Along with Conwy Castle, this garrison town was built in the 1280s to give Edward I a toehold in Wales.
More importantly for me… according to my DNA test done thru Ancestry.com – Conwy is the place where the highest percentage of my blood relatives live in the world. 🙂
As there were no real cities in the 13th-century Wales, this was an English town, planted with settlers for the king’s political purposes. What’s left today are the best medieval walls in Britain, surrounding a humble town crowned by the bleak and barren hulk of a castle that was awesome in its day (and still is).
Conwy’s charming High Street leads down to a fishy harbor that permitted Edward to restock his castle safely. Because the modern highway was tunneled under the town, Conwy has a strolling ambience.
Rick Steves found Conwy to be the perfect size – big enough to have a real vitality, but small enough to be cozy. I agree! It’s one of the most purely delightful towns of its size in Britain.
