A few months ago, I wrote about a trip I took with my bezzie mate to Liverpool. On that trip, we also took a side quest to Dublin and drove through north Wales. When we were in the planning stages of the trip, I mentioned it to a friend of mine – who told me about how twenty years ago, she had gone to Wales with her family – her girls were little then. The next day, she texted me a photo she had dug out – her two little girls running up a lush green hill in a town by the name of Llandudno. I’d never heard of it, wasn’t quite sure how to even say it. But I looked it up – and it was on the route we had talked about driving. So I let me fingers do the walking.
And color me surprised to learn that this town, straddling a small peninsula on the north coast of Wales, was where Alice Liddel (the ‘real’ Alice of the Wonderland) spent summer holidays with her family (the first of which was in 1861 when she was eight). It’s been speculated, though not proven, that Lewis Carroll (a.k.a. Charles Dodgson) visited the family in their summer home and was inspired to write his story based on Alice’s adventures. True or not, the town has taken on this speculation as truth. So much so that in 1933, the then Prime Minster unveiled a White Rabbit statue – the start of the Wonderland Town Trail (also referred to as the Alice Trail).
If you’ve been following along with my journey of my book All Falling Things, you’ll understand my love of Alice and Wonderland – so this little town I’d not heard of before became an absolute must on this trip (thanks to my friend Amy for bringing it to my attention!). (It was on this trip, though in Dublin, that I held in my hands a signed, first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I have a thing about holding history – and this was a moment for me, y’all.)
The trail contains twelve statues, though thirty-four points of interest. You can purchase a map upon arrival, which makes pre-planning tricky – I may have spent time searching and finding points on a map for the statues I’d like to see. We did not see them all – but I guess that means we’ll just have to go back. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The town was truly lovely, and I could see spending more time there.
We started by parking downtown (again – small town) and walked over to the pier, which takes you out for beautiful views of the town, and then to a small park up the hill (there’s a cable car you can take to go higher up, but we didn’t…this time…). There, we saw two caterpillars, the Mad Hatter, the thrones, and the tea party table:
From there, we walked across the peninsula (it’s about a mile wide), which took us through a residential area – and my goodness, what an idyllic place to live! The homes were utterly charming.
On the other side, we sought out the marble White Rabbit and a rather sinisterly carved wooden Cheshire cat (not posted is the pic I took of my bezzie with his head between Cheshire’s paws):
After another mile walk back through a different part of the residential neighborhood (again, swooning the entire way), we found Alice (looking a bit sinister herself), the wooden White Rabbit (looking quite dapper), and (after a bit of frustration because the GPS took us to the completely wrong spot) the Mad Hatter just chillin’ by the water:
Strangely enough, as much as the town has embraced this tie to Wonderland, there didn’t seem to be an Alice-specific shop from which to purchase souvenirs. (Some shops had Alice-themed things, but most were clearly created with AI.)
It was so lovely to walk around this little town – and we had such a beautiful day for it! Wales is indeed as stunning as it seems, and there’s so much more of it I’d like to explore someday. For now, I’ve got memories of the Alice Trail.
And of the town with the ridiculously long name (something I had seen a lot on Insta – and it just happened to be on the route we had wanted to take):
Ami Maxine 