Cruises to Holyhead

Facilities at the pier include a small gift shop and Internet center. It's a short distance to Holyhead's town center. From there, historic St. Cybi's Church, with its 13th- and 15th-century stone carvings and fine stained-glass windows, is a few minutes' walk. It's situated within the impressive walls of a rectangular Roman fort. The site overlooks the harbor that the battlements once protected. The seafront, promenade, beach and maritime museum (documentation and artifacts from some 100 shipwrecks) are between 15 and 25 minutes' walk from the town center. A foot bridge links the ferry and railway terminal with the town center, so one could walk back from the maritime museum in about 30 minutes.

As Holyhead is a busy ferry port for ships to and from Ireland, the town experiences a lot of vehicular traffic, including cars, camper vans and trucks. The Welsh drive on the left side as in the rest of Great Britain. Some narrow streets are one way, others two ways, so be aware of the direction of traffic when crossing the road.

Also, try not to make the mistake of referring to the Welsh as English, unless the latter are indeed from England.

Although the town center is close, it is not advisable to walk into Holyhead, as the one-lane road is very narrow. Shuttle buses provide transfers to the port's combined ferry and railway terminal, to the town center along Victoria Street and to the maritime museum at Newry Beach, less than a mile from the shopping district. For local sightseeing in the town center, the main shopping street has been pedestrianized, though it does not have a very exciting range of stores.

For independent sightseeing in Anglesey and across the Menai Strait in Northwest Wales, local transit is frequent, efficient and inexpensive. Hourly rail service by Arriva Train Wales connects Holyhead directly with Conwy, a walled medieval castle town; the trip takes less than an hour along the scenic coastal North Wales Line. For the castle towns of Beaumaris and Caernarfon, take one of the hourly trains from Holyhead to Bangor, and connect to a bus that stops on the street outside the station for both destinations, a journey of an hour each way. (Click here for bus schedules.)

With driving on the left and narrow country roads, renting a car will not be an attractive option for most non-U.K. visitors.

ATM's are available in Holyhead's combined ferry and railway terminal and along Victoria Street, the town's main shopping district. The currency is the British pound sterling. For current exchange rates, visit www.oanda.com or www.xe.com. It is a good idea to have some local currency for small purchases, such as snacks, souvenirs and local transit.

While fully half the locals in Anglesey and Snowdonia speak Welsh (Cymraeg), everyone also speaks English. Signs are bilingual. If you travel ashore independently, it is a good idea to know the destination names in both languages. Expect to hear Welsh spoken in shops and pubs. And it's not just the old-timers speaking their mother tongue; since 2000, the teaching of Welsh is compulsory in schools until pupils reach the age of 16. The language is derived from Celtic and has similar origins to Breton and Cornish (though the latter two are much less widely spoken).

Ships dock at a former industrial pier inside the harbor main breakwater and not far from the ferry and railway terminal.