The A470 is one of the best scenic drives in Wales, and indeed the UK, but there’s so much more to it than that. There aren’t many roads in the world that take you from one end of a country to the other, but Wales has one: the A470.
It runs coast to coast, from a roundabout outside the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay over 180 miles, through the heart of nation, starting at its capital, its most populous and diverse city and political nexus, through the former industrial heartland, through two of its three National Parks and some of the most dramatic countryside in the UK, to a prosaic, anti-climactic ending at a give way sign at a T-junction on Llandudno seafront.
The A470 is the only road that runs from the South East to North Wales, but it’s not even the quickest way to get from one end of the country to the other. Many prefer the route into England, taking the M5 and M6 via the West Midlands, but that’s outside our remit, and far less interesting.
The A470 is a great way to get an introduction overview of the country. You could drive it in four to five hours for a brief glimpse of the diversity of the land, but it deserves much more time than that. or do it over a couple of days, giving yourself time to explore the route and the many detours along the way.
1) Cardiff to Brecon
First it’s time to negotiate the capital – Cardiff Castle, the City Hall and Edwardian Civic Centre, then the Gabalfa flyover and a dual carriageway out into the ‘burbs. Within five miles you’re out of the city, six and you’re past the junction with the M4, seven and you’re passing through the steep wooded Taff Gorge, with the fairytale Castell Coch peeking out of the forest to the right.
Hidden in the trees two miles on, just past the Caerphilly exit, is the last remaining kiln of the Nantgarw China works and its adjacent museum (a couple of sentences here?). The dual carriageway continues north into what was the industrial heartland of the Valleys, passing Pontypridd, Abercynon and Aberfan, the site of the 1966 disaster, before revealing Pen y Fan and Corn Du, the twin peaks at the top of the Brecon Beacons, on the horizon to the north of Merthyr Tydfil.