Conwy Itineraries
Half a day or a full weekend. Here are the best ways to spend your time in Conwy, planned step by step.
Whether you have a few hours or a full weekend to explore, these itineraries give you a local’s route through Conwy. Each one links directly to the restaurants and activities along the way.
Half a day inside the walls
The efficient version, built for someone stopping in Conwy on the way along the coast. It puts the free wall walk before the paid castle on purpose: an hour on the rampart gives you the town's geometry, and the castle stops being a pile of towers and becomes the thing the town was built around. Everything here is within about ten minutes' walk of everything else, so the only real constraint is the two-hour cap on the Vicarage Gardens car park, which is why the plan assumes you parked at Morfa Bach or Mount Pleasant instead.
- 109:30·15 minutes
Park on the edge and walk in through the Upper Gate
Morfa Bach (217 spaces) or Mount Pleasant (72 spaces) rather than trying for Vicarage Gardens inside the walls, which is capped at two hours and fills first. Walking in from the west takes you under the Upper Gate, which is the right way to arrive at a walled town.
- 209:45·1 hour 15 minutes
Walk the town walls
Free, open all year in daylight, roughly 1.3km of circuit with 21 towers. Take the high western stretch above the Upper Gate for the view down over the roofs to the estuary and the Great Orme. Note that a short section between the Watch Tower and the Wing Gate is closed for safety work, targeted to reopen for Easter 2027, so it is two stretches rather than a full loop. No dogs on the rampart at all, and no lighting, so daylight only.
View Conwy Town Walls - 311:00·1 hour 30 minutes
Conwy Castle
Now that you know the shape of the town, the castle reads properly. Eight towers, an inner and outer ward, built 1283 to 1287 with the walls as a single scheme, and one of four components in the UNESCO inscription Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd. Book online for 5 per cent off. Access from the visitor centre is a steep 50 metre path with several sets of steps.
View Conwy Castle - 412:30·1 hour
Lunch on Castle Street
Upstairs at Anna's is a first-floor room a few doors along, open from half nine through the day, and you can walk in for lunch without a booking. If it is full, the Fisherman's Chip Shop opposite is open half eleven to seven, seven days a week, and the quay wall is three minutes away.
View Upstairs at Anna's - 513:30·1 hour
The quay, the Smallest House and Telford's bridge
Down through the Lower Gate to the quay. The Smallest House in Great Britain is 72 inches wide by 122 inches high, takes ten minutes, opens spring to autumn and wants cash. Then out onto Telford's 1826 suspension bridge: upstream to the south it is chains and then Stephenson's 1849 tubular railway bridge, and the 1958 road bridge is downstream behind you, toward the estuary. Take a windproof layer, it is exposed.
View The Smallest House in Great Britain
A full day: the town in the morning, the hill in the afternoon
The version that separates Conwy from a coach stop. The walled town takes a morning and the hill behind it takes an afternoon, and doing both is the difference between a castle visit and a day in a place. Mynydd y Dref starts where the streets stop, climbs to 244 metres, and has an Iron Age hillfort on the top and semi-wild ponies on the open ground. It is free, it is exposed, and almost nobody who comes for the castle does it. Do not attempt the hill in poor visibility, carry the OS map rather than relying on a phone, because coverage degrades on the ridge, and wear proper boots: the ground is rough and unsurfaced throughout.
- 109:00·30 minutes
Breakfast from the bakery counters
Popty Conwy Bakery on Castle Street opens at eight and is one of the few things in Conwy open seven days including Sunday. Isaac Simeon on the High Street does the patisserie side, Tuesday to Saturday. Between the two you have breakfast without needing a restaurant to be open.
- 209:30·1 hour 15 minutes
The town walls, west to east
Free, under ninety minutes, and the best free view in the town from the stretch above the Upper Gate. One section between the Watch Tower and the Wing Gate is closed for safety work with reopening targeted for Easter 2027, so plan two stretches rather than a continuous loop.
View Conwy Town Walls - 310:45·1 hour
Plas Mawr
The Elizabethan townhouse Robert Wynn built between 1576 and 1585, with its original moulded plasterwork and an audio tour. Two things govern it: it closes completely from 2 November to 28 February, and last admission is 45 minutes before closing rather than the usual half hour. If you are here in winter, swap this step for Aberconwy House, which the National Trust now runs as a second-hand bookshop on limited days.
View Plas Mawr - 412:00·1 hour
Early lunch, because the hill is the afternoon
Eat properly before you go up, because there is nothing on the ridge and no shelter. Upstairs at Anna's on Castle Street runs through the day; Alfredo's on Lancaster Square opens from one o'clock at weekends and takes bookings by phone on 01492 592381.
View Upstairs at Anna's - 513:00·1 hour 30 minutes
Up Mynydd y Dref by way of Bodlondeb Woods
Out of the walls at the north-west corner, through Bodlondeb Park into Bodlondeb Woods Local Nature Reserve, then up onto the ridge from Mountain Road. About an hour of steady climbing to the top on rough, unsurfaced ground. Semi-wild ponies graze the open hill, so dogs under close control.
View Mynydd y Dref (Conwy Mountain) - 614:30·1 hour
Castell Caer Seion and the summit
The Iron Age hillfort near the western end of the ridge, a scheduled monument, unusual for having a smaller and more strongly defended fort built inside the larger enclosure. From 244 metres the whole geography resolves: the estuary, the three bridges, the Great Orme, Anglesey, and the Carneddau stacking up to the south. Sit down for twenty minutes. This is the point of the day.
View Mynydd y Dref (Conwy Mountain) - 715:30·1 hour 30 minutes
Down to the Sychnant Pass and back into town
Drop south-west off the summit to the head of the Sychnant Pass, the steep-sided gap that carried the mail coach road before the railway came along the coast, then follow Sychnant Pass Road back east into Conwy. Tarmac with no pavement in places on the return, so walk facing traffic.
- 817:30·2 hours
The Albion, then dinner
In that order. The Albion on Upper Gate Street is a 1921 listed interior run jointly by four north Wales breweries, serves no food beyond a nibbles list, and has no television or jukebox. Have a pint, then walk two minutes for dinner. The Jackdaw needs booking well ahead; The Hidden Chapel opens Wednesday to Saturday evenings on 07947 272821.
View The Albion Ale House
Ready to plan your visit?
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