Port
Holyhead, Wales, United Kingdom
Activity Level
Moderate
Excursion Type
Local Sightseeing,All
Wheelchair Accessible
No
Starting At
$109.95
Minimum Age
Information Not Currently Available
Duration
Approximately 3½ Hours
Meals Included
Meals not included
Your journey to Caernarfon will take you across the island of Anglesey to cross the Menai Straits via the imposing Britannia Bridge, which rises 90 feet above the channel, supported by piers of Anglesey limestone. The island of Anglesey was the last stronghold of the Druids during the Roman invasion of Britain and is well known for sites of historical and geological importance.
Your destination is Caernarfon -- one of the historic centers of Wales. The castle and town walls, built more than 700 years ago and still surviving, were successors to a Roman fortification raised more than a thousand years earlier. King Edward I began to build the castle and walled town of Caernarfon in 1283. He intended the castle to be not only a fortress and royal palace, but also the seat of government in Wales from which his descendants should rule the principality. Edward's son, the future King Edward II, was born in April 1284 within the precincts of Caernarfon Castle and became the first English Prince of Wales. From that time on the eldest son of the sovereign has customarily become Prince of Wales.
Your tour of Caernarfon Castle will reveal one of the most impressive of all the castles built by Edward I. Its majestic walls may well have been modeled on those of Constantinople. It had to be capable, when occasion required, of adequately accommodating the household of the king's eldest son, with his council, his family, his guests and all who attended them. There are two main gatehouses, and though the Queen's Gate was never completed, the King's Gate has been cited as the supreme British example of the immense strength of medieval fortification.
Continue to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch -- a local village with the longest place name in Britain. Take a photo of the sign on the railway platform that bears the village's name (bring a wide-angle lens!).