"LITTLE ITALY"... IN WALES?
by Maria Shevchenko
Driving through the Welsh valleys after seeing family for the Easter weekend, I repeatedly saw advertisement signs for Portmeirion and thought I’d have a peek into this village to see why it was being so well marked in the area. I walked through the front gates and was completely blown away. You wouldn’t be a fool to mistake this quaint village for Portofino or Sorrento.
The settlement is situated in Gwynedd, on the coast of Snowdonia in North Wales. It was designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis in the early 20th century on an old private estate called Aber Iâ (translated in Welsh as “Ice estuary”), developed in the 1850s on the site of a late 18th-century foundry and boatyard. Williams-Ellis changed the name to Portmeirion: "Port-" from its place on the coast; "-meirion" from the county of Meirionydd in which it was sited.
The Rough Guide to Wales calls it ‘a gorgeous visual poem,’ indicated by the poignant architecture, romantic gardens, and tranquil forests. The idyllic tourist village seems to be tucked away from the rest of the world, surrounded by the tens of acres of coastal trails and forest paths, but the exquisite buildings are the village’s showstopper attraction. The grandeur and colour palette of the cottages and monuments (from a deep Mediterranean blue to rusty orange and Victorian pink) have turned the place into an Instagrammable hotspot. The centre of the village is home to a giant chess board on the harlequin green lawns and immaculately kept flowerbeds.
Maria Schevchenko
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