Cardiff
There's a medieval keep at its heart, but it's the later additions to Cardiff Castle that really capture the imagination. In Victorian times, extravagant…
Must-see attractions in Wales
Southeast Wales
You could be forgiven for thinking that Caerphilly Castle – with its profusion of towers and crenellations reflected in a duck-filled lake – was a film…
Anglesey & the North Coast
Majestic Caernarfon Castle was built by Edward I between 1283 and 1330 as a military stronghold, seat of government and royal palace. Designed and mainly…
Cardiff
Devoted mainly to natural history and art, this grand neoclassical building is the centrepiece of the seven institutions dotted around the country that…
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct & Canal World Heritage Site
Snowdonia & the Llŷn
The preeminent Georgian engineer Thomas Telford (1757–1834) built the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in 1805 to carry the canal over the River Dee. At 307m long, 3…
Anglesey & the North Coast
Caernarfon is more complete, Harlech more dramatically positioned and Beaumaris more technically perfect, yet out of the four castles that compose the…
Cardiff
Also known as Millennium Stadium ('Principality' is the current naming-rights sponsor), this spectacular venue squats like a stranded spaceship on the…
Southeast Wales
The haunting riverside ruins of this sprawling monastic complex have inspired poets and artists through the centuries, most notably William Wordsworth,…
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St Fagans National History Museum
Cardiff
Historic buildings from all over the country have been dismantled and re-erected in the semirural surrounds of St Fagans village, 5 miles west of central…
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Southeast Wales
Although you wouldn't guess it from the outside, this large stone church has been described as the 'Westminster Abbey of South Wales' because of the…
Cardiff
The centrepiece and symbol of Cardiff Bay's regeneration is the £106-million Wales Millennium Centre, an architectural masterpiece of stacked Welsh slate…
Parc Cenedlaethol Bannau Brycheiniog
Dramatically perched atop a steep limestone crag, high above the River Cennen, are the brooding ruins of Wales' ultimate romantic castle, visible for…
Cardiff
Flanked by the castle and the River Taff, Bute Park was donated to the city along with the castle in 1947. With Sophia Gardens, Pontcanna Fields and…
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Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri)
Edward I finished this intimidating yet aesthetically pleasing castle in 1289, the southernmost of his 'iron ring' of fortresses designed to keep the…
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National Botanic Garden of Wales
Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Concealed in the rolling Tywi valley countryside, this lavish complex opened in 2000 and is still maturing. Formerly an aristocratic estate, the garden…
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Snowdonia & the Llŷn
For a glimpse of the life of the British upper class in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the 'upstairs-downstairs' social hierarchy of their bygone world,…
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Southeast Wales
Imposing Chepstow Castle perches atop a limestone cliff overhanging the river, guarding the main river crossing from England into South Wales. It is one…
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Parc Cenedlaethol Bannau Brycheiniog
Ascending Pen-y-Fan (886m), the tallest peak in the Brecon Beacons, is one of the most popular hikes in the park (around 350,000 people make the climb…
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Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
This idyllic, 324-hectare, beautifully landscaped estate, immediately west of Llandeilo, incorporates a deer park, pasture, woods, an Iron Age fort, the…
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Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
The western extremity of the Gower is guarded by this mile-long promontory, which turns into an island at high tide. Worms Head takes its name from the…
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Southeast Wales
Fascinating Big Pit provides an opportunity to explore a real coal mine and get a taste of what life was like for the miners who worked here from 1880 to…
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Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Wandering through these formal walled gardens feels a bit like walking into a Jane Austen novel. They date originally from Elizabethan times, have evolved…
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Parc Cenedlaethol Bannau Brycheiniog
Originally the home of the Vaughan family, Tretower gives you two historic buildings for the price of one: the sturdy circular Norman keep, now roofless…
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Parc Cenedlaethol Bannau Brycheiniog
Halfway up a thickly forested hillside in the Vale of Eywas, this tiny 11th-century church is like a time capsule of Welsh faith and culture, buried too…
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Anglesey & the North Coast
Laid out in 1875 and painstakingly landscaped over 150 years, Bodnant is one of Wales’ most beautiful gardens. Lord Aberconway of the McLaren family …
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Anglesey & the North Coast
Funded by the vast profits from the slate mine of Caribbean sugar-plantation owner and anti-abolitionist Baron Penrhyn, and extended and embellished by…
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Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Dylan Thomas, his wife Caitlin and their three children lived in this cliff-clinging house from 1949 to 1953. It's a beautiful setting, looking out over…
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Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri)
The 28-sq-mile Gwydyr Forest, planted since the 1920s with oak, beech and larch, encircles Betws-y-Coed and is scattered with the remnants of lead and…
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Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri)
Even if you're not enraptured by industrial museums, ignore the dull-sounding name and check this one out. At Dinorwig Quarry much of the slate was carved…
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Anglesey & the North Coast
On the west side of the vast Bodnant Estate, a collection of lavishly restored 18th-century farm buildings now operates as Bodnant Welsh Food. One of the…
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Parc Cenedlaethol Bannau Brycheiniog
You're likely to have the impressive remains of Garn Goch to yourself. One of the largest Iron Age sites in Wales, it comprises a smaller hill fort…
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Parc Cenedlaethol Bannau Brycheiniog
Halfway along the impossibly beautiful Vale of Ewyas lie the atmospheric ruins of this Augustinian priory, set among pasture and wooded hills by the River…
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Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri)
Blaenau's main attraction takes you into the bowels of a Victorian slate mine. You descend the UK's steepest mining cable railway into the 1846 network of…
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Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri)
Recently opened in the Edwardian-era police station (hence 'Cell B'), this multifunction centre hosts everything from yoga to live bands to screenings in…
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Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire
Spanning 20 hectares, these magnificent gardens are particularly impressive in spring, when the azaleas and rhododendrons are at their most spectacular…
Cardiff
Cardiff Castle's fanciful little brother sits perched atop a thickly wooded crag on the northern fringes of Cardiff. It was the summer retreat of the…
Southeast Wales
The seat of the Morgan family for more than 500 years, Tredegar House is a stone and red-brick 17th-century building set amid extensive gardens, 2 miles…
Cardiff
This venerable cathedral is set in a hollow near the River Taff, on the site of a 6th-century monastery founded by St Teilo. The present building was…
Cardiff
Designed by Lord Richard Rogers (the architect behind London's Lloyd's building and Millennium Dome and Paris' Pompidou Centre), the home of the National…
Cardiff
Long, narrow Roath Park rivals Bute Park as Cardiff's favourite green space. The third marquess of Bute gifted the land to the city in 1887, when the…
