Snowdonia Holidays and Escorted Coach Tours
Snowdonia — Eryri in Welsh — covers a little over 800 square miles of northern Wales, running from the sands of Anglesey to the slate terraces above Llanberis and the peaks over 3,000 feet at its heart. It has been a national park since 1951, the first in Wales.
We travel here because it suits a coach holiday unusually well. Distances between places are short, the roads through the passes are worth the journey in themselves, and the things most people come for — a rack railway, an Edwardian castle, a village built by one man — all sit within an hour or so of a settled hotel base.
Frequently Asked Questions About Our Snowdonia Tours
Yes. Eryri is the Welsh name for the national park and Yr Wyddfa the Welsh name for the mountain, and both are now used as the official titles by the park authority. You will see the English names on road signs and in guidebooks too, and locally people use both. We list the tours under whichever name the itinerary carries, so do not be thrown by seeing the two on the same page.
No walking of any distance is required. The railways, cruises and castles are reached by coach and the excursions are designed around looking rather than hiking. That said, north Wales is a place of slopes and cobbles: castle grounds are uneven, Portmeirion is built on a hillside, and Llandudno's promenade is longer than it looks. If you have particular concerns about a specific outing, ask us before booking and we will tell you honestly what it involves.
In good conditions, yes — the line runs to Hafod Eryri, the summit station. But the railway operates seasonally, roughly from spring to late autumn, and in strong wind or heavy cloud it may run only part way up the mountain. That decision is made on the day by the railway, not by us. The Snowdon Mountain Railway appears on our Eryri National Park itinerary; the Llandudno-based tour uses the Llanberis Lake Railway instead.
Snowdonia includes some of the wettest ground in Britain, and the high tops are in cloud on a good many days of the year. The coast at Llandudno and Anglesey is noticeably drier and brighter than the mountains behind. Bring a waterproof coat and shoes with grip whatever the month, and expect the weather to change within an afternoon. It rarely spoils a day out — it just changes what the view is doing.
On our Snowdonia holidays you stay in one hotel for four nights: the Celtic Royal in Caernarfon on the Eryri National Park tour, and either the Seafront Hotel in Llandudno or the Celtic Royal on Splendours of Snowdonia, depending on the departure. Breakfast and evening meals are included. Which hotel applies to a given date is shown on the tour page, and we are happy to confirm it by telephone.
Yes, on both our Snowdonia tours a set number of single rooms is included at no supplement — ten on Splendours of Snowdonia and six on the Eryri National Park tour. Once those are taken, a supplement applies. Because solo travellers make up a good share of bookings on these Welsh departures, the free singles tend to go well in advance, so ask us early about the date you have in mind.
Yr Wyddfa and the mountain railways
Yr Wyddfa, or Snowdon, rises to 1,085 metres, the highest ground in Wales or England. The Snowdon Mountain Railway has been carrying people up from Llanberis since 1896 and remains the only public rack-and-pinion line in Britain: a single carriage pushed slowly up the western flank, with the round trip taking a little over two hours including time at the top. In poor visibility or early in the season, trains sometimes terminate below the summit — the railway decides on the day.
The other line at Llanberis is quite different. The narrow-gauge Lake Railway runs along the shore of Llyn Padarn on part of an old slate tramway, looking across the water to the vast stepped workings of Dinorwig quarry, now part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Our itineraries differ on which railway they use, so check the individual tour page before you book.
Portmeirion, Conwy and Betws-y-Coed
Clough Williams-Ellis began Portmeirion in 1925 on a wooded peninsula above the Dwyryd estuary and was still adding to it in 1976, when he was in his nineties. He described it as a home for fallen buildings, and much of it is genuinely salvaged — a colonnade from Bristol, a Jacobean ceiling rescued from demolition. Television viewers of a certain vintage will recognise it instantly as the Village from The Prisoner.
Conwy is a walled town in the proper sense: three-quarters of a mile of thirteenth-century wall with twenty-one towers, still largely intact, and Edward I's castle at one end of it. The quayside has the house widely claimed to be Britain's smallest.
Betws-y-Coed sits where the Llugwy meets the Conwy, among conifers and stone bridges, and is the best of the inland villages for an afternoon at your own pace.
Anglesey and the Menai Strait
The Menai Strait is about fourteen miles long and famously awkward water. Its tidal races, the Swellies, run between two remarkable crossings: Thomas Telford's suspension bridge of 1826, the first of real size anywhere, and Robert Stephenson's Britannia Bridge just along from it.
A cruise on the Strait gives you the view the road never does — wooded banks, the grounds of Plas Newydd, and the mountains standing behind Caernarfon. Two of our itineraries include one.
Anglesey itself is low, farmed and much sunnier than the mountains behind it; the Welsh called it Môn mam Cymru, Anglesey the mother of Wales, for its grain. Beaumaris has Edward I's last and never-finished castle, a Georgian gaol and a proper seafront.
What these coach holidays involve
Each of our Snowdonia tours runs to five days with four nights in one hotel — the Seafront Hotel in Llandudno or the Celtic Royal in Caernarfon, depending on the departure. Breakfast and evening meals are included, as is private coach travel throughout with the same experienced driver, and cancellation protection.
Excursions listed in the itinerary are included, so there is no daily hunting for tickets. The pace is unhurried: one main outing most days, with time built in to sit and look at things. Nothing asks you to climb a mountain, though there is inevitably some walking on cobbles, castle ground and steep village streets.
Single travellers are looked after. Our Snowdonia departures carry a number of single rooms at no supplement, and they go early — worth asking about as soon as you are thinking about dates.
