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We stayed in Portmeirion in August 2023 and had a very nice break which we mentioned to our friends Ian and Denise who said "we fancy going there" so here we are for a repeat visit.
Portmeirion is a completely bonkers folly village designed and built by a chap called Sir Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975. It is a huge visitor attraction so during the day coachloads of tourists wander round eating ice creams and buying rubbish in the various gift shops but at 5pm they all go home leaving the village in peace and quiet. All the houses are either self catering apartments or rooms associated with the hotel shown in the picture.
No cars are allowed in the village, if you don't want to walk (or have luggage) you can summon a chauffeured golf cart and they will run you about. You get the impression that Williams-Ellis bought all sorts of architectural junk which he brought back and incorporated somewhere, it is great fun but bonkers.
Those of you as old as me may remember the TV series The Prisoner, he was imprisoned in The Village as inmate Number 6. Incidentally in the intro to each episode he was shown driving a Lotus 7 (the forerunner of my Caterham) but as the weather forecast is a bit iffy I left mine at home.
The view from our bedroom window
As the weather was very good today Ian and I did a wonderful ridge walk (the Nantile Ridge) which I have always wanted to do but never managed to organise. Like all good ridge walks it is airy with steep drops on both sides, a bit of rock scrambling but nothing very difficult apart from the 3400ft of ascent and 8 miles of walking. The guide says it takes 6-7 hours, we did it in 6 so we are quite pleased with ourselves but tomorrow might be a rest day whilst we recover.
The first half of the ridge is shown above
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