvenirs to remember the trip by and I’d love to go back again one day and experience more of what Wales has to offer because it truly is a beautiful place.

Have you been to any of these places?