3 Best Sights in Porthmadog, Wales

This is a worthwhile stop—for awesome views of Caernarfon Bay as well as cultural information—if you're exploring the Llŷn Peninsula. A former village for granite-quarry workers serves as the Welsh Language and Heritage Centre, offering Welsh-language classes and cultural courses (in Welsh). There's a tourist information center, a café that serves good sandwiches, and a modest exhibit of historical items, including an old quarryman's cottage fitted out exactly as it would have been in 1910. Some of the other cottages have been turned into B&Bs and self-catering accommodations.

On the very tip of a thumb-shape bay jutting out into the Irish Sea, this miniscule but gorgeous little harbor community is 20 miles from Porthmadog. There's a wide, sheltered beach where the sand is so fine that it squeaks underfoot, and whitewashed cottages line the curving seafront. Park at the nearby visitor center, one mile from the beach.

Remote, atmospheric, and astoundingly little-known, Tre'r Ceiri is one of the most impressive ancient monuments in Wales. Today parts of the 4th-century fort's outer walls are still intact (rising more than 18 feet in places), and within are the ruins of 150 stone huts. They were inhabited by a Celtic tribe known as the Ordovices, and may have survived as a settlement for up to 700 years. From Porthmadog, take the A497 west, then turn left onto the A499 just before Pwllheli. At the village of Llanaelhaearn, turn left onto the B4417. Less than a mile down this road is an unmarked footpath on the right leading straight up a hill to Tre'r Ceiri.