British Prehistoric Trip - Day 3 - Llandudno & Dinas Emrys

We went off on the Manchester motorways, M67, M60, M56 to Wales & the A55 to Llandudno. It was quite a steep slog uphill to the Copper Mine, which was much bigger than expected. £14 for two. We were issued hard hats for the 200 metre walk down into the mine, which was a rather cold and narrow but people were smaller then & child labour was also used. Apparently, they used animal fat lamps to pick out the malachite & blasting by starting fires to split the rock. There are 8 miles of tunnels and one huge cavern, the largest man-made one in Europe, where they had obviously dug out a large amount of malachite.

We left Llandudno another way & went South, stopping for coffee & cake at Ffin y Coed near Bettws Y Coed. This was an art gallery but the stuff on show was mostly barely better than good amateur except for some pots. Then went via Capel Curig to the Gwynant valley & Beddgelert. The Tourist Office told us that Dinas Emrys was a little way back, so we drove there & looked at this outlier hill with a fort on top. It is on the Summer Solstice line from Hastings to Holyhead (Caer Gybi).

We stayed in The Royal Goat Hotel in Beddgelert, which is on the road South. The hotel food was expensive but at least large. Ken had pork belly & Avis, lamb. After, we chatted to two guys doing a Mountain Rescue first-aid course. Ken showed them his Alpine Advice web site on Pip Laptop. Next day, we went home via Dolgellau, Welshpool & the motorway system from Telford.