Top 20 attractions in Wales

Wales is a beau­ti­ful and vibrant coun­try, with lush green­ery, amaz­ing land­scapes, cov­ered in fas­ci­nat­ing myths of the Celtic cul­ture. Tem­ples and cas­tles, palaces and parks are just a small part of what can be seen here.

What to do in Wales

Fans of medieval and mod­ern archi­tec­ture will dis­cov­er count­less cas­tles with a rich past here. Ancient nar­row streets, authen­tic vil­lages, basil­i­cas and cas­tles will tell their sto­ry to those who wish.

For lovers of nature and out­door activ­i­ties, there are sev­er­al nation­al parks with diverse flo­ra and fau­na, scenic hik­ing trails and water­falls.

It will be inter­est­ing for young peo­ple and fam­i­lies with chil­dren to vis­it the muse­ums and the­aters of Wales, as well as vis­it one of the amuse­ment parks or go to the nature reserve.

Architectural monuments

Beaumaris

The great­est cas­tle was the last strong­hold cre­at­ed by Edward I in Wales. The fortress was built in a new place, with­out ear­ly build­ings. The largest sym­met­ri­cal fortress is a com­plex exam­ple of medieval mil­i­tary archi­tec­ture in Britain.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the ambi­tious project could not be com­plet­ed due to lack of funds. Con­struc­tion ceased by the 1320s. How­ev­er, the cas­tle is list­ed as a World Her­itage Site. And its ivy-cov­ered walls still inspire artists today.

Caernarfon

Caernar­fon is rec­og­nized as the great­est build­ing of the Mid­dle Ages. The palace-fortress, along with oth­er cas­tles of Edward, is includ­ed in the list of World Her­itage Sites. The con­struc­tion project took 47 years and cost a stag­ger­ing amount of mon­ey.

The cas­tle was born as a result of a fierce war, its walls served as a defense. But polyg­o­nal tow­ers and mul­ti-col­ored mason­ry reveal the archi­tec­t’s idea. Caernar­fon was built as a dream cas­tle, a pic­turesque fort adorned with weath­er­vanes and tur­rets. How­ev­er, the require­ments of wartime forced the cas­tle to be made impreg­nable.

Harlech

Jew­el in the “iron ring” of King Edward’s cas­tles. Harlech is crowned by a sheer cliff, pro­tect­ed on one side by the North Sea, and on the oth­er by a moat of impres­sive depth. The build­ing was com­plet­ed in record time. In sev­en years, two rows of bat­tle­ments, watch­tow­ers and wrought iron gates were erect­ed.

Accord­ing to the plan, three or four dozen peo­ple on these walls suc­cess­ful­ly resist­ed the army of ene­mies. Today, for the first time in 600 years, the entrance to the cas­tle is open via a pedes­tri­an bridge — as the archi­tect intend­ed.

Caerphilly

The medieval struc­ture is still amaz­ing today. And at the end of the XIII cen­tu­ry, the mas­ter­piece of mil­i­tary con­struc­tion had no equal at all. Mas­sive walls of gray stone, cor­ner tow­ers and out­build­ings are well pro­tect­ed by water bar­ri­ers, includ­ing water-filled ditch­es and two lakes.

Caer­philly is unique in its clas­sic cas­tle archi­tec­ture. Over time, this impreg­nable strong­hold turned into a palace with a hunt­ing park and a large lake.

Powys

The majes­tic dark pink cas­tle is famous not only for its ancient inte­ri­ors, but also for its pic­turesque Ital­ian-style gar­den.

Powys was cre­at­ed in the 1670s. The slopes were ter­raced for him and a row of yew trees was plant­ed. Thanks to this, from a dis­tance, the cas­tle looks like it is sit­ting on a giant green pil­low. Ter­races carved into the rock, hedgerows, moss-cov­ered trees, an apple orchard and a trop­i­cal green­house are the set­ting for the medieval struc­ture.

Tourist village of Portmeirion

The Ital­ian style vil­lage is locat­ed on a penin­su­la off the coast of Snow­do­nia. The set­tle­ment is sur­round­ed by wild for­est, sub­trop­i­cal gar­dens and pris­tine bays.

