Totally customisable Totally customisable
Local guide Local guide
Hotel pickup & dropoff Hotel pickup & dropoff

Castles North Wales Tour - a two-day tour

An amazing opportunity for you to enjoy the beautiful sights and captivating landscape of this intriguing, diverse countryside from the beautiful mountainous landscape of Snowdonia to the mythical charms and hidden secrets of the Isle of Anglesey. 
 
The emphasis of the tour will be on the spectacular Edwardian Castles erected as part of the Norman Conquest and the lesser known castles built by the Welsh Princes. This enthralling experience will also take you further back in time as we visit the remains of some Roman and Celtic Fortresses and other dwellings.
 

Castles North Wales Tour - Three-day option 

If three days are available for touring, we can include visiting castles such as Flint, Rhuddlan, Denbigh etc as an addition to our standard two-day tour.

FACT: Wales has more castles per head of population than anywhere else in the world, these ‘fortified’ buildings were not haphazardly constructed, there was a reason why they were designed and located where they are…… join the tour and find out more.

 

We can include visits to

  • Caernarfon Castle
  • Conwy Castle
  • Beaumaris Castle
  • Dolbadarn Castle
  • Harlech Castle
  • Segontium Roman Fort
  • Fort Belan
  • Din Lligwy Celtic site
  • Holyhead Mountain Celtic settlement
  • Gwydir Castle
  • Bryn Celli Ddu
  • Roman Fort at Holyhead
  • Various battle sites
  • Owain Glyndŵr story, last native Welshman to hold the title Prince of Wales

Some of the main sights

Roman occupation of Wales

Roman occupation of Wales

Ancient Town
Ancient Monument

The Roman occupation of Wales lasted for nearly 400 years and apart from visiting the main Roman fort of Segontium in Caernarfon, we will also visit many other sites such as the battle site for the capture of Anglesey and the slaughter of the Celtic druids.

Dolbadarn Castle

Dolbadarn Castle

Castle
Ancient Monument

Built by a Welsh Prince to protect the valley, predates the English fortresses of the Edward 1st. Before the Conquest of Wales was completed in 1282, Wales consisted of a number of independent kingdoms, the most important being Gwynedd. Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, sometimes written as Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, also known as Llywelyn the Last, or, in Welsh, Llywelyn Ein Llyw Olaf, was Prince of Wales from 1258 until his death at Cilmeri in 1282

Segontium

Segontium

Ancient Town
Ancient Monument

Camp for up to a thousand soldiers, the main Roman fort in the north of Wales area. Remains of an auxiliary Roman fort, probably established in the late 70s AD and modified through to the late fourth century.

Caernarfon

Caernarfon

Castle
Ancient Town

A brute of a fortress. Caernarfon Castle’s pumped-up appearance is unashamedly muscle-bound and intimidating. Picking a fight with this massive structure would have been a daunting prospect. By throwing his weight around in stone, King Edward I created what is surely one of the most impressive of Wales’s castles. Worthy of World Heritage status no less.

Edward wasn’t one to miss an opportunity to tighten his grip even further on the native population. The birth of his son, the first English Prince of Wales, in the castle in 1284, was a perfect device to stamp his supremacy. In 1969, the investiture of the current Prince of Wales, HRH Prince Charles took place here.

Beaumaris

Beaumaris

Castle
A castle with classic proportions and perfect symmetry. The last hurrah of Edward I’s massive building programme in north Wales… just a shame he never got round to finishing it! With finances stretched to the limit and the Scots now increasingly effective in their resistance to the English monarch, his vice-like grip on Wales was beginning to slip. Edward or ‘Longshanks’, on account of his extraordinary height, was forced to focus his attention elsewhere and the rest is, quite literally, history… Technically perfect and constructed according to an ingenious ‘walls within walls’ plan, Beaumaris Castle was the 13th-century hi-tech equivalent of a spaceship landing unceremoniously on Anglesey today.
Aberlleiniog castle

Aberlleiniog castle

Castle
Like so many sites on Anglesey, Aberlleiniog is a hidden gem. It combines fascinating history with natural beauty - without any of the crowds. Aberlleiniog Castle is a little-known Scheduled Ancient Monument, situated near Penmon, on the Isle of Anglesey.
Harlech Castle

Harlech Castle

Castle

'Men of Harlech.' The nation’s unofficial anthem, loved by rugby fans and regimental bands alike, is said to describe the siege which took place here during the War of the Roses, wherein a handful of men held out against a besieging army of thousands. Edward’s tried and tested ‘walls within walls’ model was put together in super-fast time between 1283 and 1295 by an army of nearly a thousand skilled craftsmen and labourers.

Criccieth Castle

Criccieth Castle

Castle
Sea
Built originally by Llywelyn the Great, this very Welsh of princes included a very English style of a gatehouse. Edward I’s forces took the castle some 50 years later, undertook their own improvements and remodelled a tower for stone-throwing engines. Not as much fun for those at the bottom as it sounds for those at the top!
 
