Moving onto Llandudno itself now, it started off as a typical dismal grey day in North Wales!!
Apparently the town’s name is derived from its patron saint, Saint Tudno and has had the title of “Queen of the Welsh Resorts”, from around 1864.
As we sauntered along the North shore pier we admired the views out to sea and towards the Great Orme. Built in 1878, at 2,295 feet (700 m) the pier is the longest in Wales and is a Grade II listed building.
As with most British seaside resorts, the pier was chock a block with a wide variety of colourful plastic tat. From crab nets to tropical shells, pinwheels to buckets and spades.
I have a not so secret love for all things cheap and cheerful, and all grouped together they make a psychedelic photo opp!
Here the ornate pier balustrades show the ravages of the sea.
But back to snaps of the more modern face of this seaside favourite.
Little did these tropical sea dwellers know that they were destined for baskets on a Welsh pier!
The town of Llandudno developed from Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements over many hundreds of years on the slopes of the limestone headland, known to seafarers as the Great Orme and to landsmen as the Creuddyn Peninsula.
According to the Wikipedia page, by 1847 the town had grown to a thousand people, served by the new church of St George, built in 1840.
The great majority of the men worked in the copper mines with others employed in fishing and subsistence agriculture.
Now however it is tourism that enables the town to thrive. So viva La Tat! Viva La Plastic buckets and Viva Le Tourists!
