Llangollen, Denbighshire was the destination of the second weekend trip for 2013. After the success of the Lakes, the weekend had a lot to live up to.
Friday morning, laughing about being off work, we set off and had our lunch break in Chester. I've never been there before and had heard much of it's charming Roman walls. We walked along the walls to the River Dee (the river we would be stopping next to all weekend) to the castle.
We lunched at The Falcon. I was happy to discover it was a Sam Smith's owned brewery - 6 different Sam Smith's brews on tap. I will need to go back when I'm not driving!
We set off again destined for the tallest single drop waterfall in England and Wales,
Pistyl Rhaeadr Falls. The road twisted and turned until we reached the end of the valley, stopped by the waterfall. The place was deserted, even the tea shop was closed.
The climb to the top had lovely views, not to mention patches of ice and icicles on the waterfall. You can stand right on the top of the falls, in summer I suspect this would be an amazing picnic spot.
Saturday morning we woke bright and early to a beautiful sunrise, eager to get some peddling miles in.
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River Dee |
I have wanted to visit the famous Telford
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct since the first time I saw it on tv, so I peddled along the Llangollen Canal (Route 84) smiling into the sunshine.
Stephen was much braver than me - he cycled most of the way across, where it took me until almost at the end to brave putting any pressure on my pedals. It was giddying!
We cycled down to Chirk, around the castle, then back on ourselves to a lovely lunch in a Victorian style tea room. We were seriously under-dressed for the place - I wonder if that's why the waitress kept giggling at us (not convinced my jokes are that good). We admired the vintage Raleigh bikes before we set off for the long climb ahead.
We climbed up afew miles, to be rewarded by a view of the aqueduct we had just left, the viaduct and road bridge in the distance...
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count the bridges... view from Garth |
...we thought it was the top of the hill.... it wasnt ...
but when we rounded the corner at the top, the view that enfolded was better than we could have imagined.
I looked at the time, 3.30pm - I knew this would be a worthy sunset spot, so we spent two hours off-roading at the very tops over Trevor Rocks, watching our shadows lengthen.
We watched the clouds come in... and thankfully some colours develop as the evening chill moved in.
We had the road to ourselves by this point, so enjoyed a
carfree/carefree freewheel down to the bottom of the valley on the
twisty road. A perfect end to a day in the saddle.
On sunday, we enjoyed a walk to Horseshoe Falls and then a wander round the town, enjoying plenty of the tastes on offer and picking up a Llangollen patch to sew onto the pannier. An ideal place to explore over a long weekend.