Owain Glyn Dŵr sealed Criccieth’s fate when his troops captured and burnt the castle in the early years of the 15th century. This was to be the last major Welsh rebellion against the English.
Conwy Castle

Conwy Castle

Castle
Museum
Built for Edward I, by Master James of St George, the castle is amongst the finest surviving medieval fortifications in Britain. In a word, exceptional. You can’t fault it, from the grandeur of its high towers and curtain walls to its excellent state of preservation. An estimated £15,000 was spent building the castle, the largest sum Edward spent in such a short time on any of his Welsh castles between 1277 and 1307. Money well spent.
 
Two barbicans (fortified gateways), eight massive towers and a great bow-shaped hall all set within its distinctive elongated shape, due in part to the narrow rocky outcrop on which the castle stands. You won’t find Edward’s concentric ‘walls within walls’ here. They weren’t needed. The rock base was enough security in itself.
 
Some say it is the most magnificent of Edward I’s Welsh fortresses.
Fort Belan

Fort Belan

Castle

Notable for being the only purpose-built fortress of the American Revolution on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. This location is sure to astound and fascinate our guests, apart from the history and the fort itself, the scenery is fantastic.

Holyhead Mountain Celtic settlement

Holyhead Mountain Celtic settlement

Ancient Town
Ancient Monument

The Holyhead Mountain Hut Group is located along a southwest to the northeast level terrace of land towards the south-western end of the mountain.  Although it is unclear how old the settlement is, with suggestions ranging from the Neolithic to the Dark Ages, it seems probable that much of it is of an Iron Age date but as the structures have been built at different periods it is possible that the local inhabitants were using the area for homesteads and farming over a much longer time span with only a handful of the buildings being in use at any one time.

The Roman Fort at Holyhead

The Roman Fort at Holyhead

Castle
Ancient Town

The Roman Fort at Holyhead, known in the Welsh language as Caer Gybi, was one of a chain of installations designed to counter acts of piracy and raiding from Ireland. It is possible it operated in conjunction with the nearby fort of Segontium. Its original Latin name is unknown but it was probably constructed in the late third century and was effectively a fortified landing place. Stone ramparts enclosed three sides of the fort with the North and South Walls extending down to the waterfront where the warships of Classis Britannica would have been beached.

Bryn Celli Ddu

Bryn Celli Ddu

Ancient Monument

Impressive Neolithic chambered tomb, with partially restored entrance passage and mound, on the site of a former henge monument. Bryn Celli Ddu – the Mound in the Dark Grove – is probably the best-known prehistoric monument on Anglesey, and is one of the most evocative archaeological sites in Britain. Like other prehistoric tombs on Anglesey, it was constructed to protect and pay respect to the remains of the ancestors.

Tour information

Is this tour only being offered as a two-day event?
The locations listed can only be visited if two days are allocated, we can create a shortened one day tour or even extend the number of days.
Does this tour involve a lot of walking?
Getting to some of the sites does involve some non-strenuous walking, however like all of our tours they are custom built to your requirements.
What is the best location to book our accommodation for this tour?
We would recommend a central location, please see our Accommodation section on our Information page.
How do we enter the castles, do we need to pay?
Most of the castles are maintained by Cadw, part of the Welsh Government and there is an entrance fee. Please visit http://cadw.gov.wales. We can advise you on the best deals when you book your tour with us.
Is this also a sightseeing tour, will we see the scenic locations as well as castles?
Yes, as we visit the castles and other sites we will be travelling through scenic Snowdonia & Anglesey

Start your journey.
Get in touch

Our clients love this tour!

"Very Enjoyable Tour!! Our guide was so great! We booked a 2-day castle tour and the tour absolutely exceeded our expectations. We saw various historical sites around Wales and our guide gave so much information about each place. Not only facts about what happened but also myths/legends and how they came to be. Without question, we would definitely book with Celticos again!"
Brenda S

Ready to start planning your perfect tour of Wales?

Form

Let's get started!

Fill in the form and we will be in touch.

If enquiring from outside the UK please include country code for example +44
(Google, Word of Mouth, TripAdvisor etc)
Booking Coordinator

 

Our tour booking co-ordinator is ready to assist you in creating your perfect custom built tour of beautiful Wales.

The booking process

The booking process

Once you’ve sent us your message, this is the process:

1. We will confirm if your requested date(s) are available and/or respond to your initial questions.
2. Following our response, if you wish to proceed further with your enquiry we can discuss and plan your specific tour requirements in more detail.
3. Once you are happy with our plans we will then send you our quotation (Total tour price and deposit amount) for you to review. 
4. On our receipt of the deposit, you will receive an email from us confirming and securing your booking.