Swallow falls & Cwm Idwal, North Wales.

"What are men to rocks & mountains?" - Jane Austen: Pride & Prejudice 

For my birthday weekend in April we took a 4 hour drive up to North Wales for a weekend of adventure.
The first stop before we made it to where we were staying was Swallow Falls. I had seen many images online and I find Instagram photography pages a great source for finding new natural beauty. That is exactly where I had heard of this beautiful place and it wasn't too far off our route so we decided to pull over and see.
This waterfall is kept behind an old booth where admission is £1.50 per person. When we visited there was a little man behind collecting the admission fees who gave me lots of free postcards when I asked to purchase one. I collect a postcard wherever I travel so I was really grateful to this kind gesture. I have since heard that the man has been replaced by a coin operated machine, which saddens me quite a bit for many a reason.

The waterfall is a short walk from Betws-y-Coed which we drove through and i have to admit it really caught my eye. It was bustling with people and reminded me very much of the Lake District.
Once inside, there are LOTS of steps, so if you are unsteady on your feet i would advise against going down the long steps, and only up the steps straight ahead where the best views are.
If you go down the steps, it brings you to a smaller and not so impressive waterfall which is pictured in the first photo below. However, if you venture straight ahead up the smaller number of steps you come to the main event. The falls are spectacular and there are two viewing points. There were a lot of cameras on tripods in one area who were taking many images so we were unfortunately only able to take images off the more open viewing area of the two, which i was more than happy with. The water wasn't at its highest, i would love to see it in full force!!
Waterfalls are quickly becoming my favourite thing to find when in a new location & unfortunately for you reading this, I always do a tourist pose in front of them.

After that we popped back into the car and took a drive to Cwm Idwal, which again I had seen online this time on TripAdvisor. The images from the reviewers looked incredible and there are many different trails you can take depending on your time frame. We decided to take the short walk, after our long drive with still a bit to go before reaching our destination we thought this might be best as energy levels weren't at their highest.

We tied up our boots and began walking and as the rain came down we didn't have a care in the world as the landscape opened up and the sound of chatter disappeared. It was just us, our cameras and the landscape.
We climbed up to the nearest lake and back down. As you can see there are parts of the rocks surface which look as though they were simply dropped from the sky. The placing of them is spectacular and the views are breathtaking, a highly recommended and simple walk!