The vil­lage was built by Welsh archi­tect Clough Williams-Ellis in 1976. The goal of the archi­tect was a set­tle­ment that blends into the envi­ron­ment with­out the destruc­tion inher­ent in human set­tle­ments. Port­meiri­on receives up to 200,000 vis­i­tors annu­al­ly.

Pontkysillte Aqueduct

In 1805, archi­tects Telford and Jes­sop built the Pon­tquisillte cast iron aque­duct on 19 pil­lars 30 meters above the Riv­er Dee at the Welsh-Eng­lish bor­der. Two hun­dred years lat­er, this land­mark became a nav­i­ga­ble aque­duct on the Llan­gollen Canal and became a World Her­itage Site. The struc­ture is still the longest aque­duct in the UK.

Natural attractions and parks

Bodnant Garden

The British Gar­den was found­ed in 1875 to dec­o­rate the grounds of the fam­i­ly res­i­dence of Lord Aber­con­way. In order for the gar­den to acquire rec­og­niz­able fea­tures, a well-known design­er, a stu­dent of Joseph Pax­ton, was hired. Today, Bod­nant is includ­ed in the list of pro­tect­ed areas.

The upper part of the gar­den includes 5 ter­races, a lily pond and grassy bor­der paths. The low­er one is a tan­gled net­work of paths, between thick­ets of exot­ic plants. With the onset of cold weath­er, a col­or­ful win­ter gar­den opens.

Pembrokeshire Coast

An excel­lent base from which to explore the pic­turesque south­west coast of Wales. Most of this area is part of the Pem­brokeshire Coast Nation­al Park, found­ed in 1952 and cov­er­ing an area of ​​629 square kilo­me­ters.

It is the only coastal nation­al park in the UK. Tourists are attract­ed by numer­ous beach­es along with seclud­ed bays and islands. Wild ani­mals and rare sea birds live here.

Brecon Beacons

This part of Wales cov­ers over 500 square miles of moun­tains, forests, lakes, caves and more. The nation­al park includes the largest cave sys­tems in Europe. Most of them are for expe­ri­enced cavers, but some begin­ners can access.

Rivers, canals pass through the park, there is a reser­voir and the largest nat­ur­al lake in Wales. Tourists rent boats, go cycling, bird watch­ing or have a pic­nic in a lake­side mead­ow full of but­ter­flies and wild­flow­ers.

snowdonia national park

Named after the 1085-meter Mount Snow­don, this park attracts 6 mil­lion vis­i­tors every year. The peaks of Snow­do­nia are inter­spersed with lush green val­leys, moun­tain lakes and thun­der­ing water­falls.

Trail along Vala Offa

A 285 km long hik­ing trail con­di­tion­al­ly sep­a­rates Eng­land and Wales. It is named after the king who ordered its con­struc­tion. This was prob­a­bly done to sep­a­rate Mer­cia from rival king­doms, includ­ing Wales.

The route is a cir­cu­lar walk from Offa’s Dyke and includes vis­its to Sken­frith, White and Gros­mont cas­tles. The trail runs through the pic­turesque Welsh land­scapes. It takes an aver­age of 11 days to over­come it, and if you care­ful­ly exam­ine the sights, it is bet­ter to allo­cate a full two weeks.

Land of Waterfalls

For lovers of hik­ing and extreme sports — this is what you need. The walk will take a full day and will require all the ener­gy. It is dif­fi­cult to get lost here — the rocky path leads in suc­ces­sion to four water­falls.

The first on the way is Sog­wood Klun-Gwin. To con­tin­ue the jour­ney, return to the bridge and along the shore reach the sec­ond water­fall — Sogvid-i-Bedol (its sec­ond name is “Horse­shoe”). Fur­ther on, a rocky path winds through a wood­ed gorge and leads to the Snow Falls.

