The Best Pubs in North Wales for Warming Up After a Hike
Real fires, local ales, and cawl that tastes like someone's grandmother made it. These are the pubs worth walking for.
There is a particular pleasure in pushing open a pub door after a long day on the hills. The warmth hits you first, then the smell of woodsmoke and something slow-cooked, then the sound of a room full of people who've been outside all day and earned their pint.
The Heights Hotel in Llanberis is the classic post-Snowdon stop. It's not fancy — sticky menus, mismatched chairs, a jukebox that leans heavily on 90s rock — but the cawl is made properly, with lamb that's been cooking since morning, and the Snowdonia Ale is brewed twenty miles away.
For something more refined, the Ty Gwyn Hotel near Betws-y-Coed has been feeding travellers since the coaching era. The bar menu is short and honest: local cheese, homemade bread, a rotating guest ale from a Welsh microbrewery.
On Anglesey, the White Eagle at Rhoscolyn sits above a beach that turns gold at low tide. Order the fish — it came off a boat this morning — and sit outside if the weather allows. This is what the end of a good day looks like.