Spend the morning exploring Anglesey’s rugged northern coast. Start off from Cemaes, heading east along the A5025. You’re on the way to Porth Wen, where the ghostly remains of a 19th-century brickworks and harbour sit next to a sparkling white shingle beach.

It’s not the easiest place to get to, but well worth the effort. Park in the layby off the A5025 about 1½ miles/2.4km from Cemaes (what3words.com location: opposites.jaundice.balancing) and walk up the lane for half a mile or so before picking up the footpath on your right to the coast, where you’ll find a crumbling complex of chimneys, kilns and works buildings perched above the crashing waves.

After returning to your car, retrace your route on the A5025 back towards Cemaes for a mile or so before turning right to follow the brown signs to Llanbadrig Church, sitting on a blustery headland overlooking Cemaes Bay (there’s a small car park just outside the church).

According to legend, the church was founded in AD440 by St Patrick, who survived a shipwreck here by sheltering in a nearby cave with its own freshwater spring. As well as being the oldest church in Wales, it is also one of the most unusual. The simple stone exterior stands in stark contrast to the interior, which was decorated in vibrant Moorish style in a dramatic late 19th-century renovation.

If you’d prefer to spend less time in the car, you can explore Llanbadrig Church, Porth Wen and host of other north Anglesey landmarks on a lovely circular walk from Cemaes Bay (roughly 5 miles/8km in length).

Then follow the A5025 via Amlwch in the direction of Moelfre for Traeth Lligwy (Lligwy Beach). The beach is on the minor road to your left (at Rhos Lligwy) before you reach Moelfre.

Then head south from the beach following the minor road to Din Lligwy Hut Group (there’s roadside parking close to the footpath that leads to this ancient site).

This well-preserved settlement of huts, roundhouses and workshops dates back to the third or fourth century, when Britain was occupied by the Romans. The people who lived here were most likely native Britons. Finds of smelting hearths and iron slag suggesting that Din Lligwy was used for metalworking. While you’re here, it’s worth taking a walk to Lligwy Burial Chamber, an impressive Neolithic tomb just a few hundred metres away.

Continue along the minor road for about ½ mile/0.8km, before turning left onto the A5108 to Moelfre Seawatch Centre. Here you can see the striking bronze sculpture of Giuseppi Ruggier, which commemorates the sailor’s heroism during one of Anglesey’s most famous shipwrecks.

When 112mph winds drove the steam clipper Royal Charter into the rocks just off Moelfre on 26 October 1859, crewman Ruggier valiantly swam through the heaving waves and scaled the cliffs to rig a rope from the stricken vessel to the shore, saving the lives of 40 passengers in the process, though over 400 others perished. Ruggier’s stirring tale is just one of many fascinating maritime stories to be explored at the Seawatch Centre.