JD Vance says he was "blown away" after visiting Caernarfon Castle, calling it "the coolest thing I've ever seen".
The US vice-president visited North Wales with his wife in 2013, and during the trip checked out the 13th century castle.
In an excerpt from his new book about his faith, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, Vance said Caernarfon Castle was "the coolest thing I've ever seen and it's not particularly close".
Vance's new book is considered a religious and political memoir, and focuses on his conversion to Catholicism in 2019 and discusses the intersection of Christian faith and public life.
In an excerpt from his book published by The Times, the vice-president said he was struck by the castle's age compared to buildings in the US.
"Our house in Cincinnati was built about 150 years ago, and people call it historic," he wrote.
"This castle, by contrast, was already hundreds of years old when English settlers first landed in the United States.
"For nearly a millennium, young men had climbed the castle walls and watched the sun reflected on the surrounding water."
Vance said he had never experienced the feeling of being in an "infinite" universe before his visit.
He continued: "But here, on the banks of a river I'd never heard of, in a castle we selected as a cool tourist stop, I felt for the first time something similar: the scale of time, and how little of the life of the world we'd ever see."
During the North Wales trip, he and his wife also visited Conwy Castle.
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