A couple of years ago I visited Barmouth on a day trip and fell in love with its beautiful sandy beach, its wide skies and its potential for a lovely family holiday. This summer, we finally managed to book a proper break there, so here’s what we did on our holidays.

We’ve taken to booking Airbnbs in recent years, I know they can be controversial, but we’ve always had good luck with our bookings. This time we booked a two bedroom cottage up on The Rock, which was up 42 steps. Not ideal if you have mobility issues, but absolutely perfect if you enjoy drinking wine on the terrace watching the sun set over the wide sea.

The cottage cost a touch under £1000 for 7 nights, which was about my upper limit, but it was a week during high season and it did sleep five, so we did slightly over cater with the beds.

There’s abundant parking in Barmouth, but our cottage came with a private parking spot a short walk away. However, if like me you’re not a driver, Barmouth is incredibly accessible by train. We travelled from Manchester to Shrewsbury and changed there for Barmouth. The Barmouth trains are about every two hours, and if you plan your day trips carefully, you can visit some lovely places near to Barmouth without having to use a car.

In terms of shops, there are three small supermarkets in the town where you can stock up on food; Co-op, Iceland and Spar, all of which are located close to the train station. Barmouth has lots of interesting shops and art galleries, and a curiously high number of pet shops. It is a very dog friendly town, so that might explain the number of pet emporiums.

There are a good number of popular pubs, we visited The Tillman several times and their Wednesday cocktail menu (2 for £12 at the time of writing) is well worth exploring. There are several pubs located by the harbour, but if you enjoy real ales or cider, a must visit is the Myrddins Brewery & Distillery Ltd on Church street. It’s small but has a great selection of local ales and ciders. Lager fans shouldn’t miss their Wrexham lager, which is crisp, clean and delicious.

In terms of dining out, we had several delicious lunches at The Lobster Pot on the harbour. The name rather gives away the content of the menu, my lad loved the calamari and the mussels, and they do the most delicious salads and seafood platters. Evening meals we tended to cook at home, but we did squeeze in a chippy tea from The Mermaid, and then for comparison, another chippy tea on another night from The Dolphin. For us, The Dolphin did slightly have the edge over The Mermaid, but there wasn’t much in it and we’d recommend you also compare on contrast with two chippy teas!

Before we visited, we planned a couple of things to do, though I was desperate for a bit of a lazy week. On one wet day we visited Porthmadog for a look at the heritage railway, a mooch around the harbour and a visit to the Purple Moose Brewery and shop. We had lunch in the Portmeirion cafe, which was excellent and keenly priced considering its origins.

The next day was super sunny, so we walked across the famous Barmouth Bridge to Morfa Mawddach Station. The bridge takes around 15 minutes to walk across and the station is about another 15 minutes walk, there you can join the Mawddach Trail or head off to visit the Fairbourne Railway, but we were content with our walk, so headed back across the bridge, taking in the stunning views across the estuary.

Our last excursion was to Tywyn to travel on the world famous Talyllyn Railway. We went by train from Barmouth to Tywyn, a journey that should have taken about half an hour. Unfortunately, we experienced a points failure just outside Tywyn, so we ended up being on the train for nearly two hours. We’d missed our original booking on the Talyllyn Railway, but they were kind enough to honour our tickets, and so we travelled on this beautiful heritage railway into Southern Snowdonia.

Alas, because of the train stresses earlier in the day, there were delays and cancellations, so much of what should have been a gentle and restful chug up a Welsh mountainside, was spent looking online at buses and taxis and trying to find a way home with our return train cancelled. Still, it means we will have to return to visit the Talyllyn Railway on a day where we can all fully appreciate it. We did make it home, but it meant a speedy sprint through Tywyn to the train station and manny prayers uttered to the train gods.

Slightly scarred by our experiences with Transport for Wales, we opted to spend the next three sunny days close to our cottage, exploring the town, paddling in the sea and walking on the beach, eating good food and sitting reading on the terrace, taking in the views. This was just what I needed really, rest and some quality time playing Uno and watching the sun set over the sea.

Barmouth is a small town with a lot packed into it. The beach is stunning, there are good places to eat, there’s a train with a level crossing, which if you love trains and level crossings, makes for a brilliant way to spend an afternoon. There is a funfair, a small arcade and seaside hot donut shops up and down the promenade, but thankfully it’s no rival to any of the blingier seaside towns. It’s lively enough but step away from the front and there’s a lot of great shops, bars and restaurants and as much action or solitude as you’d like to find.

Will we go back? Very much so, yes. We were lucky to have just two wet days during our week, when the sun shines it really is the most beautiful place. It’s fairly easy to get to from Manchester and it’s a stunning destination for beach lovers and train enthusiasts alike. In short, Barmouth is brilliant!