Churches and cathedrals

St. David’s Cathedral

Hid­den from pry­ing eyes in the val­ley and hid­den behind the walls, it is as beau­ti­ful as cen­turies ago. The build­ing dates back to the 12th cen­tu­ry, but the archi­tec­tur­al appear­ance under­went changes until the 19th cen­tu­ry. The west­ern part, with four point­ed tow­ers made of pur­ple stone, belongs pre­cise­ly to the last peri­od.

The old­est here are the mas­sive pur­plish-gray columns that have leaned over as a result of the build­ing’s sub­si­dence. The carved oak ceil­ing dates back to the 16th cen­tu­ry. Between the choir and the main altar is an object of reli­gious pil­grim­age: a shrine with the bones of Saints David and Jus­tin­ian.

Cathedral of Peter and Paul

The cathe­dral is locat­ed in the ancient city of Llandaff, part of which has become a con­ser­va­tion area. Sur­round­ed by bustling streets, it remains a sur­pris­ing­ly qui­et place. The cathe­dral dates back to 1107, but acquired its present appear­ance in the 19th cen­tu­ry. At this time, he had a south­west­ern tow­er and a spire.

After the war, the cathe­dral had to be restored. This was done by George Pace, who at the same time tried to return the tem­ple to its for­mer image, but to add a lit­tle more space.

Church of Saint Margaret

An eye-catch­ing 19th-cen­tu­ry struc­ture with an unusu­al tow­er that is unri­valed in Britain is known as the “Mar­ble Church”. All because of the 13 types of mar­ble that were used to cre­ate a dec­o­ra­tive inte­ri­or.

In 1852, Lady Mar­garet decid­ed to build a new church in hon­or of her hus­band. She chose John Gib­son as the archi­tect. He designed the build­ing with a tow­er 62 meters high, which seems dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly high for a small build­ing.

Tintern Abbey

The abbey was found­ed in 1131 by Cis­ter­cian monks and was orig­i­nal­ly a wood­en build­ing. A cen­tu­ry lat­er, they began build­ing a new abbey church and did not stop until they had cre­at­ed a mas­ter­piece of British Goth­ic archi­tec­ture.

A huge build­ing, high arch­es, majes­tic columns, pat­terns of stained-glass win­dows, and under your feet — a car­pet of grass and wild flow­ers. It’s still breath­tak­ing. Yes, the majes­tic cen­turies-old abbey has been destroyed, but its ruins rise in a pic­turesque nat­ur­al set­ting.

Cultural attractions

National Museum Cardiff

It hous­es world-class art, as well as col­lec­tions of nat­ur­al his­to­ry and geol­o­gy. The Art col­lec­tion includes Euro­pean Impres­sion­ist paint­ings, as well as can­vas­es, draw­ings, sculp­tures, sil­ver­ware and ceram­ics from Wales. Here are the works of Mon­et, Renoir, Rodin, Cezanne.

The nat­ur­al his­to­ry gal­leries dis­play ani­mals, birds and insects from all over the world, includ­ing the world’s largest tor­toise, a huge bask­ing shark and the skele­ton of a hump­back whale.

sculpture garden

This park is ide­al for fam­i­lies. On the ter­ri­to­ry of about a hectare are the­mat­ic gar­dens and exhi­bi­tions of sculp­tures. Here you can see wood­en and stone sculp­tures by ancient mas­ters, as well as works by British sculp­tors.

The local work­shop reg­u­lar­ly holds class­es teach­ing vis­i­tors this art. There is a tea shop, where cakes are served for a mod­est fee. This gar­den was cre­at­ed by the spous­es Ter­ry and Rose, who, hav­ing opened a work­shop, did not even think that it would gain such pop­u­lar­i­ty.

St. Fagans National Historic Site

St. Fagans is an inter­est­ing open-air muse­um and the most vis­it­ed attrac­tion in Wales. Here is a chronol­o­gy of cul­ture and archi­tec­ture.

The muse­um occu­pies the estate of the end of the 16th cen­tu­ry and includes more than 40 build­ings rep­re­sent­ing the archi­tec­ture of Wales from dif­fer­ent his­tor­i­cal peri­ods. The muse­um also hous­es exhibits of tra­di­tion­al crafts, a work­ing forge, a pot­tery work­shop and a mill.