Denbighshire, Wales

It must have been the lure of Snowdonia that blinded me to the charms of other hilly parts of North Wales such as those in rural Denbighshire. For a few years in the middle of the last decade, I fitted in a good number of trips to the area before ending up resting the idea for longer than is deserved. Because they are missed out by others heading for more famous parts of Wales, you are guaranteed a little bit of peace and quiet around here too. In contrast to places like Denbigh or the not unattractive Ruthin, Llangollen turns out to be something of a honeypot, but those crowds are easily left behind you when heading for the countryside as I have been discovering since the spring of 2005. The hills may not be all that high, but they can be steep-sided and there's a fair number of them too in the form the Berwyn and Clwydian ranges with a plenty of decent farming land surrounding them.