Bangor lies on the mainland side of the Menai Strait which separates North Wales from Anglesey Island. It is said to derive its name from the protective fence or ‘bangor’ of a monastic settlement built in the 6th century on the site of the present Bangor Cathedral. The much re-built and modified Cathedral has been built on the site of an earlier church and has a garden of plants mentioned in the Bible. The present cathedral was built in the 19th century to a design by Sir George Gilbert Scott, the architect of the Albert Memorial in London. In the old Canonry is the Museum of Welsh Antiquities which holds items from prehistoric times onwards.
Other places of interest within 30 kilometres:
Caernarfon, ceremonial capital of Wales overlooking the Menai Strait, with its magnificently preserved castle in which, in 1969, Prince Charles was invested as Prince of Wales.
Snowdon, which is the highest mountain south of the Scottish border lies at the centre of the Snowdonia National Park. There are numerous walks and climbs to the summit from villages which encircle the mountain, or less strenuously, access via the rack and pinion railway.
Penrhyn Castle, 3 kilometres east of Bangor, is a National Trust property built in the mid-19th century. Amongst many items of interest, it contains a slate bed weighing 4 tons!
Coedydd Aber Nature Reserve, to the south of Bangor, has mixed woodland with oaks and alders, birches and hazels and the Aber Falls, which drop 35 metres down a precipice.
Thomas Telford’s 300 metre suspension bridge across the Menai Strait to the Isle of Anglesey, which in its day was one of the first and longest suspension bridges in the world. Is was built in 1836.
Did you know that – Snowdonia is known, by the Welsh, as ‘the Eagles Nesting Place’ although eagles no longer fly here?
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