Gwynedd

The brightest jewel in Gwynedd's crown is the Snowdonia National Park, a region of wild snow-capped mountain crags, notched in places like a battlemented tower, of high passes, steep valleys and sheer rock faces that plummet downward, often accompanied by pounding waterfalls that cascade into sparkling wood-fringed lakes. At the centre of the range is lofty Snowdon at 3560 ft, the highest peak south of Scotland. This wild landscape is traversed by tortuous mountain roads and narrow gauge railways, and its compelling beauty has much to offer the climber, walker, angler, pony-trekker and motorist. Elsewhere in the county the terrain is less challenging, where hill farms and tranquil villages dot the landscape. The stamp of history is most marked in Gwynedd - peoples more ancient than the Celts have left burial-chambers and Iron Age forts; Roman roads and fortresses survive in part; Irish relics of the 4th and 6th centuries remain from the time when the region was a part of the kingdom of East Ireland.

Splendid Norman castles such as Harlech still stand and most impressive of man's legacies, the awesome strongholds of Edward I - Caernarfon and Conwy, part of the infamous 'ring of steel' built to subjugate the Welsh.