In British cities, we will rarely have seen the galaxy at all, let alone the sublime vision of the Milky Way, a dense river of light across the dark sky. Light pollution, the gradual denigration of our nightside vision by the expanding population, has taken this away from us and yet we remain oblivious to its loss.
In North Wales, it returns.
The Llŷn Peninsula, Snowdonia, Anglesey and the Conwy valley all offer spectacular dark sky zones. On a clear night, the distinction is rendered in the heavy, glittering density of the stars against the dark – while, in an urban sky full of light pollution, the Milky Way, like a gauzy membrane, is just an idea, visible only as an amber haze across which a few thousand stars wink and sparkle.
The experience of a dark sky is incandescent and overwhelming. It is a free transfer of horizon and outlook and a sublime and automatic alleviation from the daily worries of the little world to the infinite prospect of the great one. It is a sublime and magical transformation of outlook and a humbling experience of our place within the grand scheme. An urban destination will never deliver this. For the Best Hotel in Llandudno, visit stgeorgeswales.co.uk
For a dark sky experience, you need darkness: only achievable by distance, that is, by getting away from the ever-present, inexorable, blinding scourge of lights.
North Wales delivers both.
The sight, too, of the sky unspooling above the mountains and peninsulas at midnight, is one of the finest experiences a British traveller could hope for and one that succeeds only when we know the exact place to look.
