ANGLESEY

In ancient times, Anglesey was a world apart from the British mainland: an island realm sacred to Druid priests, who cursed invading Romans over the water with gruesome spells. Two millennia on, it’s far easier to reach Anglesey (via one of the two bridges across the Menai Strait), and you can be sure of a warmer welcome. You might spend anywhere between a weekend and a lifetime wandering quiet trails that crisscross its mossy cli­ s, strolling seaside towns that are bastions of the Welsh language, or tripping over ancient standing stones le. by the long-vanished Druids. The island was once known as the ‘Mother of Wales’ because its fertile fields fed the nation, and in a modern reinvention of that tradition, a crop of new restaurants have set up shop, giving Anglesey a reputation as Wales’ gastronomic heartland.

But the lingering memory after any visit to Ynys Môn, as it’s known in Welsh, is some of the most sublime beaches in Wales and, for that matter, the whole country: wind-tousled expanses that are the stuff of sandcastle daydreams. Walking between the dunes