Back in the 1970s, a good 20 years before the advent of low-cost airlines made short European breaks as cheap as a trip to the local seaside, my family made regular jaunts to an Italian village that was only two hours, door to door, from our home in Manchester. The place was the height of exotica: it had a campanile and a pantheon, palm trees and fountains, a cluster of brightly painted houses on the clifftop overlooking the lagoon, and the locals spoke another language. Only the weather punctured the illusion that we were on the Italian Riviera or the Amalfi coast; because we were, in fact, in Wales.
But in my memory the sun often shone in Portmeirion: and when I returned last month with my teenage daughter, to show her where I spent so many holidays, there was sunshine again (some of the time). My daughter, it’s fair to say, was sceptical about our expedition. Holidays for her tend to begin with a short train ride from our house in south London to Gatwick; this one started with a five-hour drive through a cloudy Wales. But when we reached Snowdonia the clouds lifted, the day brightened, and suddenly Catriona was being wowed by vistas of green and blue mountains, fields full of sheep and cows, and tantalising glimpses of lakes. There were occasional animals on the roads, but hardly any other cars.
Topiary and pastel-colour creations in the village
We breezed into Portmeirion, crossing the threshold I remember so well into the magical kingdom founded by architect Clough Williams-Ellis in the 1920s. Williams-Ellis was an eccentric who first started to dream of setting up the place as a child of five or six, before going searching for the perfect island on which to site it in the early 1920s. But no island seemed quite right; and then he discovered a rocky promontory outside Porthmadog, and set to work. First came Hotel Portmeirion, which opened in 1926; across the years that followed came the gatehouse and the battery, the prior’s lodging and the campanile, the roundhouse, and pastel-coloured cottages with names such as Dolphin and Angel. As the place grew, its fame expanded, and it soon became the “It” location for A-listers such as George Bernard Shaw, Daphne du Maurier and HG Wells. Noel Coward came here to write Blithe Spirit; part of the Inn of Sixth Happiness, with Ingrid Bergman, was filmed in Portmeirion’s pagodas; and it was the Village in the 1960s cult series The Prisoner, alongside Patrick McGoohan, who starred as “Number Six”. But topping all this, for Williams-Ellis himself, was the visit of Frank Lloyd Wright, who declared its creator a true architect.
Walkers in Beddgelert; scenic Snowdonia
The village today is exactly as I remember it, with the delicious addition of an Italian gelateria; Catriona thought that it was like a more upmarket and colourful Center Parcs, set by the waves rather than among trees. We ate focaccia laced with Anglesey salt and feasted on the tenderest assiette of Welsh lamb with shallots and turnips in the opulent dining room of the main hotel, beside a bank of windows overlooking the estuary, before wandering up the hill to our room in Castell Deudraeth, neglected during my childhood but now reinvented as a cooler and more laid-back version of its big sister by the shore.
Steam power from the Welsh Highland Railway; a canine passenger; a guard at Porthmadog
Day trippers are welcome at Portmeirion, but part of the enchantment if you’re staying is to see the village empty of visitors, either at first light or when it’s floodlit. By day we headed off to explore north Wales beyond Portmeirion: and first stop was the station at Porthmadog, meeting point of two narrow-gauge heritage railways, the Ffestiniog and the Welsh Highland lines. We opted for the latter, and as we chugged through the countryside wrapped in billowing steam I was transported back 40 years. “This is exactly how it was when I was young,” I told Catriona; and to my surprise (because this was not the sunniest moment of our trip) she said she was loving it too. By this time she had discovered that Snowdonia has the fastest zip wire in the world, and was begging me to book our next holiday here as we couldn’t fit it in on this visit. First, though, there was Beddgelert to explore, eight miles and 40 minutes down the line from Porthmadog: it’s a picture postcard village named after the grave of a dog called Gelert, hound of one Prince Llewelyn who, the story goes, killed it after mistakenly blaming it for mauling his son. In fact, the dog had fought off a wolf trying to do just that; when the stricken Llewelyn realised his mistake he rushed back to his faithful friend, who gamely licked his hand with its final breath. A brilliant story, agreed Catriona with tears in her eyes, even if it’s more likely to be folklore than truth.
Our final stop was Criccieth, where we wandered along the beach at dusk, enjoying the views of the 13th-century castle that sits on a hillside high above it. Lloyd George, though born in Manchester, is the local hero, as he spent his childhood from 1864 to 1880 in a house that’s now a museum: you can see the future prime minister’s school desk, and the workshop where his uncle made shoes.
A bather at Criccieth; Blue China tea rooms in Criccieth; a couple looks out to sea
Criccieth has the feel of a fairly traditional Welsh seaside town, but its dining scene is pukka 21st century since the reopening of a sweeping art-deco-style glass-fronted building designed by Williams-Ellis and used in the 1950s for tea dances. Today, we’re eating at Dylan’s, one of a trio of seaside restaurants specialising in local food and a neighbourly conscience: there’s a sign advertising the next beach clean-up at the gate, recycled plastic bottles have been turned into a stunning fish mosaic above the entrance, and the menu features mussels from the Menai Strait and lobster from Morfa Nefyn across the peninsula. And while the food might be local, the vibe is unashamedly big city hustle and bustle – a perfect combination, as far as my teenage daughter was concerned.
Photography: Jon Tonks
For inspiration to plan your break in Wales check out visitwales.co.uk
