Sunday 9 July 2023 - The Druid's Circle - Cicerone Snowdonia North, walk 2

We drove up to Penmaenmawr on another fine day. An easy journey, and lots of on street parking makes the car park (£3 for 4 hours) look empty.

2km of tarmac up a steep lane brought us to the two stone pillars pictured above. Dog walkers, dog faeces and parked cars littered the scene.

A lovely belvedere path then led us around Foel Lus on the Welsh Coast Path. There were superb views across Conway Mountain to the Great Orme.

Beyond a signpost where we congratulated a family group for getting their two year old girl out of nappies (come on, Isabella!), we continued to the east of the high ground, eventually reaching an area of stone circles. Named 'The Druid's Circle' by the Victorians, the largest of the circles, comprising some 30 stones, has been dated to between 3500 and 5000 years old - clearly nothing to do with the druids!

Here are a few more 'stone circle' pictures.

As we descended directly back to Penmaenmawr, a small shrew ran ahead of us. A real delight, as we usually only notice expired specimens.

There were good views across to the tarmac lane up which we had walked earlier, and the stone pillars that introduce the path around Foel Lus.

A brief shower delayed us under a tree for a few minutes before the walk concluded with a nice descent past noisy robins and wrens, then under and past quarry paraphernalia (not on Alex Kendall's route) to reach the car.

Our route was about 9km with 360 metres ascent, and took us a little over 3 hours. A good one.