Rolling countryside walks, followed by plenty of tasty food. It’s the perfect combination for many holidaymakers, and one that a host of food businesses across North Wales are now aiming to capitalise on to encourage more visitors to explore this area of outstanding natural beauty.

The Conwy Valley has long been the destination of choice for families from across the north west, but now tourism bosses are aiming to prove there are plenty of gastronomic delights as well as those well-trodden tourist hotspots like Loggerheads to tantalise visitors.

As our stay included plenty of travelling across the Clwydian range, the base for our trip was a holiday home rather than hotel.

And the lovely little cottage Ty Ucha’r Fford on the Bodnant Estate near Conwy took our breath away on arrival. It was a former ruin on the sprawling country estate but was converted into a luxurious little bolt hole in 2005 with all mod-cons.

The views are simply stunning, and you can watch the sun set over the peaks of Snowdonia in the quaint little garden. There are lots of thoughtful features, a well-stocked bookshelf, board games in the study, as well as free WiFi, Sky TV and a DVD player.

After a truly relaxing night, we started the next day afresh to embark upon the recently-launched Clwydian Range Food Trail, you can find a map to do the same at foodtrail.co.uk .

You can’t book this as a tour, it’s more a handy guide to places, many off the beaten track, that you simply may not know existed without its help. So first up we headed into the hills to the home of Rosie Triple D Cider in Llandegla ( rosiecider.co.uk ). Steve Hughes has been making cider at this farm for the past eight years and gone on to win top industry awards every year since.

Steve takes us through an amusing cider tasting in a shop area on his site, where you can also snap up some of his wares.  He’ll also fill a huge litre bottle of the stuff for you from one of his kegs if you are feeling in the mood for more than a taster!

It’s then on to Ruthin, a pretty tourist town, with many hidden gastronomic charms.

We head to Leonardo’s Delicatessen, which, being a lunchtime, is packed with shoppers.  It’s not hard to see why when we make our way to the front of the queue for one of their homemade pies.  This place proudly boasts: ‘British Pie Award Champion’ for its chicken, leek and laver bread (seaweed) creation – as delicious and moreish as its award would suggest.

Further into the town we find a real hidden gem down a side alleyway.  We had been keen to try a local delicacy that we kept hearing about, the ‘honey bun’ but Wyn Roberts’s Eagles Bakery has already sold out by lunchtime.  That’s how good they are.  Harrumph.

Ah well, we soon made our was to nearby Denbigh Chocolate Shop ( www.denbighchocolateshop.com ) to comfort ourselves with handcrafted choccies and a delicious hot chocolate.

This place hit national headlines back in 2011 as owner Mary Tetley revealed she had spent her inheritance on pursuing her passion for chocolate to fulfill her mum’s dying wish that she should always follow her dreams.

Following the trail we also called in on two major Welsh success stories – the Llaeth y Llan village dairy in Denbigh ( villagedairy.co.uk ) and Patchwork Pate in Ruthin.

Dairy boss Gareth Roberts and his family have built a huge business out of their creamy dairy yoghurts that he now supplies across Great Britain, and we enjoyed an entertaining afternoon tea with him and his daughter. 

Meanwhile, over at Patchwork Pate, a business started by home cook Margaret Carter back in 1982, they still handcraft every single pate. A trip to this part of the world wouldn’t be complete without heading over to Loggerheads Country Park in the Alyn Valley, where these days there’s the addition of the excellent Cafe Florence producing good, locally-sourced sandwiches, quiches, salads, steaks and cakes.

And as you can imagine, after a day filled with all that food, it was soon off to bed to sleep it all off!

The following day we were up bright and early for our next foodie adventure, heading to the Bodnant Welsh Food Centre, a short drive from our holiday cottage on the Bodnant Estate ( www.bodnant-welshfood.co.uk ).

This is a seriously impressive development, in renovated historic farm buildings, worth visiting just for a wander around the farm shop and to coo at the 18th century buildings if nothing else.

But we were going to experience all of its charms – first with a meal at the Hayloft Restaurant – and then with a cookery masterclass to attempt to make something as tasty as the fodder we ate there.

We head up to the cookery school, based in the eaves of the centre, to join six others taking part in a meat masterclass.

It’s a state of the art kitchen, with individual stoves and workspace, leading through to a fabulous dining room, where we later eat one of the dishes we have hand-prepared.

Chef Angela Gray talks us through how to create a great steak, while the centre’s master butcher Iain, the most enthusiastic butcher I think I’ve ever met, teaches how to debone a chicken and prepare a roast leg of lamb.

For a rubbish cook like me, it’s all fascinating stuff, and I’m delighted when I manage to create the absolute perfect steak at the end of the session – indeed it makes me wonder how so many restaurants manage to get it so wrong when Angela explains the simple secret to it.

You can choose a host of different courses, all individually priced, the likes of jam-making at £55 per person, to a full day workshop to create a Byzantine feast for £135 per person. And as for that farm shop, well, if you end up leaving that divine place without a bag full of goodies I’d be amazed.

We’re already planning a return visit to restock on the best of Welsh grub.

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Dianne was a guest at the Ty Ucha’r Ffordd cottage on the Bodnant Estate which ranges in cost from £351 for three nights in low season to £959 per week in high season.  W: www.bodnant-estate.co.uk , TEL: 01492 650562.  For further information on the Clywdian Range Food Trail, see www.foodtrail.co.uk