Despite only being located at the end of our valley, I’d never actually been inside the famous local landmark of Penrhyn Castle – that is, until today! Having each being been gifted an entry pass, we set out on our bikes in somewhat chilly conditions to view the elaborate and historic building first hand.

The cycle track from The Cottage gives a nice ride down towards the Menai Straits.

It’s almost all traffic free and gently downhill all the way, dropping around 250m to sea level, where the Castle is situated, just outside of the ‘City of Learning’.

Just riding up to the main castle was treat. The grounds are huge and full of colour at this time of year. In fact arriving by bike means that you can literally ride all the way up to the front door, rather than taking the long walk from the car park and ticket office.

We left our bikes by the archway and set off through the interior, marvelling at the astonishing details of every room. It is as ornate as any Palace I’ve visited with carving on carvings. There’s a bit of a murky history, regarding the origin of the family’s wealth and how they came to be swimming in such amounts of cash – but you can’t deny, it’s an impressive place and a real work of art. The main staircase took ten years of stone masonry to be carved! There was also a decent sized dining room and the interior doors were as solid a a church door.

The enterprising folk at the National Trust have made sure that you can only exit the building, via a walk through the cafe, so we duly warmed up with a spot of lunch before exploring the gardens.

The gardens were as good as the castle – so much work must go into keeping it looking good and so much of it must have been planted years ago – that’s some amount of forward planning!

On the ride home (up hill this time and not quite as easy!), we took a fun detour through the ford, which was a little deeper than anticipated!

I got across with dry feet and we made it home with 25km travelled according to the GPS. A different day out for us, but lovely to have been able to bike from home and experience a bit of local history…