The 7 wonders of Wales Travel

A smashing steer ... Gothic Llangollen bridge, Wales. Photograph: Don McPhee

"Pistyll Rhaeadr and Wrexham steeple,Snowdon"s towering but the people,Overton yew trees, St Winefride"s wells, Llangollen overpass and Gresford bells" Penned by an unknown 18th-century English traveller, this square of doggerel, called the Seven Wonders of Wales, probably owes the presence to the actuality that, distinct the Eight Wonders of the World, all the Welsh marvels cited are still with us. Furthermore, given 6 of them are in a small slot in the north-east of the country, you can pick up the set in a prolonged weekend.

So it was that I found myself cycling high in to the Berwyn Mountains in poke of Pistyll Rhaeadr, a waterfall, that at 240 feet, is a loyal Welsh wonder. There can"t be most outside attractions that are most appropriate seen in the rain, but a rapids is one of them. High on tip of my head, the rain-swollen stream Rhaeadr tumbled over the hill in thick china threads. A serve 6 hours of plain surge rather took the corner off my exultation.

Mount Snowdon, Wales. Photograph: John Noble/Corbis

The cosiness of Cornerstones – an unusual BB that has fused together 3 of Llangollen"s 16th-century houses – was to illustrate a acquire sight, and I was shortly seeking down at a heron stalking the River Dee, usually a integrate of wing flaps from the Gothic Llangollen bridge. Of course, not everybody can get vehement about the art of travelling rivers. However, even the slightest fervent fan would have to declare to the graciousness of these sold arches, each one a somewhat opposite distance to fit orderly on to the rocks below. But it"s the environment that unequivocally creates it – Llangollen"s variety of black-and-white houses quickly giving approach to wooded mountainous country over – and in the stately sunrise fever the pinky tan stones definitely shone in the sunrise sunlight. The rest of my day was to be outlayed with yews, a steeple, a set of bells and a little antidote waters – not regularly the initial things that open to mind when deliberation wonders. However, I will declare that there is something about the approach that yews fury opposite the failing of the light: a little handling it for thousand of years. The twenty-three station ensure around Overton"s St Mary"s church are relations youngsters but a little still go behind to the Middle Ages.  At St Giles" church in circuitously Wrexham, a mill bears the used legend, "This steeple was finished in 1506." The worry is that the "steeple" is obviously a tower. A really excellent 147-foot sandstone tower, it has to be pronounced and, when I went up on to the roof, I was means to attest that it additionally ordered unusual views of plateau to the west and the Dee hollow to the east. However, a steeple it is not.  Once on a time, prior to we all became so noisy, you would have been means to listen to Gresford bells in Wrexham, even though Gresford is 3 miles away. Gresford"s Tower Captain, Hilton Roberts, took me up a mill turn staircase and introduced me to the monsters. Bell ringing, he told me, is a undiluted alloy of song and science. Peals might have illusory names similar to Stedman Triples and Yorkshire Surprise Major, but they are particularly governed by mathematical formulae. Logical thinkers they might be, but bell ringers are apparently additionally overwhelmed by a strain of eccentricity. We were up on tip of the bells when Hilton, no open chicken, unexpected jumped down on to one and proposed overhanging on it, Tarzan-like, usually so that I could listen to what it sounded like. I was 3 yards away. It was loud. It was an additional sort of stupidity that brought about St Winefride"s well. A deserted swain called Caradog sliced off immature Winefride"s head and where it fell a supernatural open gushed forth. "People from all over the universe come here now," a supervisor told me, pleasantly handing me a bottle of creatively drawn water. The well itself is a rather smashing star-shape that feeds H2O to a pool in that the ill and bum reduce themselves to be healed.  I referred to my revisit to Paulene at Celyn Villa, my home from home for the night, asking her if she knew any one who"d been miraculously cured. "Ah well, bizarre you should contend that," she replied. "I had a verruca for years that wouldn"t reply to any diagnosis whatsoever. I dipped it in the pool and it went afar completely." I"m unresolved on to that bottle. Bright and early subsequent sunrise the happy gibberish of associate sight passengers accompanied me turn the north seashore to Bangor and the last wonder, Snowdon. The dickey float from Llanberis to the top, that the producer might well have enjoyed, was transposed in 1896 by the towering railway. I declare to carrying felt somewhat guilty as the little steam engine stretched to pull the singular carriage upwards, but this was to some extent assuaged by the actuality that I was usually going as far as Clogwyn, three-quarters of the way, where I assimilated a prolonged thin line of people marching to the top. It was utterly a celebration at the summit: 70 or 80 of us – families, groups of friends, a propagandize margin trip, a series of really lissome pensioners – all vehement about carrying cowed Wales" tallest mountain. And because not? Given a transparent day it"s probable to see Ireland"s Wicklow Mountains from here. Having arrived usually prior to the code new £8m limit caller centre was strictly opened, I churned out a flask of tea for my celebratory toast: I had succeeded in on vacation all 7 wonders of Wales.  Or had I? The poem obviously stipulated "Snowdon"s towering but the people". Well now, I mused, as I sauntered behind down to Llanberis, that would be a wonder. 

Way to go

Virgin Trains Single from London to Chester from £8 return; 08457 222333; virgintrains.com. Arriva Trains Wales, singular from Chester to Gobowen £6.50 return, and Bangor to Chester £22.20 return; 0870 9000773, arrivatrainswales.co.uk.

Snowdon Mountain Railway Llanberis to limit return, adult £23, kid £16; 0871 7200033; snowdonrailway.co.uk.

Cornerstones BB, Llangollen. Doubles from £70; +44 (0)1978 861569, cornerstones-guesthouse.co.uk.

Celyn Villa, Carmel Near Holywell. Doubles from £56; +44 (0)1352 710853, celynvilla.co.uk.

St Winefride"s Well, Holywell. Adult 80p, kid 20p; +44 (0)1352 713054, saintwinefrideswell.com.