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Snowdonia
Llanberis
Take the A4086 to Llanberis. The lakeside village is a busy mountain resort, with plenty of cafes, craft shops and B&Bs. Electric Mountain is a pumped storage station, one of Europe's biggest, open to visitors, with a coach tour taking you round the highlights (best to book, telephone 01286 870636). Another industrial attraction is the Welsh Slate Museum, with reconstructed quarrymen's cottages decked out in period furnishings from the 1860s the 1960s, an exhibition on slate mining and a children's activity centre. The quarry workshop is preserved very much as it was and has working craftsmen and machinery as well as a huge water wheel.
Llanberis also has the distinction of having two very different heritage railways. At low level, the Llanberis Lake Railway steams its way four miles along the shore of Llyn Padarn, while the Snowdon Mountain Railway, a masterpiece of Victorian engineering, grinds up improbable gradients to the very top of Snowdon, the highest mountain in England or Wales. This is the only public rack-and-pinion railway in Britain, using vintage Swiss steam and modern diesel locomotives: views can be tremendous, including the Isle of man and Wicklow mountains and islands, but also often the summit is swathed in mist, so it's worth looking at the local weather forecasts carefully beforehand.
Once at the top of Snowdon you could instead choose to walk down, as there are several on a few secrets: the easiest is alongside the railway track itself, but more challenging and scenic are other routes such as Snowdon Ranger, the Miners' Track, the Pyg Track and the Watkin Path - they begin from different sides of the mountain, but there is useful bus service to get you back to your starting point. Two of these routes up Snowdon begin from the top of the pass on the A4086 (the Pass of Llanberis) at Pen-y-Pass: if there's any space in the car-park (there often isn't) it's well worth following the beginning of the Miners' Track, which here really is a track leading up past four lakes to the base of Snowdon itself, giving sensational views without actually making the main ascent.
The two knife-edge ridges on either side make up the Snowdon Horseshoe, one of the finest mountain walks in Britain (demanding a good head for heights). The climb right up to the top from here needs plenty of time and stamina as well as good walking boots.
At the junction with the A498 (where the Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel is a longstanding base for mountaineers as well as a good lunch spot) keep left on the A4086 to Capel Curig then turn left on the A5 towards Bethesda.
You pass the lake of Llyn Ogwen, sandwiched between the dizzying, austere slopes of the Glyder and Carneddau ranges. The car-park by Idwal Cottage youth hostel at Llyn Idwal is a starting point for walks in some of Wales's severest scenery: a vast post glacial hollow with high-altitude arctic and alpine flora. The lake and its surroundings former National Nature Reserve, and a nature trail around the lake makes spectacular low-level walk: at the far end you can often watch climbers tackling the gigantic slabs of the Devil's Kitchen.
Carry on along the A5 past Bethesda, then at Llandegai take the driveway to Penrhyn Castle.
Penrhyn Castle is a splendid 19th-century near Norman fantasy built by the wealthy Pennant family who made a tidy sum from Welsh slate quarrying and from Jamaican sugar. The interior is almost impossibly grand, embellished with panelling, splendid paintings and rich furnishings, including a cathedral-like Great Hall and a slate bed made for Queen Victoria. The sumptuous kitchen shows the preparations for the banquet laid on in honour of the Prince of Wales in 1894. The stable block has an Industrial Railways Museum, Countryside Exhibition and Dolls Museum. The grounds overlook the Menai Strait up towards Beaumaris on the Isle of Anglesey, and includes some fine parkland and an exotic tree and shrub collection as well as a Victorian walled garden.
Take the A55 towards Conwy. Fork right at Penmaenmawr and follow the road over the Sychnant Pass. Before dropping into Conwy, there's an opportunity to stretch your legs on Conwy Mountain - it's nothing like a true mountain in height but has views worthy of its name. A few minutes easy and almost level strolling north from the road is rewarded by a fine panorama over Anglesey and Great Ormes Head near Llandudno.
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