EZTrip.com International Destination Guide and Hotel Listings

After spending a few days in the North Wales rural hinterland, BANGOR , across the bridges from Anglesey, makes a welcome change. It is not big, but as the largest town in Gwynedd and home to Bangor University, it passes in these parts for cosmopolitan. The students decamp for the summer, leaving only a trickle of visitors to replace them. Bangor is a hotbed of passionate Welsh nationalism, hardly surprising in such a staunchly Welsh-speaking area, and it's a dramatic change from the largely English-speaking north-coast resorts.

The university takes up much of upper Bangor, straddling the hill that separates the town centre from the Menai Strait. The shape of the college's main building is almost an exact replica of the thirteenth- to fifteenth-century cathedral (daily 11am-5pm), which boasts the longest continuous use of any cathedral in Britain, easily predating the town. Pop in if only to see the sixteenth-century wooden Mostyn Christ , depicted bound and seated on a rock.

Just over the road, the Bangor Museum and Art Gallery , Ffordd Gwynedd (Tues-Fri 12.30-4.30pm, Sat 10.30am-4.30pm; free), offers snippets of local history enlivened by a traditional costume section and an archeology room, containing the most complete Roman sword found in Wales. The art gallery concentrates on predominantly Welsh contemporary works. For a good look down the Menai Strait to Telford's bridge, walk along Garth Road to Bangor's rejuvenated and pristine Victorian Pier (50p), which reaches halfway across to Anglesey.