Yr Wyddfa and Llanberis

At 1,085 metres Yr Wyddfa is the highest ground in Wales and England. It can be climbed two ways: on foot up one of the paths, or in a carriage of the Snowdon Mountain Railway, built for tourists in 1896 and still grinding 4.7 miles from Llanberis to a visitor centre on the summit.

The mountain draws more than 600,000 people to its top each year, most of them up the Llanberis Path, the longest route and the gentlest. At the summit Hafod Eryri, the highest visitor centre in the UK, has a café and a view that on a clear day reaches Ireland; on a cloudy one it reaches the next carriage; the railway runs from late spring to the end of October, and the walk is the better way down. Llanberis, at the foot, is a lakeside village on Llyn Padarn with a narrow-gauge lake railway, Padarn Country Park, the ruined tower of Dolbadarn Castle from the time of the native princes, and a replica sword of that age planted by the water. The slate quarries that terraced the hillside opposite are the industry that built the village. Pantri on the High Street feeds walkers before they start, and the village's shops sell whatever they forgot; this is the anchor of Eryri and knows it, so go early, midweek, or in the shoulder months.