Llangollen

Llangollen is a place I visited a lot with my family when I was a child, so to come back with my baby boy was the best feeling. I will be honest that when we arrived at the car park, I had totally forgotten how beautiful it was, so many trees, so many flowers, and just in pretty landscapes to look at.

When we arrived around 10am, it was pretty empty considering it was a sunny Sunday morning, however once it hit 12pm, wow, the crowds of people starting coming in through the streets. If you’re from the North West of England, it’s a pretty popular weekend destination to visit. Obviously this is going to change, but it was crazy how in retail shops in Wales you are still to wear a mask, but not in hospitality.

Rich was off catching up with a good friend, so I took the baby for a wander in his pram – and I must add that Llangollen is not very pram friendly, at all. Everywhere seemed to have 1, 2 or 3 steps to get into it, so when I planned to visit all of the tacky souvenir shops, I decided to wait until Rich was back. It was too hot to struggle with a pram.

So, we wandered through all of the streets with shops on, so many cute and quirky places to visit. We did enter a bakery called Gerrards Bakery, so I got some cakes for my Mum and Dad, and treat Dexter to a gingerbread man. U love a good cake and bakery, I can’t walk past one, I get that from my Mum! I also stubbled across a book shop that we used to visit ALOT as a child, in search of my Dads Rothmans Football books. If I say Ollivanders from Harry Potter, that is exactly what this book shop was – and I imagine still is. Sadly, didn’t get to go inside as I had a pram. The book shop is called Cafe and Books, I remember books being everywhere, loads of steps to climb, it was just great, we loved visiting!

We then took a stroll with gingerbread man in hand to the Llangollen Bridge, you see remarkable views from here, the railway station to your right, the streets of Llangollen to your left. Straight ahead are mountains with beautiful buildings on, with the River Dee below – we stood and watched some water activities taking place – it definitely kept Dexter entertained for a little while.

I remembered from when I was little a walkway, and for the life of me could not picture where it was. So we went for another wander to then find Llangollen Canal Walk – I’m so glad that I found this as we spent the majority of our time here. We walked up and down the canal plenty of times pointing at all of the ducks in the water and dogs walking past us. This is the spot where most family’s stay, because you can go out into the river, lots of children were playing here, Dexter was in awe. Benches are all along, and there is even enough grass areas to chill on and a great, well-used children’s play area. All-in-all its somewhere you could hover around for hours. We came back again with Rich, Dexter was loving it. And again, the views…unreal. This time looking down the river to the amazing bridge, with a busy town going by – it is something that money can’t buy. B-E-A-uuutiful!

Llangollen has many cafes and eateries, you are spoilt for choice! Rich was at the Riverbanc Cafe – it looked like an unreal location for a cafe. We wanted to go in one restaurant called The Corn Mill along the river which looked lovely but couldn’t due to needing the fire brigade…so, we ended up in the cafe next door called Dee Side Cafe Bistro, honestly, it was ok, we were just hungry so needed anything. I got a Jacket Potato that was drowned in beans, rich got a burger, that didn’t taste good at all – so if you’re in Llangollen I advise trying elsewhere, haha! But like I said, so much choice, each time we visit we will definitely keep trying new places.