When on a group vacation, there are times you participate in activities you wouldn’t have done on your own. In this case, on the last day of my holiday in Wales, it was stepping onboard the Llangollen Railway — a Heritage Railway Line. Beginning at the charming town of Llangollen, the train travels 10 miles through the Dee Valley to Corwen.
While the novelty of stepping onto a real-life steam train with enclosed carriages—similar to those seen in the film Harry Potter—felt fun, that’s where the wonder, for me, ended. For train enthusiasts, however, the two-hour round trip passing through the lush Denbighshire countryside would probably be an exciting experience.
On board, many people (me included) poked their heads out the pull-down windows to see the steam train charging ahead, a billow of smoke floating into the air.
Before going through a tunnel, though, we were advised to shut all windows to prevent the black smog from filling the carriages.
While the commute was a more pleasant experience than traveling on the London tube, it’s not too dissimilar, in my opinion, to riding a train from London to the North.
When we disembarked at Cowen station (before taking the train back to Llangollen), I noticed that the platform was decorated with 1950s retro adverts.
Venturing into the nearby high street, but feeling wary about catching the train back, we headed to the recommended (and highly rated) Yum Yums cafe.
Opting for the scones, clotted cream, and jam with a cup of coffee, I was enjoying my bite to eat sitting on the café’s outdoor table, when my attention was directed to the window behind me.
To my disgust, there was a fly killer machine at the window with lots of electrocuted dead flies in my field of vision.
Feeling put off, to say the least, we returned to the heritage train and made our way back to where we had first got on.
To be brutally honest, I felt like I had just paid £23.50 to sit on a commuter train to a lackluster part of town that survives only because of the unknowing tourists who end up here.