AnglOrony

When you enter the  Llandudno Bay  for the first time and you do not know what to expect, the landscape can take your breath away.  Luckily this is an area free of industry and the  fresh air  can refill your lungs immediately.  Tranquillity of this place is outstanding - if you are out of the tourists season - or better - if you are at the height of a tourist season with hardly any tourist around :) (due to post-lockdown). The views from the end of the pier are so brilliant, the whole of Llandudno’s promenade with its magnificent sequence of  Victorian hotels  can be seen in beautiful setting of the rolling hills behind.  Llandudno Bay  is stretching in the shape of a crescent between two slopes of the limestone headlands:  Great Orme  and  Little Orme .  For a holiday resort the geography is simply ideal.   The shore of two miles is mostly made up of rough shingle but there is also a selected strip of  sandy beach.  Llandudno  was a small fishing village up to the mid-19th centu

Conwy, is a walled market town on the north coast of Wales, know for its famous fortress. After walking around the enormous Conwy Castle we headed to the little town, squeezed within the medieval walls. What a difference in dimensions! The smallest house in Britain , streets lined with tiny, charming cottages. But the first to see was the famous Conwy Quay . For all so many attractions popular with tourists, the quay is still a pretty working environment. Fishing boats are many, fishing nets and equipment are everywhere, and - what cannot be visualised in a photo - a predominant smell of fish in different stages of its afterlife.  The Liverpool Arms pub we watched on TV documentary about Conwy a few months back, and we were determined to visit (coming from Liverpool). It is in a great location, where you can admire both the busy quay and the remnants of medieval walls nesting it. Walking further down the Conwy Quay is the smallest house in Great Britain , officially measured by an

  We had so much fun with this tiny village we even didn't know we had. Appley Bridge is just off Junction 27 of the M6, nestled north of the River  Douglas and  the Leeds and Liverpool Canal , running parallel to each other from Wigan to a little place called Parbold.  The name of the village sounds tasty and the canal location promises interesting features. We were not disappointed.   Finch Mill swing bridge (above, left) caught our attention - it is a man-handle operating system. We approached it slowly and wondered if it worked and it clearly did. The lock was unlocked to our surprise and joy.  We stopped there for quite a while, having fun swinging the bridge back and forth, back and forth. Then, some guy on a bike came and wanted to pass across the canal. Killjoy ;) We spotted a few canal boats which is usually a sign of tender care of the boat people who may receive it in the area.  The Boathouse Pub (above right) was in full swing, having such a spacious outside sitting a

Conwy castle is one of the four finest examples of late 13th century and early 14th-century military architecture in Europe granted the UNESCO World Heritage Site . The other three are the castles of Beaumaris and Harlech and the castles and town walls of Caernarfon. All are located in North Wales in an area called Gwynedd (different to the county of the same name). Below, what used to be the main entrance to the castle on the West Barbican , from different angles. The castle was built on a rocky coastal ridge over River Conwy  estuary - it borders it from the south and east side, a strategically important point. It had been erected in late 13th-century, along with the outer fortifications, by  Edward I , while conquering Wales, to demonstrate English power over the land. The English kings and Welsh princes had been fighting for the control of the region for over two centuries, since the Norman conquest.  From the north, the castle now stands next to Conway Road with a large roundabou