Colwyn Bay (Welsh: Bae Colwyn) is a Victorian seaside resort on the north Welsh coast, sitting between Llandudno and the Conwy estuary. It grew up in the 1860s when the railway arrived, and a long row of guesthouses and bay-windowed villas still gives the town its character. The promenade has been overhauled with a new sea wall and a sandy beach has been re-laid, making it a more attractive place to walk along the front than it was a decade ago.
The town itself is modest — a high street, a few cafes, the small Victorian streets running back from the bay — but it has two distinct draws. The first is the Welsh Mountain Zoo, set on a wooded hillside above the town, with chimpanzees, snow leopards and a celebrated daily display of free-flying eagles and condors. The second is the Harlequin Puppet Theatre at neighbouring Rhos-on-Sea, Britain's oldest purpose-built marionette theatre, which has been staging weekend shows in the same little auditorium since 1958.
Around the bay there is more than first appears. Bryn Euryn, a limestone hill rising behind the town, gives one of the best panoramas of the north Wales coast, and on its shoulder lie the ruins of Llys Euryn, a 15th-century hall built on the site of a much older Welsh court. The tiny Chapel of St Trillo on the seafront at Rhos-on-Sea seats six people and is said to be the smallest chapel in Britain.
Colwyn Bay is not a holiday in itself, but it is a comfortable base for the Conwy castle and walled town, Llandudno with its pier and Great Orme, and the eastern fringe of Snowdonia. A coastal cycle path runs all the way along the front, linking these towns flat and traffic-free.