Britain's Other Lake District

Claudia Dowell discovers a freshwater paradise in a less-travelled corner of stunning Snowdonia.

- Claudia Dowell

IT’S EVERY BIT as beautiful as England’s counterpart, so why had I not visited Wales’s lake district, spread across the gentler southern reaches of the Snowdonia National Park, before? The largest gem in the park’s collection of 100 watery jewels is Bala Lake, and it was at its southern end that I secured a pitch close to the water’s edge at Glanllyn Caravan and Camping Park.

Holidaymakers can pay a hefty premium for a room with a view, but from the lounge window of our Coachman Vision 450 Plus I could see boats sailing in the bright sunshine, cattle cooling off in the water from a spit of pastureland and a boathouse where children were clambering out of kayaks, all against the stunning backdrop of Mount Aran Benllyn.

Glanllyn was not my first stop in the area. After the long haul (five hours)from our storage site in Camberley, I made a stopover for one night at the Bala Camping and

Caravanning Club Site, just a few miles to the northeast of Bala. A pretty site, set among hills and with a stream running through h it, it was close to another gem in the national park’s treasure chest that I wanted to visit: Rug Chapel at Corwen.

Chapel of delights