Portmeirion
Hello ladies
Well it's another nice day today which is good, as this week we have been having the outside of the house painted so all in all we haven't had a bad week for it weather wise.
Right - my day out on Friday. I am sure all of you have been to Portmeirion but it was something I hadn't visited so far & I have been here since 1992. So - if you are sitting comfortably I will begin - uhmmmm better get a cup of tea as well.
Gareth picked me up at 9am on Friday morning & we headed off in the general direction, that is - we took a really lovely countryside journey & not necessarily taking a specific or direct route. Gareth hadn't bothered using his satnav & I had looked briefly the previous evening on Google maps as to where it was situated, so we knew where we were heading.
On our arrival the first thing after parking the car I spotted a lovely tree whose leaves were a gorgeous orange colour - so there was my first photo of the day. When I got home I found that I had taken 110 photos - hooray for digital cameras. Imagine how many rolls of film I would have needed to be carrying.
At the entrance Gareth had great fun asking if they did concessionary tickets for OAP's & finding the Welsh word was Henoed - which is what I was called for the rest of the day.
Both of us were very impressed with the buildings, the layout, the walks - I am so pleased that I have finally been there. Added to the pleasure of the beauty of the place was the fact we had fantastic weather. After spotting little pagodas in amongst the trees we took a look at one of the maps around the village & decided to take one of the country walks. We really started off heading for the beach but ended up taking which ever turning we liked. We took time to stop at the various focal points & sitting & looking at the view. When we finally reached the part of the walk that went down to the beach we were rather high up & the path was very near the edge. I am not very good with walks like that & when we reached a bend in the path where you couldn't see where exactly it went to I had to admit to defeat, & it being as far as I could walk. I still had plenty of energy for the rest of the walks - but I just don't like being near the edge. So we retraced our steps a little & then wandered along to a lake with a red bridge over it that we had passed earlier. This gave us a different view to the earlier one. One part of the village design that I particularly liked was the many points where your view was through various shaped arches & windows. They made framing photos so easy. Another fantastic discovery were the trees that had grown into really strange shapes - more photos. After a while we returned to the main area & stopped & grabbed a light lunch before continuing our walk. I managed to take some photos of the birds that were hanging around for crumbs dropped by the people lunching - I have to admit to also getting a couple of photos of walls without birds on because they flew off just as I pressed the shutter button. We walked down to the hotel & looked out over the water - there was a wedding reception taking place in the grounds of the hotel. Then we walked back through the main area & went up the steps to the gallery. About then we decided to take our leave but just as we were approaching the exit we noticed another path that went down to a view point over the beach, so we went & took a look. It led to a round raised area that looked over the beach & the hotel & across the river.
Once we had completed our visit we decided to drive towards Harlech as Gareth had never seen the castle so we ended stopping there for a little while & took a look round. Gosh it was windy up there, especially on the side facing the sea. We had a good walk around the perimeter fighting the wind. It really is impressive & hard to imagine the sea right up to it.
After visiting Harlech we decided to head for home but not through any particular route. After a few minutes we turned left towards the country away from the sea & headed up into the hills. Along the way we spotted a nice little pull in alongside the river so Gareth stopped so that I could take some photos. I do love rivers especially through trees & hills - & the spot was very like the one Bob & I had found on our holiday on the first day. We then continued on our way until we got to a fork in the road. The right hand fork said it was a dead end so we took the left hand fork. Well! this lane went up & up & was steep & windy ( not windy as in Harlech - but windy as in twisting ?!!). Anyway. Eventually we came to a gate across the lane & as I got out to open it a lady came along in her car from the other direction & I checked that it was not a private road. I spent the next bit of time leaping in & out of the car to open & shut gates. There was one tricky moment where there was a nasty hairpin bend to our right - Gareth has quite a large car - & in order to negotiate the bend he had to stop & try & take a different line. That is where the fun started - but not funny fun - as his wheels wouldn't grip on the road due to it having been gritted & we had just reached the point where they had stopped gritting. So it was hard to get the purchase on the road. It took several attempts at getting the car in the right place on the road to take the bend without getting stuck on the edge or falling back over the edge to the the lane below us. But with team work we achieved it. The lane went on & on without seeming to go anywhere & when we did eventually get back to a main road we had gone round in a circle & we were close to Harlech castle again. The views had been fantastic. The rest of the journey home was pretty uneventful.
Here are just a few of my photos - including the little river place we found - obviously I can't put all 104 photos - which was the number I was left with after deleting the dud ones.
One of the views through a window.
One of the strange trees
It is very difficult to align the photos like the 2 above & I end up getting quite frustrated if it plays up. Some days it works first time other days it doesn't. So I am just going to add the rest of the photos one after the other.
Well it's another nice day today which is good, as this week we have been having the outside of the house painted so all in all we haven't had a bad week for it weather wise.
Right - my day out on Friday. I am sure all of you have been to Portmeirion but it was something I hadn't visited so far & I have been here since 1992. So - if you are sitting comfortably I will begin - uhmmmm better get a cup of tea as well.
