Llanberis
Five reasons to head there
1 To get hands on rock
Llanberis has been a climbing hub for decades, thanks to the crags lining the pass of its name. If you want to get into climbing or improve your scrambling, there are few better places to do so. A guide can take you safely into the vertical reaches, or if you have the skills and kit, then all you need is a guidebook. If you don’t want to climb yourself, steal time to watch the gymnastic efforts of the experts. It's mesmerising.
2 For a good night in
Squelching into a warm bar after a cold day must be one of life’s most affirming pleasures. The Heights Hotel is a brilliant place to do just that, with good food and an accompanying snug bunkhouse. Once, it had a small climbing wall in a back room, giving it a place in climbing lore, but the wall is gone and so are those days. It’s now a respectable and welcoming place, where you can stuff yourself and fall into a deep sleep for not much cash at all. www.theheightsllanberis.co.uk
3 For pizza and a pint
There’s not much that’s more desirable, when you get off the hill, than simple, tasty grub and a pint of something refreshing – and at Gallt y Glyn they’ve nailed it. For roughly a tenner, you can get a pizza with any variety of toppings – just choose the ones you want from a long tick-list – and pick your favourite pint. Pizzas are freshly made and generously loaded. It’s only open Wednesday to Saturday though and very popular, so book ahead. You don’t want to have to walk away from that kind of hot, cheesy, crispy goodness. www.galltyglyn.com
4 To be king of the castle
Built in the early 1200s by Llywelyn ab Iorwerth aka Llywelyn the Great, Dolbadarn Castle protected Llanberis Pass from the north. Most of its walls have been reduced to outlines but the keep stands tall. It’s free to visit and gives a tangible sense of Welsh history. The Romantics loved it and JMW Turner used it as subject in his sketches. Well worth a spare hour or so.
5 To go inside a mountain
Sometimes the weather forces you off the hill, at which point, you need something else to do. Like explore the inside of a blasted-out mountain. Dinorwig Power Station is hidden within the quarried walls of Elidir Fawr, a network of caverns blown out for this very reason. It may not be a place of natural beauty, but it’s a site of engineering history, a key aspect of the Snowdonian landscape and pretty mind-blowing too.