From castles to wonderfully weird Portmeirion on Wales’s north-west coast

From the graveyard of St Michael’s in Ynys the view was striking: the Italianate oddity of Portmeirion across the estuary, the rippling peaks of Eryri (Snowdonia) beyond, and the tidal island of Ynys Gifftan sitting in the River Dwyryd. I’d come to explore this part of Gwynedd by rail and on foot.

The Cambrian Line runs west from Shrewsbury to the bay before turning north along the shore, paralleled here by the Wales Coast Path and, launched in 2024, the 128-mile Cadfan Way from Tywyn to the monastery ruins on Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island). My journey began in Machynlleth, a handsome market town where the Cambrian Line first feels connected to the sea and where excellent indie shops cluster.

I boarded the train and watched the Dyfi mouth open into mudflats, salt marsh and sandbanks; the route passes the Dyfi Osprey Project’s 360-observatory and the nests it watches. By the time the line reached white-washed Aberdyfi it was running so close to the shore you could barely see the join between land and sea.

Wales, Gwynedd

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