Gareth picked me up at 9am on Friday morning & we headed off in the general direction, that is - we took a really lovely countryside journey & not necessarily taking a specific or direct route. Gareth hadn't bothered using his satnav & I had looked briefly the previous evening on Google maps as to where it was situated, so we knew where we were heading.
On our arrival the first thing after parking the car I spotted a lovely tree whose leaves were a gorgeous orange colour - so there was my first photo of the day. When I got home I found that I had taken 110 photos - hooray for digital cameras. Imagine how many rolls of film I would have needed to be carrying.
At the entrance Gareth had great fun asking if they did concessionary tickets for OAP's & finding the Welsh word was Henoed - which is what I was called for the rest of the day.
Both of us were very impressed with the buildings, the layout, the walks - I am so pleased that I have finally been there. Added to the pleasure of the beauty of the place was the fact we had fantastic weather. After spotting little pagodas in amongst the trees we took a look at one of the maps around the village & decided to take one of the country walks. We really started off heading for the beach but ended up taking which ever turning we liked. We took time to stop at the various focal points & sitting & looking at the view. When we finally reached the part of the walk that went down to the beach we were rather high up & the path was very near the edge. I am not very good with walks like that & when we reached a bend in the path where you couldn't see where exactly it went to I had to admit to defeat, & it being as far as I could walk. I still had plenty of energy for the rest of the walks - but I just don't like being near the edge. So we retraced our steps a little & then wandered along to a lake with a red bridge over it that we had passed earlier. This gave us a different view to the earlier one. One part of the village design that I particularly liked was the many points where your view was through various shaped arches & windows. They made framing photos so easy. Another fantastic discovery were the trees that had grown into really strange shapes - more photos. After a while we returned to the main area & stopped & grabbed a light lunch before continuing our walk. I managed to take some photos of the birds that were hanging around for crumbs dropped by the people lunching - I have to admit to also getting a couple of photos of walls without birds on because they flew off just as I pressed the shutter button. We walked down to the hotel & looked out over the water - there was a wedding reception taking place in the grounds of the hotel. Then we walked back through the main area & went up the steps to the gallery. About then we decided to take our leave but just as we were approaching the exit we noticed another path that went down to a view point over the beach, so we went & took a look. It led to a round raised area that looked over the beach & the hotel & across the river.
Once we had completed our visit we decided to drive towards Harlech as Gareth had never seen the castle so we ended stopping there for a little while & took a look round. Gosh it was windy up there, especially on the side facing the sea. We had a good walk around the perimeter fighting the wind. It really is impressive & hard to imagine the sea right up to it.
After visiting Harlech we decided to head for home but not through any particular route. After a few minutes we turned left towards the country away from the sea & headed up into the hills. Along the way we spotted a nice little pull in alongside the river so Gareth stopped so that I could take some photos. I do love rivers especially through trees & hills - & the spot was very like the one Bob & I had found on our holiday on the first day. We then continued on our way until we got to a fork in the road. The right hand fork said it was a dead end so we took the left hand fork. Well! this lane went up & up & was steep & windy ( not windy as in Harlech - but windy as in twisting ?!!). Anyway. Eventually we came to a gate across the lane & as I got out to open it a lady came along in her car from the other direction & I checked that it was not a private road. I spent the next bit of time leaping in & out of the car to open & shut gates. There was one tricky moment where there was a nasty hairpin bend to our right - Gareth has quite a large car - & in order to negotiate the bend he had to stop & try & take a different line. That is where the fun started - but not funny fun - as his wheels wouldn't grip on the road due to it having been gritted & we had just reached the point where they had stopped gritting. So it was hard to get the purchase on the road. It took several attempts at getting the car in the right place on the road to take the bend without getting stuck on the edge or falling back over the edge to the the lane below us. But with team work we achieved it. The lane went on & on without seeming to go anywhere & when we did eventually get back to a main road we had gone round in a circle & we were close to Harlech castle again. The views had been fantastic. The rest of the journey home was pretty uneventful.
Here are just a few of my photos - including the little river place we found - obviously I can't put all 104 photos - which was the number I was left with after deleting the dud ones.
One of the views through a window.One of the strange trees
It is very difficult to align the photos like the 2 above & I end up getting quite frustrated if it plays up. Some days it works first time other days it doesn't. So I am just going to add the rest of the photos one after the other.
That last photo is the little river we spotted.
Here is one of the photos that Gareth took - it's really quite funny & certainly afforded both Gareth & Bob some laughs last night when looking at it. It just shows that you need to make sure of what you have in your sites when taking a photo.
It looks like the man behind me is being carried on my back. He had just moved out of my way as I got to the top of the steps that he is about to go down.
Great fun - & a wonderful day. Thank you Gareth.
More tomorrow ladies. Hope you are having a good weekend.
I love Portmerion - you sound like you had a wonderful time :) Nigel was a big fan of The Prisoner so we've been a few times. Love the photo of you with the man growing out of your back too!
ReplyDeleteWe were there once with a large party of GoldWingers and there was a wedding reception going on - David Seaman (England goalie) was chatting to us from the balcony above - what a nice guy.
Can't say I like the sound of that road you took though, wouldn't like to be on the bike trying that tricky hairpin!