Betws y Coed in the Conwy Valley is a natural hub from which the roads, rivers and valleys radiate and is ideal for touring the central area of the Snowdonia National Park and the Conwy Valley in North Wales. Straddling the A5 London to Holyhead road the town became popular in the C19th owing to the arrival of the railway and the frequent visits of English artists and their followers. Frequented today by outdoor types and, due to the abundance of good outdoor clothing stores, those who dress as outdoor types.
Walkers, climbers, canoeists, anglers, mountain bikers.....all congregate in Betws, Accommodation varies from small friendly bed and breakfast houses and holiday cottages, some off the beaten track, to luxury hotels. Scroll down the page for a few snapshots of Betws y Coed where you will find plenty of things to do and places to see in Betws y Coed, Wales.
Llanrwst sits in the beautiful Conwy Valley reached either along the A470 or across the River Conwy from Trefriw. It is no longer the only bridging point of the river Conwy, yet it still wears an air of importance as the market town for the Conwy Valley. Pont Fawr, the steep and elegant stone bridge designed by Inigo Jones, is however still the town's focal point. The 16th century bridge is so narrow as to allow single file traffic only, thus causing many a heated argument at the top of the bridge and bringing a new meaning to the words "cross over the bridge".
Inigo Jones also designed another of Llanrwst's memorable buildings the 17th century Gwydir Chapel which houses one of Wales' most important historic artifacts. The Chapel is to be found down a narrow street, past the restored row of Almshouses, in the grounds of St Grwst's Church, which overlooks the river Conwy on the town bank of the river. The Chapel was built for the powerful Wynne family, whose home was just across the river at Gwydir Castle, and it contains a massive stone coffin, the remaining half of the sarcophagus in which Llywelyn the Great's body was layed to rest. Magnificent portrait brasses and an effigy of a knight in armour accompany the old cold empty coffin.
Adjacent to Pont Fawr this time on the western bank of the Conwy is probably the most photographed building in Llanrwst a 15th century cottage, Ty Hwnt i'r Bont, once a courthouse and now a tea room owned by the National Trust. You may be tempted to enter and enjoy a cream tea, or to have a picnic on the banks of the Conwy and feed the ducks. On this side of the river you will also find the Llanrwst sports fields which when nature chooses become Llanrwst's water sports fields as the Conwy can flood at the blink of mother nature's tear filled eye.
Still on the west bank but wisely set further back from the river stands Gwydir Castle, for centuries the seat of the aforesaid influential Wynn family. The house has a fine sequence of Tudor rooms, though much of the house was rebuilt in the 19th century. The current owners are undertaking an extensive programme to restore Gwydir Castle to its former glory, and have recently obtained the panelling from the Dining Room which left Gwydir in the 1920's and was discovered in store in New York.