West Anglesey & Holy Island

Cross the twin causeways from Anglesey proper and Holy Island (Ynys Gybi) announces itself immediately — the landscape shifts from farmland to rock, the horizon widens, and the cliffs ahead have a seriousness about them that the rest of the island doesn't quite match. This is the island's western edge, and it's the wildest part.

Holyhead is the largest town on Anglesey, its beating commercial heart, and the port through which the island connects to Ireland. The ferry terminal dominates, but look past it and there's a town worth exploring: Roman walls still standing around the medieval parish church, a harbour that's been active for 2,000 years, and Holyhead Mountain rising immediately behind with Iron Age hill forts on the summit and some of the finest cliff walking in Wales on its flanks. The town is gritty and real in a way the tourist towns aren't — it's a place where the sea has always been employer and neighbour.

Three miles south, Trearddur Bay is Holy Island's beach resort: a sheltered horseshoe of clear water between rocky headlands that's gentle for families and spectacular for snorkellers. Rhoscolyn, further south still, is where the coasteering happens — the volcanic sea-cliff architecture around Abraham's Bosom is considered some of the finest in Britain. And at the far western tip, South Stack Lighthouse stands on its tiny islet, 400 steps below the clifftop, with puffins visible from Ellin's Tower in the breeding season (April to July).