The summer of 2009 for me was packed with days out and weekends away in North Wales. I’m lucky to live so close to such beautiful areas, and Llangollen and the nearby Pontcysyllte Aquaduct are certainly near the top of the list.
I had no idea at the time, but the aquaduct was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List on the 27th June 2009, and this is around the time I first visited. The list contains only natural and cultural sites of the highest pedigree, and considering other entries include the great wall of china and the pyramids I guess I’m lucky to live so close.
I stayed at the Wild Pheasant Hotel in Llangollen for the whole weekend, and this was actually a prize I won through entering the Daily Post Wedding of the Year competition. Not quite the first prize of a £25k dream wedding , but with a weekend of being fed and pampered in a spa resort I didn’t feel too hard done by.
Llangollen is one of many tourist hot spots in North Wales, helped largely by the Llangollen heritage railway and of course the Llangollen canal which stretchs out over Telfords marvel of engineering, the Pontcysyllte Aquaduct (I wonder how many times I’ll have to copy and paste that! I’m a good speller usually to) and beyond. Maybe it just me, but half the enjoyment was watching families on their hire barges crashing at every possible opportunity, unintentionally of course. I saw them hitting each other, hitting the banks and I even saw one family take a chunk out of the front of their barge by driving straight into a hand cranked draw bridge prior to the aquaduct which hadn’t quite been positioned correctly.
As for the aquaduct itself, it really is a sight to behold and a gentle stroll across it takes around 20 minutes. There are all the usual gift shops and pubs in the area, and amazingly there is plentiful free parking. You can of course cross the Pontcysyllte Aquaduct it in a hire barge, and my dad says he has crossed it in a kayak. I thought he’d have held everyone up, but even at only a moderate walking pace you are faster than a barge. If you examine the top picture you’ll see there is no barrier on the water side so if you suffer from vertigo you may want to give it a miss.