For generations, the classic journey between this country and Britain has been the mailboat. It's a route which is still in existence, but one which can now take half the time and be done in style. To check in these days at Dun Laoghaire's airy new ferry terminal for the Stena Line HSS service to Holyhead is to experience the confusingly happy illusion that you are actually at an airport.
It's the first time I've ever had my bag checked in while crossing the water. Our bags had magically reappeared on a conveyor belt in the arrivals hall at Holyhead, by the time we had walked the short distance over the pedestrian bridge.
The Stena HSS (High Speed Service) is one of the world's largest fast ferries. From the shore, the ship looks like an unaerodynamic slab of Lego, but it scoots from Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead in a mere 99 minutes, reinventing the Irish Sea crossing in the process.
The Isle of Anglesea in North Wales is connected to the rest of Wales by the Menai Bridge. Since Holyhead is located at the western side of the island, it makes Anglesea and surrounds into a self-contained destination, ideal for a short break from Ireland.
This sea-washed, mountain-ranged territory of North Wales will have been glimpsed by everyone who has ever taken the boat-train to London and stared out the windows, wondering what lay beyond. Being a veteran of the boat-train from student days, having the opportunity to spend a few days exploring this part of the world was a bit like being Alice, stepping through the Looking Glass.
Not far from Holyhead, down narrow roads tumbling with whitethorn, is Melin Llynon, where the Don Quixotes of Anglesea can tilt with the sails of Wales's only working windmill. When the wind is blowing, and the wind is always blowing on this exposed stretch of North Wales, flour is milled here by the sackloadful and sold by the bagful to visitors.
Tal y foel stud farm and riding stables near Dwyran has just won the annual Welsh Tourist Board Award for Best Small Business. We ambled along the beach and through the surrounding fields, watching rabbits grazing undisturbed just a hoof-beat away. My horse was called Spice and tossed its dark head so haughtily that I added the prefix of Posh to its name. Tal y foel also does B & B for those who are interested in combining riding lessons with a residential stay.
We stayed the first night in the pretty seaside town of Beaumaris, which has views across the Menai Strait to the mountains of Snowdonia and to Bangor - a place where everyone knows there are lovely days to be had. Ye Olde Bull's Head Inn is on Beaumaris's main street, and is one of those small storybook hotels you always hope you will find but rarely do.
Past guests include Dr Johnson and Charles Dickens. The rooms are named after characters from Dicken's novels; the Artful Dodger, Mr Peggotty, Mr Pickwick and other familiar names. "Uriah Heep is a lovely room, but guests tend to do a double-take when they see the name on the key," confided the receptionist. All the rooms here are genuinely charming, furnished with brass beds and a great deal of imagination. This is definitely a hotel to cultivate a romance in.
My bathroom had a candelabra and a free-standing Victorian cast-iron bath, idyllic surroundings in which to soak and ward off the effects of Posh Spice on my muscles. Only the prospect of dinner in the Bull's award-winning restaurant lured me from those castiron candelit depths.
Mist hung low in the Vale of Llangollen next morning: a lush valley bisected by the River Dee and its many waterfalls, and braceleted with stone bridges. Llangollen itself has an aura of the timeless about it, and judging by the number of tour buses which lined the streets, is clearly a popular stopping-off place. There are plenty of antique shops here, as well as the excellent and cavernous Bookshop Cafe on the main street, which holds a stock in the region of 100,000 second-hand books.
It was to Llangollen that the Irishwomen Sarah Ponsonby and Eleanor Butler eloped from Waterford in 1780, attracting much attention for an act which was considered scandalous for the times that were in it. They set up home together in Plas Newydd, a beautiful house outside the town, which is now open to the public. Sarah and Eleanor held court there for over 50 years, becoming known as the Ladies of Llangollen.
They kept a type of tactile Visitor's Book, inviting their guests to bring a piece of carved wood with them as a gift. Every so often, when they had accumulated several of these pieces, a craftsman came up from the town and fixed them in place. In this way, the interior walls of the house were eventually covered in a unique mosaic of intricately carved wood - fantastical birds and beasts, flowers, angels, gargoyles, knights and Celtic patterns.
If all this baroque wooden patchwork puts a hunger on you, there's an unusual option available for dinner. Spanning the Vale of Llangollen is the Pontycysyllte Aqueduct, a dizzying 126 feet up. The Llangollen Canal runs across the top of the aqueduct and meanders through the surrounding countryside. In the spring and summer evenings, it's possible to join a canal boat cruise for a carvery dinner aboard - pie in the sky, so to speak.
Anglesea seems to specialise in eating on some very intriguing hoofs. The Ffestiniog Railway steam railway, which runs along the coast and through the Snowdonia National Park, operates "Steam and Cuisine" on one of their carriages - daily lunch and weekly dinner. It's like a miniature Orient Express, all white cloths, red velvet seats and spectacular scenery. The food, which is equally impressive, is from the award-winning local hotel, Maes-yNeuadd. Along the way to the coastal town of Porthmadog, the narrow gauge railway stops at a tiny platform where the hot courses for the meal are passed onto the train. The boat train to London was definitely never like this.
Slate may not sound very promising as a tourist attraction but Llechwedd Slate Caverns in Blaenau Ffestiniog is extraordinary, and has rightly picked up every award going in the 20 odd years it has been open. Blaenau Ffestiniog achieves the rare coup of making social and industrial history both entertaining and informative, without indulging itself in an iota of sentimentality.
At the height of the Industrial Revolution, almost 650 men worked here, in a warren of tunnels spread over 25 miles. Each team of men had their specific area to work on, and spent on average two hours scrambling their way there - and back - to these points each day by candlelight.
The miners used ladders and crudely-cut steps to descend deep into the belly of the mountain. Many fell to their deaths in the uncertain darkness. Today, entrance is by Britain's steepest passenger railway. We followed a son et lumiere trail through narrow, dripping tunnels, which lead into caverns the size of cathedrals. In each cavern, a voice narrates another stage in the story of a young miner who worked here from boyhood to the end of his adult life.
There's a stunning use of lighting throughout the trail, perhaps at its most effective and poignant when it fades away almost completely in the final cavern. We squinted and adjusted our eyes to the dim pinpricks of scattered candlelight, which eerily simulates the near-darkness these long-dead men worked in at all times.
Emerging like moles to the surface and continuing on our way, for hours it was not the mountains and valleys of Snowdonia which made most impression on me, but the slate tiles, shining brutally on every roof for miles around; enduring testimony to the Victorian miners of Blaenau Ffestiniog.