CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Beaumaris it runs 351 km to Beaumaris; allow about 5 h 46 of riding. The stops in between: Nantlle Valley Slate Quarry Landscape, Conwy Castle and Town Walls, The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales and Harlech Castle. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 50 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Beaumaris is often called the most perfect castle never finished. Edward I began it in 1295 on the shore of Anglesey, at the northern entrance to the Menai Strait, as the last of his great chain of fortresses built to hold down Wales after his conquest. His architect, Master James of St George, designed it as a perfectly symmetrical concentric castle: an inner ring of high walls and towers, an outer ring of lower walls, and a moat linked to the sea so that supply ships could sail up to a dock at the gate. Money ran out, the Scottish wars took priority, and the towers never reached their planned height. Even so, it is a masterpiece of military design, and with the castles of Conwy, Caernarfon and Harlech it is listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Beaumaris Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beaumaris Castle is where the day begins. Next is Nantlle Valley Slate Quarry Landscape.
Look at the Nantlle valley from the road and you see a green bowl with a ragged grey edge, as if someone had bitten the mountain. It is a place where the quarrying went down instead of along. The pits here are enormous, cut deep below the level of the lakes, with sheer sides, and the biggest of them, the Dorothea, became a flooded hole of cold green water. On the skyline, tips of waste slate lean against each other like broken plates. This is part of the slate landscape of north-west Wales that UNESCO listed in 2021, and the quarries here are among the oldest in the area, producing roofing slate from the eighteenth century and earlier.
Read the complete Nantlle Valley Slate Quarry Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nantlle Valley Slate Quarry Landscape comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is Conwy Castle and Town Walls.
Edward I built Conwy Castle in just four years, from 1283 to 1287, as part of his campaign to subdue the Welsh, and the result is one of the most impressive medieval fortresses in Europe. Designed by the master mason James of St George, it stands on a rock above the estuary of the Conwy river, with eight massive towers and high curtain walls, and the town below is still enclosed by its original walls, with twenty-one towers and three gateways. Walking along the walls gives superb views of the town, the castle, the estuary and the mountains of Snowdonia. The castles and town walls of King Edward in Gwynedd were inscribed on the UNESCO list in 1986.
Read the complete Conwy Castle and Town Walls write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 93 km into the recorded legs you reach Conwy Castle and Town Walls. Next is The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales.
Llanberis sits at the foot of Snowdon, Yr Wyddfa in Welsh, beside the lake of Llyn Padarn, and across the water a whole mountainside has been carved into giant terraces. This is the Dinorwic quarry, once one of the largest slate quarries in the world, where thousands of men worked until it closed in 1969, splitting slate for roofs across Britain and beyond. The galleries climb the mountain in steps, with inclines, ruined buildings and waste heaps everywhere, a landscape both scarred and strangely beautiful. In 2021, UNESCO inscribed the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales, recognising the quarries, villages, railways and harbours that made this region the slate capital of the world.
Read the complete The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales, about halfway. Next is Harlech Castle.
When Edward I built his castles in Wales, he was not interested in subtlety. Harlech, raised between 1283 and 1289 by the master mason James of St George, sits on a rocky crag above the dunes of Cardigan Bay, with concentric walls, massive gatehouse and round towers that still look ready for a siege. It is one of the castles of Edward I in Gwynedd listed by UNESCO, together with Caernarfon, Conwy and Beaumaris. The sea once came almost to the foot of the rock, and a staircase down the cliff allowed the garrison to be supplied by boat; the coast has since moved, and now there is a broad plain of dunes and a golf course between the castle and the water.
Read the complete Harlech Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Harlech Castle sits at 159 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales comes up about 221 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Conwy Castle and Town Walls.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Conwy Castle and Town Walls write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 262 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Conwy Castle and Town Walls. Next is back through Nantlle Valley Slate Quarry Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nantlle Valley Slate Quarry Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Nantlle Valley Slate Quarry Landscape, late in the day. Next is Beaumaris Castle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beaumaris Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 351 km.
Beaumaris Castle → Nantlle Valley Slate Quarry Landscape is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nantlle Valley Slate Quarry Landscape → Conwy Castle and Town Walls is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Conwy Castle and Town Walls → The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales → Harlech Castle is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Harlech Castle → back through The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales → back through Conwy Castle and Town Walls is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Conwy Castle and Town Walls → back through Nantlle Valley Slate Quarry Landscape is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nantlle Valley Slate Quarry Landscape → Beaumaris Castle is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.