Blaenau Ffestiniog

Blaenau Ffestiniog is a small town in northern Wales, tucked into the mountains of Snowdonia National Park and shaped almost entirely by its slate-quarrying past. At its Victorian peak, the surrounding quarries supplied slate to roof much of Europe, and the vast grey spoil heaps left behind give the town a landscape unlike anywhere else in Britain. The Ffestiniog Railway — one of the world's oldest narrow-gauge railways, originally built to carry slate down to the coast at Porthmadog — now runs passengers through some of the most dramatic mountain scenery in Wales. Abandoned quarry workings and slate caverns are open to visitors, offering an unusually atmospheric window into 19th-century industrial life, while walkers and mountain bikers have access to an extensive trail network across the surrounding hills.