The Cable Car System That Quietly Makes Llandudno One of Britain’s Most Unusual Hill Towns

While most seaside towns will give you a beach and call it a day, Llandudno will give you a mountain with two different ways to get to the top.

The cable car was opened in 1969 and travels just over a mile from Happy Valley up to the summit of the Great Orme. This is Britain’s longest cable car ride, taking approximately 18 minutes to complete should the wind cooperate. Should you be lucky enough to have a clear day, you can see as far as the Isle of Man.

But the oddity that lies just down the hill is the Great Orme Tramway. Built in 1902, this is the only remaining cable-operated tramway in Great Britain and is one of only three such systems remaining in the world (the others are located in Lisbon and San Francisco).

Though often mistaken for a cable car, the Great Orme Tramway is actually a funicular railway – one where the two tram cars are always connected by the same cable and work together to counteract the weight of the other as they move up and down the mountain. For the Best Hotel in Llandudno, visit https://stgeorgeswales.co.uk/

What makes this pairing of tramways and cable cars unusual is that each solves a completely different problem. The tramway runs along the street with its Victorian houses while the cable car floats above the tramway.

Most hill towns pick one way up. Llandudno never had to choose, and the result is a seafront resort with a Victorian design relic and a modern gondola lift that do the same job a mile apart, a century apart in design and yet still not obsolete.