Tuesday – Beddgelert

Somehow both of us can’t bring ourselves to make a tour up the Snowdon, not on foot anyway but we also save the train journey for our next trip to Wales. But as we are in Snowdonia of course we would love to see a little bit of the mountain area. We follow a hint of our travel guide and take smaller roads to Beddgelert. Here you already have the mountain scenery all around but you can easily walk along the river through the valley.

The town of Beddgelert is – well, besides the railway station of course – known for the tomb of a dog. Many centuries ago one Prince of Wales by mistake suspected his faithful wolfhound to have pulled his son from the cradle and to have killed it. He slayed the poor animal with his sword. When the Prince noticed his mistake he was so in despair that from that day on he never smiled again, the faithful dog was buried with all honors.

The tomb idyllically lies in the valley of the River Glaslyn. We not only take the short comfortable walk to the tomb but follow the track along the river for some more kilometres. As the valley gets narrower the path itself gets more and more adventurous. At last we literally have to climb over the rocks that in parts protrude the river.

At a place where the valley is still wide we have a break on the bulky rocks directly on the water’s edge. On the opposite river bank people with enormous photo equipment sit with their objectives pointing at us. We are irritated for a moment but then we state they all wait for the railway to emerge from the tunnel directly above where we are sitting – we prefer to leave this place at once for not to spoil the picture.

After a delicious icecream break we return via another route through the lonely mountains. How lucky we are concerning the weather! Even up here where the clouds often cling to the mountains today the sun shines brightly.