Wales
Conwy
A complete ring of medieval walls above the castle where a king spent Christmas besieged.
Conwy, on the north Welsh coast, still has its edge. The walls that Edward I threw round the town in the 1280s run three quarters of a mile with 21 towers, and you can walk the top of them from gate to gate, looking down into back gardens on one side and across the estuary on the other, with the castle's eight towers closing the circuit.
The castle and the walls went up together in four years, 1283 to 1287, under the king's architect James of St George, and with Beaumaris, Harlech and Caernarfon they make up one UNESCO World Heritage Site. What sets Conwy apart is the inside: the suite of royal apartments Edward built within the outer shell is the most complete set of rooms used by medieval monarchs in England or Wales, and you can climb the spiral stairs and follow the servants' passages between them. The king's own memory of the place was less grand; trapped by a Welsh rebellion at Christmas 1294, he sat it out with a single barrel of wine in the cellar. Down on the quay the Smallest House in Great Britain, painted red, once housed a fisherman just over six feet tall, and the mussel beds in the estuary are still worked. Plas Mawr, an Elizabethan town house, stands in the streets within the walls, and the Michelin Guide-listed Jackdaw serves a Welsh tasting menu a few doors away.
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Solo
Walk the whole wall circuit early, then take the castle slowly, tower by tower, starting early.
Couple
A night inside the walls, the Jackdaw's tasting menu, and the walls at dusk when the estuary turns to pewter.
Family
Children run the wall walk and count the towers, then squeeze into the Smallest House and hunt the servants' passages in the castle.
Friends
Castle, walls, Plas Mawr and mussels on the quay make a full day; Llandudno and the Great Orme are a short hop for the next.
- The town walls run three quarters of a mile almost unbroken round the medieval town, with 21 towers and three original gateways, and you can walk them.
- Edward I and his architect, James of St George, built castle and walls together in four years, between 1283 and 1287.
- Inside the castle survives the most complete set of rooms lived in by medieval monarchs anywhere in England or Wales; in 1294 Edward was trapped here by a Welsh rebellion and spent Christmas with one barrel of wine.
- On the quay stands the Smallest House in Great Britain, painted red, whose last tenant was a fisherman just over six feet tall.
Mussels from the beds in the Conwy estuary, one of the mussel farms Wales names alongside Bangor, cooked simply in the town's kitchens.
The Jackdaw, a Michelin Guide-listed restaurant inside the walls, builds a tasting menu from Welsh produce; book before you arrive.
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