Llandudno’s promenade curves for about two kilometres round the bay from the Great Orme and the pier at one end to the Little Orme at the other, and it is the most complete Victorian seafront in Britain.
Nothing on it is modern. The whole crescent is a continuous run of white-painted stucco hotels and terraces, built between the 1850s and the 1890s to a controlled plan, with no gaps, no towers and no late-twentieth-century blocks. That is not an accident.
Llandudno was planned. The Mostyn family, who owned the land, laid the town out from 1849 on the flat isthmus between the two headlands and imposed building standards, materials and heights through leasehold covenants.
Those covenants held. The result is a resort that looks the way its designers intended, which is why the seafront is used constantly for period filming, and why the town markets itself as the Queen of Welsh Resorts without much argument.
The promenade is long, gently curved, level and wide — one of the great British seaside walks, and the thing most visitors spend most of their time doing.
It is spotlessly clean, which visitors mention more than any other single feature.
Along it: the pier at the western end, the Grand Hotel, the relief lifeboat station, the bandstand, Venue Cymru theatre and conference centre, the paddling pool, and a series of shelters — glass-and-iron wind and rain shelters at intervals, which are genuinely useful on this coast and are used year-round by locals.
It is used by runners, dog walkers and everyone else, at all hours.
Llandudno claims a connection to Alice Liddell, the original of Alice in Wonderland, whose family holidayed at the Penmorfa house on the West Shore in the 1860s. Whether Lewis Carroll ever visited is disputed and probably not, but the association is old and the town has run with it.
The Alice in Wonderland Trail places bronze and wooden sculptures of the characters around the town — the Mad Hatter is on the promenade — with a free trail leaflet and app. It is a good way of walking children round the town without them noticing.
Shingle over sand, shelving, the whole length of the bay.
Dogs are segregated: there are designated dog-friendly and dog-free sections, marked, and enforced in season. Check the signs — this catches people out.
The West Shore, on the other side of the isthmus, is the quieter beach and faces the sunset.
Free, open always.
Parking: on-street along the promenade and in the town car parks; charged, and busy in summer.
Facilities: toilets, cafés, kiosks and food stalls along the front; everything else two streets back on Mostyn Street.
Access: level and surfaced the whole length, with dropped kerbs — genuinely accessible, and unusually so.
Buses: the promenade is served throughout, and the tour bus runs the length and up the Orme in season.
Best time: early morning for the light on the Orme; late evening for the town lit up.
About two kilometres, from the pier at the Great Orme end to the Little Orme.
The town was laid out from 1849 under Mostyn estate covenants controlling materials, heights and design, and the covenants held.
Only on the designated sections — the beach is segregated in season and signposted.
A free town trail of sculptures of the Alice in Wonderland characters, connected to Alice Liddell’s childhood holidays on the West Shore.
Yes — level and surfaced the whole length, which is unusual for a seafront of this age.