Wales
Ynys Llanddwyn
A tidal island of the Welsh saint of lovers, two lighthouses, red squirrels behind.
Where a long Anglesey beach runs out, a low island reaches into the sea, cut off at the highest tides, with two lighthouses, a ruined church and the ghost of a saint who gave up on love and became its patron. Ynys Llanddwyn is where Welsh couples walk on 25 January, and on any other day it is one of the finest walks in Wales.
Santes Dwynwen was a fourth-century princess whose love went wrong; she became a nun, founded a convent here and reputedly lived on the island until AD 460, and her feast day is the Welsh St Valentine's. Her church is a ruin on the headland now, beside Tŵr Mawr and an older lighthouse and a row of pilot's cottages that open as a visitor centre in the summer holidays; the whole spit can be walked round, with the mountains of Eryri across the water. Behind the beach is Newborough, one of the largest dune systems in Britain, which with the island became the first coastal National Nature Reserve in Wales in 1955. The Corsican pines were planted between 1947 and 1965 to hold the sand, and they now shelter red squirrels, best seen from the trail at Llyn Parc Mawr, and ravens whose roost was once the world's second largest. There is nothing to buy on the island, and in season only a van or two in the car park, so this is a picnic on the sand and a long look at the sea; check the tide before you cross to the headland; the sea takes the causeway at the top of big tides.
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Solo
Take the forest trail for squirrels before breakfast, then the beach and the island, with the mountains coming clear across the strait.
Couple
The saint's island on her day in January if you can bear the wind, or any summer evening when the lighthouses catch the last light.
Family
A huge sandy beach, red squirrels to find in the pines, two lighthouses and a ruined church with a story about a princess.
- Llanddwyn is a small tidal island at the end of Traeth Llanddwyn, named for Santes Dwynwen, the Welsh patron saint of lovers, who is said to have lived here until AD 460.
- Dwynwen was a fourth-century princess unlucky in love who became a nun and founded a convent on the island; her day, 25 January, is the Welsh St Valentine's.
- Out on the headland stand two lighthouses, pilot's cottages that open as a visitor centre in the summer holidays, and the ruins of her church.
- Newborough Warren and the island were declared Wales's first coastal National Nature Reserve in 1955, and the Corsican pines planted between 1947 and 1965 now shelter red squirrels and a raven roost once the second largest in the world.
An ice cream van and a catering van stand in the beach car park in season; otherwise the island is a picnic carried along the sand.
Anglesey's own table for the hamper: Halen Môn sea salt from the island's saltworks and Anglesey oysters, the island produce Visit Wales names first.
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